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Masterclass with Mike White
Photo: Clare Muller
Mike White, on stage for The Script Factory's SCENE insiders in Edinburgh 07
In a huge coup, courtesy of schedule juggling from our colleagues at Paramount, The Script Factory recently had the privilege of staging an exclusive interview with Mike White – actor, writer, producer and now director – who joined us to talk to our trainees while we were at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. In a hugely entertaining and informative conversation hosted by the new head of the UK Film Council’s Development Fund, Tanya Seghatchian, Mike talked about the art of making people laugh, the difficulties of managing the Hollywood system, the value of TV writing as a training ground and why the tragic demise of his cat turned into a good thing….
Read on for extracts from the conversation… and note that you can read extracts from other Script Factory Masterclasses by clicking here.
Tanya Seghatchian
Mike is one of the few people who consistently makes me laugh, which is a rare and brilliant skill in screenwriting, and the hardest thing to do, and I don’t know how he does it! I’ve read that the films you like best are the ones where you ask yourself, ‘is this a political joke’?
Mike White
I’m not really big on jokes, necessarily, or I don’t necessarily find jokes funny. What I find funny is that feeling where you’re like, ‘is this for real?’ You’re watching something and the absurdity of it is so deadpan, and serious: that situation where your mind is actually blown.
TS
Before you started writing for film, you wrote for television: is that a discipline that enabled you to find that tone of confidence so that you could start asking questions like that?
MW
There are a lot of screenwriters in Hollywood that have real careers – they don’t ever see if what they’re doing works. I’ve been in that process, where you’re in development, and people hire you, but then other people re-write it. You don’t really know what’s working – so TV is great in that sense. I worked on Dawson’s Creek, which was totally not my sensibility, but I got so much out of that experience because you could write stuff, and two weeks later, you’re watching it and editing it, and for that it helps you figure out things that you have to learn through certain realities. Like no matter how interesting or florid the dialogue is, if it’s not moving the story forward, you end up wanting to cut it. Some of that stuff you just have to learn when you see the thing mounted, and you see that this isn’t going to fly or that is going to fly.
TS
From my point of view in development, you do learn from your mistakes and from actually seeing things…
The Good Girl MW
In Chuck and Buck and The Good Girl, I had written those scripts before I had even done Dawson’s Creek. It took a while for those films to get financed and the thing about those movies is that the draft that I wrote was pretty much what was shot. Through the development process, you get a reactive or a passive thing, where people start telling you what your script is. So having the experience where the draft that I had written was made, you become confident that, maybe there are good notes here, but you don’t necessarily have to listen to them. I’ve been to the Sundance labs, and the philosophy of those labs is that you have twelve people giving you twelve sets of notes and telling you that if they were to write the script they would do this and this and this… They don’t let people in unless they’re completely serious about overhauling their script. Sometimes I feel that that’s a mistake – to get into the habit of waiting for people to tell you what your script is. I have a strong belief that you really need to have a strong intent before you sit down to write. I prevent myself from writing for sometimes weeks and weeks, even when I feel that I really want to write, because I really want to know exactly what I’m doing. So that’s the best defense against that process because a lot of people’s jobs is to help improve the script, and I do believe that happens a lot, but then there is also a co-dependent relationship where writers turn in a script, and they rely on other people telling them what’s working and what isn’t. I think it’s better to have the attitude that everything in the script is for a reason, and to have a sense of intentionality with all your decisions. Movies are such an expensive way to express yourself and they’re going to pick at it, so if you’re not coming at it from a strong sense of intention, people will start smelling that out, and then they’ll get in there.
TS
How personal are the films you write to you?
MW
With Chuck and Buck, I wanted to do something that felt really… I don’t know…I was reading a lot of Freud [laughs]… which wasn’t something that I read at school, it was something that was self-taught. It was talking about how dreams were disguised fulfillments of suppressed wishes, and in dreams, there’s an energy or erotic component that gives the energy to the dream itself. I was thinking that that’s obviously true with films, or with any piece of art as well. But underneath the rhetoric, the different meanings of the characters or the thematic ideas, there is a secret erotic wish or a wish fulfillment that even you are unconscious of as a creator. That’s an exciting idea to run with and to fill a movie with a lot of Freudian ideas! I tried to do my own dream analysis of something that I felt was raw and undigested for myself. So people say that it’s an autobiographical movie: it’s definitely not that, but to me it’s like an uncensored dream of mine. Having done that as a first movie, it was so intense to be in the dream, and to put that out there. I’ve never been recognized before, so to be recognized for this was a really weird alter ego… I remember going to Sundance where this movie was first screened, and the feeling was an intense emotional experience to watch it with a group of strangers, and to put that out there: I was like, ‘what did I just do?!’ I wasn’t even looking to act, necessarily, but the rush of it, as much as it was horrifying, there was an intense rush to put something out there that was so intense for me, where you are revealing yourself to yourself in some sense. I really went for it. I grapple with this all the time: the kinds of pleasure of getting stuff out there, or things becoming popular that you’ve worked on, it’s not as intense as when you say, ‘I don’t really give a flip if they think this or if they like it or whatever, I’m just going to self-express because I feel like that’s the story I want to tell’. 
