Script Apart with Al Horner

Today on Script Apart, a sneak peek at something new. We’re going to be running exclusive episodes this year for our Patreon supporters, in which – breaking away from the usual Script Apart format – Al Horner and a guest focus in on the screenwriting tips and tricks to be learned from a film that both adore. Today, Lee Unkrich – director of Toy Story 3, Coco and other towering achievements in animation – returns to the show, to talk about what screenwriters might take and apply to their own work from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. You know how people are often like, “I wrote the book on X subject” as a way of claiming authority over a topic? Well, Lee literally wrote the book on The Shining. As you’ll have heard on our Script Club episode of Script Apart in 2022, breaking down everything Lee knows about the first draft of that timeless movie, the last few years have seen Lee take a break from filmmaking to assemble the most exhaustive, definitive take on the iconic horror, full of never-before-seen photos discovered in Kubrick estate’s vaults. Basically, on every page you’re being hit with a flood of amazing information about the film, rushing at you like blood from red elevator doors. The book – called simply Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining – is soon to be re-released at an affordable new price point after 2022’s limited edition run, which was all the excuse we needed to catch up with Lee about the reaction to it, before getting into five screenwriting takeaways from the film. Lessons like: why it’s important to be patient if you can’t find your ending; the ending to your script will eventually find you. We talk about how physical space can be used as a storytelling tool; something Kubrick does brilliantly with the Overlook, which dimensionally makes zero sense, contributing to the viewer’s sense of disorientation as they watch. And why sometimes the scariest thing to do in constructing a horror is to veer away from the hallmarks of the genre entirely (The Shining features barely any gore. And even less shadow and darkness). Listen to the full episode now, and subscribe to our Patreon for more Writing Tips episodes coming soon. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.Support the show Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alexander Payne, the acclaimed director behind films like Election and Nebraska, joins the conversation to reflect on his timeless indie classic, Sideways. He discusses the film's exploration of modern masculinity and the relatable character dynamics that resonate with audiences. Payne dives into the filmmaking process, emphasizing the importance of intuition and personal storytelling. The chat also touches on the potential sequel to Election, revealing his hopes for Tracy Flick's next chapter, blending humor and depth in his narratives.

It’s early January, a new year is here – and so too is a new chapter in American politics. Later this month, Donald Trump will enter the White House for a second term and right at this moment, people across the US and western world are wondering what the next four years may look like. Today on Script Apart, the filmmaker behind one of Hollywood’s first real attempts to grapple with the enormity of Trump and the implications of his political rise and fall and rise again, joins us to add his two cents and to discuss a film right up there in the mix this awards season. Ali Abassi is the Iranian-Danish director of The Apprentice, starring Sebastian Stan as the businessman turned President. Written by Gabe Sherman, who we hope to have on the show another time, it’s an origin story of sorts, charting a relationship that the movie alleges equipped Trump with the ruthless mode of attack that would become his ticket first to real estate dominance, then to tabloid media ubiquity and finally, decades later, to the Oval Office. Jeremy Strong plays Roy Cohn in the film – a lawyer who takes Trump under his wing at the onset of his career and moulds him in his image. But as one soars, the other begins a brutal decline. It’s a engrossing, humanistic watch that, as Ali explains, isn’t a story exclusively about Trump himself – it’s about a system that he is a product of. In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, we ask Ali about the Mary Shelley literary classic that helped shape his and Gabe’s take on Trump’s tale. We ask about the film’s most controversial moment – a scene based on divorce records, in which former wife Ivana Trump accused Donald of raping her and pulling out handfuls of her hair (Ivana later issued a statement insisting that the term "rape" was “not meant in a literal or criminal sense”). And we get into the scene from the film that had to be cut – a moment involving Trump kicking a dog, because of a lack of evidence that the real Donald Trump ever kicked a dog. