OnWriting: A Podcast of the WGA East

OnWriting presents the second in a series of four live recordings of OnWriting in honor of Women's History Month, presented by the WGAE Women's Salon. In each episode, we’re speaking with women screenwriters whose latest projects center on women’s stories. For the second installment in the series, Geri speaks with Banban Cheng & Sasie Sealy — co-writers of LUCKY GRANDMA. Banban Cheng is a writer and filmmaker who spent her childhood performing Chinese stand-up comedy in Houston, Texas. Since then, she’s traded the stage for writing and directing movies. Her screenplay TROUBLE TO THE HERD was the winner of the 2019 AsianCinevision SAG-AFTRA Screenplay Award and was a finalist at the 2019 Nashville Film Festival. She won the 2019 AsianCinevision SAG-AFTRA Screenplay Award for her screenplay TROUBLE TO THE HERD, was awarded NYU’s Wasserman Prize for Filmmaking for her short film TEN & TWO, and received the Sloan Foundation feature screenplay award for her gothic drama SUGAR WATER. She is also the Creative Director of Format Development at TED, experimenting with and launching new forms of storytelling. Sasie Sealy is a writer and director with a love of striking visuals and cheeky scripts. She first made her mark in the commercial world of fashion and beauty, and her work in that industry has been featured in Glamour, Refinery29, Teen Vogue, Variety, and Style.com. Her short films have screened at the Smithsonian Institute and festivals around the world, and she has twice received the short film prize at the Tribeca Film Festival, first for DANCE MANIA FANTASTIC and then for THE ELEPHANT GARDEN. She was included on the 2020 Alice Initiative list of Emerging Female Directors and the New York Times' 2019 “9 Filmmakers Who Should Be on Your Radar” list. LUCKY GRANDMA—co-written by Cheng and Sealy and directed by Sealy—a funny and thrilling heist movies starring an ornery, chain-smoking, badass Chinese grandma (Tsai Chin) in New York City who goes all in at the casino, only to put herself and her family in the middle of a gang war. The film—which was the recipient of AT&T and Tribeca Film Festival’s 2018 Untold Stories $1 million filmmaking grant—premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and is currently available to stream on Hulu and Showtime. -- Read shownotes, transcripts, and other member interviews: www.onwriting.org/ -- Follow the Guild on social media: Twitter: @OnWritingWGAE | @WGAEast Facebook: /WGAEast Instagram: @WGAEast

OnWriting presents the first in a series of four live recordings of OnWriting in honor of Women's History Month, presented by the WGAE Women's Salon. In each episode, we’re speaking with women screenwriters whose latest projects center on women’s stories. For the first of these Women's History Month episodes, Geri speaks with Emerald Fennell — writer and director of the dark  PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN. Emerald Fennell is an actress, writer, and director. As an actor, she’s known for starring in the BBC period drama series CALL THE MIDWIFE, as well as her role as Camilla Shand in the third season of the Netflix period drama THE CROWN. She also served as the KILLING EVE showrunner during its second season – for which she earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Her latest project is the Writers Guild Award-nominated black comedy thriller PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN. PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN – Emerald's feature film debut as both writer and director – follows Cassie (Carey Mulligan), who everyone said was a promising young woman ... until a mysterious event abruptly derailed her future. But nothing in Cassie’s life is what it appears to be: she’s wickedly smart, tantalizingly cunning, and she’s living a secret double life by night. Now, an unexpected encounter is about to give Cassie a chance to right the wrongs of the past in this thrilling and wildly entertaining story. The film is currently in theaters and available to purchase on VOD. -- Read shownotes, transcripts, and other member interviews: www.onwriting.org/ -- Follow the Guild on social media: Twitter: @OnWritingWGAE | @WGAEast Facebook: /WGAEast Instagram: @WGAEast