Comedy heaven: School of RockWhen you set out with a movie like School of Rock, which I’m really proud of, and you set out to win a popularity contest, and you win it, it’s not the same as when you feel that you’re trying to express your ideas, and people respond in their own way, whether they like it or hate it. There’s more juice in there to… I don’t know what I’m saying…[Laughs]
TS
It takes a huge amount of confidence to begin with something like that, and star in it, and grapple with the themes that you’re grappling with.
MW
It’s not confidence, it was literally like, ‘no one will see this movie’! I had a career as a writer, working on Dawson’s Creek and Freaks and Geeks, and I was just like, ‘this will be something fun that we can make for no money’, and I felt that it was going to be a personal pet project. In a way it was; it wasn’t like it was at a multiplex near you. It was a script that I sent around and people not only did not want to help me make the movie, they were like: ‘do not make this movie!’. They were, like, ‘nobody wants to see this movie, and people are going to think you’re insane, so do not put it out there’. But I not only got personal satisfaction out of doing the movie – I did get a lot out of it, for better or worse – it also helped with getting meetings. Sometimes you do something that’s not necessarily a big commercial thing, but it’s really bold in some way. So I would certainly encourage people to have their versions to slug away at people. It takes time sometimes for people to come to the party.
TS
As a screenwriter, are there ways of controlling your material, or is it a Faustian pact?
MW
To me, the best way to control your material is to generate original material. If you’re generating original material, then you are part and parcel of what it is, in a sense. The surest way to not control the material is if you don’t control the material. If you’re coming in as a hired person to re-write someone else’s script, or they do a sequel or a re-make or some adaptation – in that sense you’re just a hired person and you’ll stay with the material as long as they feel that you’re doing their bidding. At the point where you aren’t doing their bidding, they’ll find someone else. It’s not like you’re doing some adaptation of some book, and you’re saying that ‘I really feel that it should go this way’! They’re not going to cave at some point. They’ll just find someone else. They absolutely have the right to do that. I still fear that. It takes too much effort, and I approach it with the intensity of a survivalist. The mentality where they will not pull this script out of my hands... I do think that if you approach it with that attitude, either you’re going to be too difficult, or you’ll be hitting your head against doors. Either way, you’ll figure out a way and you’ll be able to hold on.
TS
I remember reading the script for School of Rock before the film was made and a friend of mine, Edgar Wright, read it, and said ‘I’ve found the film that I want to direct’! Was it something that you wanted to direct?
MW
Yes I wanted to direct, and I had thrown my hat into the ring on this movie. The studios are reluctant. I don’t know what the budget on this movie was, but it was certainly studio budget. They were worried about it, and they were so worried, that after a while I couldn’t take it that they were worried any more. I didn’t want to be in a situation where even from the first day I was like, ‘we’re worried’. So I thought ‘eff it. Then they found Linklater, and my biggest fear was that they would give it to a director that would pump up the cheese of it. I felt that this was a high concept movie that I hope is winning. I don’t think you need to do all these bells and whistles to make it work. And when Linklater wanted to do it, I thought that was the perfect person if it wasn’t going to be me. In a sense, because he has directed many movies, whether they were commercially successful or not, there weren’t going to be the same number of studio people standing around. There wasn’t going to be the same kind of anxiety. I thought that he did a great job, so I was glad that it went that way. It’s not like I’ve always wanted to direct, but at some point, you go, ‘what is my problem? Why am I not directing?’ So when Year of the Dog was written, I decided I’d rather make my mistakes than have somebody else make their mistakes.
Mike White, on set with Year of the Dog
TS
With Year of the Dog, did you set out to direct it?
MW
I didn’t set out to direct it. I wrote the script, then handed it out to a few of the usual suspects. Then I had the conversations with the people who wanted to do it, and with this one, especially with the scale that it is, and the specific casting ideas, I thought, ‘I’m just going to do it’.
TS
Can you explain the idea and how the idea came about, because it came from personal experience, didn’t it?