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Studiocanal’s The Apprentice is available to rent or buy now.Support the show Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pour yourself a tall glass of milk (or better yet, have an admirer send you one) and prepare for a conversation about an erotic thriller blowing up the internet right now. Halina Reijn is the Dutch writer-director responsible for 2022’s Bodies Bodies Bodies, who’s followed up that razor-sharp murder-mystery pastiche with another film that infuses an old genre with modern politics. In Babygirl, Nicole Kidman’s tech CEO Romy begins an affair with an intern – Samuel, played by Harris Dickinson. The potential consequences of their relationship are catastrophic: Romy, married with kids, could lose her family and her rarified position as one of the few female leaders in a male-dominated tech world. But, as Halina explains in our spoiler conversation, Samuel is unlocking in Romy desires that she didn’t know she had – longings till now, clouded in shame.Listen in to hear about the personal parts of Halina’s own journey with her sexuality that informed Babygirl, why she chose a dog attack as the thematically-important “meet cute” for Romy and Samuel – and what she hopes is the knock-on effect of this morally complex tale on the discourse around the pleasures women permit themselves to seek.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft, Creative Command and WeScreenplay.Donate to the American Red Cross here.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talk about setting a high bar. Nickel Boys – the new film from RaMell Ross – is a drama that may be one of the first releases of the 2025, but will almost certainly still be reverberating come the end of it. Adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by The Underground Railroad author Colson Whitehead, it tells the story of a reform school for primarily Black young offenders, where violence and cruelty are carried out and covered up in a rapidly changing America. The Nickel Academy as it’s known in the film is fictional, but the Dozier School in Florida, on which Whitehead based his tale, was all too real. In 2010, an investigation into the site uncovered an 111-year history of beatings, rapes, torture and murder of students by staff. Fifty five unidentified bodies in unmarked graves were discovered. More than one hundred children in total were killed, often in the most unthinkably inhumane ways, with much of the worst abuse carried out in a building known only as the White House.In Nickel Boys, a beautiful friendship begins amid that horror and injustice. The film adopts a unique first-person perspective to show a deep bond bloom, between Ethan Herisse’s Elwood and Brandon Wilson’s Turner. Jumping between then and now, with Daveed Diggs playing a haunted older version of one of these characters, it’s one of the boldest films in this year’s Oscar conversation, narratively, aesthetically and otherwise. In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, RaMell and Al discuss the film’s approach to memory, the meaning of the crocodile that stalks the backdrop of scenes in this film – and why the film juxtaposes the terror of earth with the beauty of the cosmos, through shots of the atmosphere as America wins the space race. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft, Creative Command and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re starting 2025 way down in the hole, with a look back on one of the undisputed great TV series of our time. Our guest today is a storyteller responsible for shows like Treme, Generation Kill, The Deuce, The Plot Against America and We Own This City, but best known of course for The Wire – a show that began at a crime scene, with blood splattered across granite, police lights painting the pavement red, white and blue. It was here that audiences first met Detective McNulty, played by Dominic West, chatting with a murder witness. A kid had been killed for trying to rob a dice game – a stunt he tried to pull often. Usually, the kid in question, named Snot Boogie, got away with just a beating. This time, not so lucky. “I gotta ask you,” McNulty asks the witness. “If Snot always stole the money, why’d you always let him play?” The witness sighs, and the camera cuts to Snot’s motionless body, gazing towards us from the floor. “Got to,” replies the witness. “This is America.”That line was the first clue that The Wire wasn’t going to be like other television series. David wanted this police procedural, informed by his own experiences reporting on crime in the area as a journalist for the Baltimore Sun, to be more than another show about cops and criminals; it was to offer a microcosm of America itself. The Wire won no awards. Just 70,000 people tuned into the show’s final episode, capping five critically and commercially overlooked seasons in 2008. Its creator didn’t watch TV – David, in fact, pretty much hated the medium. And yet, The Wire has become recognised as one of the most important pieces of American pop culture of the millennium so far: a novelistic cross section of the Land of the Free, that bloomed from a tale about a phone-tapping team of lawmakers into an interrogation of media, education and everything in between.The spoiler conversation you’re about to hear is a window into everything that is possible in the medium of television – and everything that’s perhaps wrong with it right now, too. David was really candid about his struggles to get new work off the ground and onto screens in 2025 despite the enormous influence of The Wire. You’ll hear how McNulty came to be, the real-life inspirations behind the show’s most iconic character Omar, how far western society has come in addressing the systemic problems exposed in The Wire (spoiler alert: not very) and much, much more. And you’ll also discover the lost season of The Wire that David devised, but that never made it to air.