OnWriting presents three live-taped episodes of OnWriting celebrating Black History Month, presented by the WGAE Black Writers Salon. In each installment, two co-chairs of the WGAE Black Writers Salon—OnWriting’s own Geri Cole and Rashidi Hendrix—speak with Black screenwriters who have each written amazing films about Black icons in history. For the third & final installment of the series, Geri and Rashidi speak with Shaka King, co-writer and director of JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH. Shaka King is a screenwriter, director, and producer. His debut feature film, NEWLYWEEDS, premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the Someone to Watch Award at the 2014 Independent Spirit Awards. He then cowrote and directed the short film MULIGNANS, with which he and cowriter Kristan Sprague competed in the USA Narrative Short Film Program at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, and for which they received the Nantucket Film Festival Screenwriting Award. He also co-wrote and directed the 2017 short film LAZERCISM, starring LaKeith Stanfield. On the small screen, King has written and directed episodes of several series, including HIGH MAINTENANCE, SHRILL, and RANDOM ACTS OF FLYNESS. His latest project is JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH – the powerful true story of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) – chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party – and his betrayal by FBI informant William O'Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), which led to Hampton being executed in bed in a pre-dawn raid by Chicago law enforcement. Screenplay by Will Berson and Shaka King; Story by Will Berson, Shaka King, and Kenny Lucas and Keith Lucas (better known as the Lucas Brothers); Directed by Shaka King. The film will be available to stream on HBO Max until Sunday, March 14. -- Read shownotes, transcripts, and other member interviews: www.onwriting.org/ -- Follow the Guild on social media: Twitter: @OnWritingWGAE | @WGAEast Facebook: /WGAEast Instagram: @WGAEast

OnWriting presents three live-taped episodes of OnWriting celebrating Black History Month, presented by the WGAE Black Writers Salon. In each installment, two co-chairs of the WGAE Black Writers Salon—OnWriting’s own Geri Cole and Rashidi Hendrix—speak with Black screenwriters who have each written amazing films about Black icons in history. For the second installment in the series, Geri speaks to Suzan-Lori Parks — Pulitzer prize-winning playwright and screenwriter of the new Hulu feature film, THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY. Suzan-Lori Parks was encouraged to take up playwriting by her then-college professor, James Baldwin. In 2002, she became the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Topdog/Underdog. She also wrote the screenplays for the Spike Lee-directed 1996 film GIRL 6, the 2004 adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD, and the 2019 film adaptation of Richard Wright’s NATIVE SON. She is also a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant. THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY is adapted from Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari. It tells the story of the legendary Billie Holiday (Andra Day) as she's targeted by the federal department of narcotics with an undercover sting operation led by black federal agent Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), with whom she has a tumultuous love affair. The film is directed by Lee Daniels and is currently available to stream on Hulu. -- Read shownotes, transcripts, and other member interviews: www.onwriting.org/ -- Follow the Guild on social media: Twitter: @OnWritingWGAE | @WGAEast Facebook: /WGAEast Instagram: @WGAEast

OnWriting presents three live-taped episodes of OnWriting celebrating Black History Month, presented by the WGAE Black Writers Salon. In each installment, two co-chairs of the WGAE Black Writers Salon—OnWriting’s own Geri Cole and Rashidi Hendrix—speak with Black screenwriters who have each written amazing films about Black icons in history. To kick things off, we’re joined by Ruben Santiago-Hudson and the screenwriter of MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM, which is currently available to stream on Netflix. Ruben Santiago-Hudson is a versatile talent who — in addition to his many acting credits in projects like BILLIONS and THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS — wrote the award-winning stage play for LACKAWANNA BLUES as well as its Emmy and Writers Guild Award-nominated TV film adaptation. MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM is an adaptation of the August Wilson play of the same name. The film, set in 1920s Chicago, follows a recording session where tensions rise between mother of blues Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), and her ambitious horn player named Levee (Chadwick Boseman). -- Read shownotes, transcripts, and other member interviews: www.onwriting.org/ -- Follow the Guild on social media: Twitter: @OnWritingWGAE | @WGAEast Facebook: /WGAEast Instagram: @WGAEast

Geri is joined by award-winning screenwriter Lena Waithe – creator of and writer on the BET comedy series TWENTIES – about never pandering to an audience, how the series A DIFFERENT WORLD influences her work, and how success can come in small doses. Lena Waithe is a screenwriter, producer, and actress known for her Emmy Award-winning writing on MASTER OF NONE, as well as for creating the Showtime drama series THE CHI and writing the screenplay for the 2019 film QUEEN & SLIM. Her latest project, TWENTIES, follows a young screenwriter and her best friends as they pursue their dreams in Los Angeles. The BET series premiered in March 2020 and was renewed for a second season in June. -- Read shownotes, transcripts, and other member interviews: www.onwriting.org/ -- Follow the Guild on social media: Twitter: @OnWritingWGAE | @WGAEast Facebook: /WGAEast Instagram: @WGAEast