MW
I was doing a TV show, and I was in the midst of a really bad work experience. I was doing a TV show with Molly Shannon and Jason Schwarzman on Fox that was supposed to run after American Idol, and it was an incredible amount of pressure and a lame, lame experience. They kept saying that they wanted me to do what I wanted to do, but they absolutely did not want me to do what I do. In the midst of it, I had a cat and I’d come home after a day of fighting in the ring, and this cat was my buddy, and it died on Christmas Day during my one week break that I was going to catch up on scripts for the show. I was so emotionally overcome by the loss of this cat and because I was run down, I ended up writing the most depressing half hour for a comedy of all time. They hated what I was doing before, but when they got this script they were like, ‘he’s insane’. They didn’t want to do that episode, so I got even more behind. So what really happened was that the show shut down because this cat died. So when I stood back and looked at it, months later, I was like, actually that was quite an interesting life experience where something there’s that you’re embarrassed that you feel so strongly about. I was walking around with my face all bloated and bleary, and people were like, ‘what’s wrong?’ I was like, ‘my cat died!’. So I thought that that might be an interesting topic for a movie. I also had the experience of some of the things that happened to the woman in the movie. You know, I had to get a new cat, then I got two cats, then I thought that I can’t just have cats in case one of them died, so I got dogs. Then I stopped eating meat because my dog looked like a pig, and I couldn’t eat pig anymore. So by the end I became one of those animal nutbags. I have a live-in person who just caters to my dog’s whims when I’m here in Edinburgh, so that’s what’s happened to me….
Audience Member
What’s your pet situation at the moment?
MW
My personal pet situation at the moment is that I have two dogs, one cat – one of my cats has just died.
AM
So that’s the second cat that died?
MW
Yes, I replaced the cat with two cats and one of them just died. I have two dogs and a cat, and we all party – that’s my pet situation, thanks for asking…!
Photo: Clare Muller
TS
As a directorial debut working with dogs, animals and kids – you’ve really made it easy on yourself!
MW
The dogs were easier than the babies. I would take dogs over babies every day! The problem with the dogs was that they were over-trained. The way I shot the movie was very tableaux-y, and I just wanted to let the dogs just be dogs. That’s the one thing that trained dogs just don’t know how to do. They put the dogs on the set, and let them be dogs, and they just sit there looking for their trainer. That’s not going to work! In certain scenes where the dogs are just going crazy in her house and destroying her furniture, each of them have their own little thing that they’re doing, and it’s all very choreographed in a way that’s not intended but it was necessary.
TS
Did you know that was what you were going to get into or not?
MW
I had no idea, but it was fun to have little dogs on the set and dogs going crazy pretending that they’re pee-ing on stuff: that was fun.
TS
And you had worked with Molly Shannon before?
MW
The show that had shut down when I was grieving my cat, she was the star of. It was one of those things where Molly is such a sweet, great person, and also a talented comedian. I felt that I had invited her to a party that had really sucked, and went on for months and months. That show was such a bummer. I wanted to do something with her and for her where it can be fun, and she can show different sides to her that people haven’t seen. I wrote it for her, and that’s one of the reasons why I directed the movie, was because really wanted Molly Shannon. Not many movies have female protagonists anyway, and it’s the kind of script that people thought could attract one of the six or seven actresses that are meaningful, or whatever. So there was pressure to try to move off of that, and I just didn’t want to do it if it wasn’t with her.
TS
I found myself laughing and crying through it, at the same time, with tears streaming down my face, really sad, but I was laughing. I didn’t know how to moderate my emotions.
MW
In the States, it was a complicated release because people went to see the movie, and they thought it was going to be like a jaunty romantic comedy. It’s actually not that. People think that it’s going to be more knee-slapper, but it’s an existential crisis movie. I think it’s funny, but I like things that blend. Sometimes I see comedies, and I think it’s funny but I go away feeling a little empty, do you know what I mean?
TS
In this film, you grapple with issues of life and death and bizarre sexuality, and potentially complex and rich stories that have dogs barking all the way through it. You ask yourself, is this supposed to be a joke?
MW
In the States, in a sense, it’s the best-reviewed movie that I’ve done. But it’s like everything else that I’ve done, 15-20% of the critics are not into it. I got the craziest negative reviews I’ve ever gotten too. For instance saying that the woman is a terrorist: really weird political responses to the movie. It deals with a certain amount of female issues that make guys feel uncomfortable: all the negative criticism came from the guys.
TS
The animal rights stuff is also quite explicit about it. There’s a moving scene where she takes her niece and baby nephew to a farm where animals are living in paradise, then followed with a powerful scene...[where she attempts to take the kids to an inhumane intensive farm]
MW
Yes, the kids are crying. But I thought it would be fun to talk about somebody that becomes so monomaniacal that it pushes people. Someone that’s on a radical journey in a very unassuming way. Somebody who starts off as everybody’s best friend, but then gets on a topic that she thinks is not fair, and then gets deeper into this. Everybody wants to keep her into her role as the happy helper. I thought that was an interesting story: how we oppress each other with our own life choices. Our life choices become our religion in a way.