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft, Creative Command and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Justin Kuritzkes is the very talented writer behind Challengers, the Luca Guadagnino love triangle topping all sorts of end-of-year lists right now. The film is a tennis drama that declared game-set-and-match with critics and audiences alike on release in April, becoming a pop culture sensation in ways usually reserved for franchise films. Steeped in the messy wants and desires of three complicated characters, it's the sort of film that doesn't often dominate discourse. But that didn't stop Challengers becoming a phenomenon whose influence altered fashion, music, memes and more in 2024.Which for most writers would be enough achievement for one year thank you very much. But Justin’s 2024 didn’t end there. Queer – also directed by Guadagnino – is a William Burroughs adaptation that hit cinemas this month. The film stars Daniel Craig as William Lee – an American expatriate living in 1950s Mexico City who becomes obsessed with a younger man and goes on a quest into the jungle in search of unlocking drug-induced telepathic communication. Both films bear the hallmarks of a storyteller insistent upon bringing deeply nuanced explorations of flawed people searching for connection into multiplexes. In the double-bill episode you’re about to hear, breaking down in spoiler-filled detail both acclaimed films, we discuss the overlaps between Challengers’ carnal chaos and Charli XCX’s Brat Summer, and what both say about this moment in the culture. We get into the tragic real-life death of Burroughs’ partner, killed by the famed author in an supposed accidental shooting, that lends uncomfortable context to the story of Queer (and that Justin threaded into the movie). And you’ll also hear his thoughts on whether both of these films could be a bellwether moment for movies. In a year that saw franchise after franchise struggle for critical applause and box office might, does the success of a movie like Challengers suggest that an appetite might be growing again for original stories? Now there’s an exciting thought to carry into 2025.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Straughan, a BAFTA-winning screenwriter known for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Wolf Hall, discusses his latest film, Conclave. He reveals how his lapsed Catholic background influenced the narrative and character development surrounding the election of a new Pope. Straughan draws parallels between the film's power struggles among cardinals and current political figures, including unexpected inspirations from Donald Trump and Joe Biden. He also addresses the role of faith and the intersection of morality and representation, highlighting Sister Agnes's significant yet silent impact in a patriarchal setting.

Richard Linklater is a hit man, but not in the assassin sense of the word. No, the hits he trades in are of the movie variety – stylish cult classics that vary in genre and form, but always manage to ignite something powerful in viewers. It’s been that way for three and a half decades now: among his hits, dating back to 1990, are Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight, Boyhood, School of Rock, A Scanner Darkly, Slacker, Waking Life, Everybody Wants Some, Fast Food Nation… the list goes on. No wonder the Texan is one of the most respected names in modern American cinema – a force both prolific and patient, as his multiple movies shot across numerous decades prove. 2014 coming-of-age drama Boyhood was filmed across twelve years, with Merrily We Roll Along – a Paul Mescal-starring Sondheim adaptation, to be shot across twenty years – among his current projects.Earlier this year, he released Hit Man – a romantic comedy of sorts, with a hint of thriller thrown in for good measure, about a bashful college professor with a unique side hustle. Gary, played by the film’s co-writer Glen Powell, has a recurring gig with the New Orleans police force, pretending to be an contract killer. He wears a wire to meet with people seeking to order a hit on their spouses, their work colleagues, their parents and so on. It’s a gig that’s going smoothly for Gary, until he meets Madison, played by Adria Arjona – a woman trying to escape an abusive husband, who Gary begins to fall for. What follows is Linklater in full-blown crowd-pleasing mode.In the conversation you’re about to hear, we discuss what it was about this true-ish story, adapted from a newspaper article by journalist Skip Hollandsworth, that spoke to Richard. We talk about the baseball injury that put him on a path to filmmaking (and how it might have led to the unstoppable pace with which he makes movies). And we break down every detail of Hit Man, one of the movies of 2024, in spoiler-filled detail.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denis Villeneuve, a visionary filmmaker known for works like Sicario and Arrival, discusses the cinematic impact of Dune: Part Two, addressing its themes of fascism and faith. He reflects on the emotional challenges of editing and the duality of characters, particularly the relationship between protagonist Paul and his antagonist. Villeneuve also explores the cultural contrasts between the Fremen and the industrial world, and the journey of adapting Frank Herbert's complex narrative, hinting at future creative possibilities.