Geri and Terence Nance — creator, writer, director, and co-star of the new HBO Late Night series RANDOM ACTS OF FLYNESS — talk about the trauma in - and of - making art, how his writing takes place before he opens Final Draft, and how we can find success by looking in each other's faces. Terrence Nance is a writer, director, actor, and musician. His 2012 feature film AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY premiered at Sundance and received a Gotham Independent Film Award. He was the recipient of a 2014 Guggenheim fellowship for his work. His latest project is the HBO late-night sketch comedy series RANDOM ACTS OF FLYNESS - a fluid, stream-of-consciousness response to the contemporary American mediascape. Each episode features a handful of interconnected vignettes which showcase an ensemble cast of emerging and established talent. The show is a mix of verité documentary, musical performances, surrealist melodrama and humorous animation. Nance and his collaborators weave together such themes as ancestral trauma, history, death, the singularity, romance and more. The six-episode first season explores evergreen cultural idioms such as patriarchy, white supremacy and sensuality from a new, thought-provoking perspective, and is available to stream on HBO Max. -- Read shownotes, transcripts, and other member interviews: www.onwriting.org/ -- Follow the Guild on social media: Twitter: @OnWritingWGAE | @WGAEast Facebook: /WGAEast Instagram: @WGAEast

Geri talks to writer and director Aaron Sorkin about spending 15 years writing his latest film, THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7; why intention and obstacle are the backbones of every good story; and how his career is kind of like being struck by lightning… if being struck by lightning were a good thing. Aaron Sorkin is the Academy, Emmy, Golden Globe, and Writers Guild Award-winning writer behind myriad films, television series, and plays including THE WEST WING, THE NEWSROOM, the play A FEW GOOD MEN (and its 1992 film adaptation), MONEYBALL, MOLLY’S GAME—which he also directed, and THE SOCIAL NETWORK. THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7, written and directed by Sorkin, is based on the infamous 1969 trial of seven defendants charged by the federal government with conspiracy and more, arising from the countercultural protests in Chicago at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The film was released in the fall of 2020 and is available to stream on Netlfix. -- Read shownotes, transcripts, and other member interviews: www.onwriting.org/ -- Follow the Guild on social media: Twitter: @OnWritingWGAE | @WGAEast Facebook: /WGAEast Instagram: @WGAEast

Geri speaks to Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, and Peter Baynham—cowriters of BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM—about why they decided to revisit the iconic character, how intense it was to film that now infamous Rudy Giuliani scene, and the reality of filming in very dangerous situations. Sacha Baron Cohen is best known for his portrayal of bawdy and raucous fictional satirical characters such as Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, Brüno Gehard and Admiral General Aladeen.  Sacha and his cowriters and frequent collaborators Anthony Hines and Peter Baynham have featured these characters in a number of films and television series, including ALI G INDAHOUSE, THE 11 O’CLOCK SHOW, BRÜNO, THE DICTATOR, and BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN, the latter of which was nominated for the 2006 Writers Guild and Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay. Their latest collaboration, BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM, follows the titular Borat Sagdiyev after his release from a stint in prison for bringing shame to his country, as he risks life and limb when he returns to America with his 15-year-old daughter. The film is available to stream on Amazon Prime.   — Read shownotes, transcripts, and other member interviews:  www.onwriting.org/  — Follow the Guild on social media: Twitter: @OnWritingWGAE | @WGAEast Facebook: /WGAEast Instagram: @WGAEast

Geri chats with Sofia Coppola—writer, director, and producer of ON THE ROCKS—about how her writing process has changed over the years, how family dynamics helped shape her work, and why it's so important to trust your instincts. Sofia Coppola’s career as a writer and director began with her 1999 film THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. Since then, Sofia has written and directed films like THE BEGUILED, THE BLING RING, MARIE ANTOINETTE, and LOST IN TRANSLATION. Her script for LOST IN TRANSLATION received the 2004 Writers Guild and Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay. Her latest feature, ON THE ROCKS, tells story of young New York-based author and married mother-of-two, Laura, who has become suspicious that her career-driven husband may be having an affair with a coworker—a speculation encouraged by her caddish, bon vivant father. The film was released in October 2020, and is available to stream on Apple TV+. -- Read shownotes, transcripts, and other member interviews: www.onwriting.org/ -- Follow the Guild on social media: Twitter: @OnWritingWGAE | @WGAEast Facebook: /WGAEast Instagram: @WGAEast