Audience Member
How did your films do commercially?
MW
Well, I’m incredibly well received! The Good Girl, Chuck and Buck and Year of the Dog are small budget movies. They’re meant for art-house markets. They’ve moved passed those markets in certain places, so that’s what those movies are. A movie like School of Rock or Orange County are big budget movies that have done better at the box office. For me, it’s fun to mix it up. It’s nice to get paid, but it’s not the end-all for me. There’s not much that I need. Some people get really excited by tracking the box office – the popularity contest of it, although it’s good to have an eye to that because it allows you to continue making movies. There’s no graph for me; there would be two separate trajectories that I want to accomplish simultaneously, and I want to keep making movies that are meaningful to me and sometimes there’s a big audience for that, and sometimes there isn’t. In Year of the Dog, I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it because it was more important to me to take the chances with the story that I wanted to take, and if I’d asked for a $20 million budget, I would have felt like I was setting everyone up for a really sad ending, and not just as audience members.
AM
You were talking about the twisted dark things that you find secretly funny.
MW
For me, as a writer, I’m an introverted person, and I’m the same person as I was when I was 8 years old. I like to play by myself. They could come and play my game, and if they didn’t want to play my game, they could go home, because I’m going to play my game. That hasn’t changed. It sucks to work and then having to go back to the cave, while everyone else gets to party, so you sometimes want to be able to participate in that. Maybe that’s some kind of fault of mine: as much as I want the movie to speak for itself, the script speaks for itself for me. Especially when you start off, you don’t know if it’ll ever get made, but you want this thing to represent what I was trying to say, or what I was trying to do, so if anyone picks this up, this is the thing. That part of it is meaningful to me. It’s not just a means to an end.
TS
It’s a pleasure to read your screenplays because you present the best work. For instance those scripts that are sent to Jack Black may not be as good as they could be at the point of being presented.
MW
Thank you. That’s very nice of you to say, but I also worked with Judd [Apatow] and his approach is so different. It’s all about the movie. For him, the script is a way to get everyone on set, and on set they workshop the movie and do tonnes of improvs, and it’s subjective, but those results can bear real fruit. But for me, the authorial pride part of it is one that I can’t get past. I want to hold the script and rub it on my face.
AM
Can you talk a bit about your writing process?
MW
What I do is try to keep myself from writing. The biggest mistakes I’ve made are when I sit down to write before know what I’m doing. Then I start seeing stuff that I like, but then maybe it doesn’t work so you stop. I’ve learned from failures that I really need to have it pretty… at least I have to know where I’m going or at least two thirds of the journey mapped out in my head… Sometimes I’ll write down scenes, but not fully. But I prefer to do that rather than sit down and do stream of consciousness writing because I find it frustrating. I like all kinds of movies to watch as an audience – I like very loose movies. But as a writer, and I’ve been at Labs where you feel like that they’re writing as they go along, and that feels weird to me and makes me anxious. So you’re just walking off that cliff, and you don’t know where you’re going.
TS
Scott Rudin always says, tell me the ending and I’ll tell you the beginning.
MW
One of the reasons why Scott is a very successful producer, besides being an incredible steamroller, is that he is one of the better dramaturges I’ve worked with. He has a real sense of intentionality about everything, and I’ve learned, in sense from him that way. The problem is that it becomes, in a sense, too canned, but he’s very good at what he does.
Photo: Clare Muller
Mike White with host Tanya Seghatchian and The Script Factory's Briony Hanson AM
Is there anything that’s come out of the UK or Europe recently that you’ve enjoyed?
MW
I’ve been coming to London a lot because I’ve been working with Edgar Wright on a movie. In fact, the last script I’ve just turned in, Edgar and I worked on the story together, and I wrote the script. It’s been cool getting to know him, and through him, the world where he seems to have octopus-like tentacles into every part of what’s going on creatively out here. I’m watching TV here, and I’m amazed. I was offered to do the American version of The Office, but I thought that show is so funny that I don’t want to be the bastard that destroys that. There’s also a lot of really good reality programming in England – teens going on binge drinking and throwing up, and Big Brother is pretty good. I don’t really watch a lot television, and I don’t watch any American television, frankly. That’s not a badge of pride. Not scripted television, I should say. Which is really crazy because I’m a scriptwriter. But for some reason, when I’m at home watching TV, I just want to watch The Dog Whisperer, and these reality shows here. Sorry, it’s a depressing state of affairs. I like to watch DVDs and zone out in front of Top Chef!