286 | The Magic And Challenges Of Creative Partnership w/ Meg LeFauve & Joe Forte
An incredibly fun episode today! Lorien is in the host driver seat, chatting with Meg and her husband and writing partner Joe Forte about the art of collaboration and the process of writing with a partner.
They both share with great vulnerability their challenges with it, and their absolute love of working together. What did they learn from another couple who does the same? What tools have they picked up along the way during their 30 years of marriage? Could they have done this when they were younger? And so much more. A delightful exploration of their journey together and the power of connection through story.
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Episode Links:
Train Dreams is available on https://www.netflix.com/title/82020378
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The Screenwriting Life is produced and edited by Alex Alcheh. With audio engineering and mixing by Urban Olsson.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Lorien: Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Lorien McKenna, and today I'm talking to two of my favorite people about collaboration. Joining me are Joe Forte and Meg LeFauve, writing partners and life partners, and it brings me incredible joy to watch their faces as I read their bio.
Meg and Joe have been partners for over 30 years, both in life and in the film industry. They've worked for some of the biggest studios in Hollywood, including Pixar, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Netflix, Fox, and Sony, and with legendary stars like Jodie Foster and Harrison Ford. Currently, Forte and LeFauve have an exclusive multi-year overall deal with Netflix Films to write and direct for the streamer.
They've been writing as a team since 2020, both features and TV for studios such as Sony, MGM Amazon, and A & E. Joe's credits include the Harrison Ford Thriller, Firewall; in addition to creating and directing the documentary film, The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur, which streams on Amazon. And Meg was nominated for an Academy Award for co-writing Pixar's Inside Out.
Her other writing credits include Inside Out 2, Captain Marvel, The Good Dinosaur, and My Father's Dragon. Well, welcome to the show, Meg and Joe.
Meg: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Lorien: It's a delight.
Joe: I am elated to be here. It's been an incredible journey and listening to our bio it's pretty beautiful.
Lorien: Before we dive in, we're gonna talk about our weeks or what we like to call adventures and screenwriting, and as usual, I'll go first.
So my week has been about boundaries personally and professionally. And what I realized that it's. Just as much about communicating my boundaries to other people, but respecting those boundaries that I set, meaning I have to have intention and take the burden of being responsible for other people's emotional reactions out of.
My decision to do things. So I communicate to my family this afternoon, I have to do something. And they're like, okay. And I know what will happen is that at some point they'll come downstairs and ask me for something or need me for something and I'll have to communicate back to them, well, I ask for this time, and then they're gonna have a reaction to it, and I have to be.
Okay with that and not use that as an excuse to get mad, get involved in their thing, solve their problem, like become all Marty about it. So, and then the other thing is I have to turn off my phone, shut down my email, leave my phone on. If somebody calls and they need to talk to me, they can leave a message.
So. It's both sides. It's not just, why won't people respect my boundaries? It's, I have to respect my own, which is really hard because it is such a delicious excuse not to get things done. Well, I had all these things to do and everyone was bothering me, and no one's listening to me. But at its core, I wasn't.
I'm not really paying attention to myself, and my therapist would call that like self-compassion or something. I don't know. I'm trying to figure out what that means, but that is my, that has been a large part of my week and the struggle. I'm not saying I figured it out. I'm saying that's what my week has been about.
Joe: Amen to turning off that phone and finding the space for your process.
Lorien: Which is almost impossible. Right? I turned off my phone for this and I don't have access to anything and it's like this. I feel lost. And then it's like, oh, right. I used to live like this full time.
Meg: I was writing… I was reading yesterday the rewrite, and I got so overwhelmed in my own head, which we were gonna talk about that.
I just picked up my phone and started playing a game. I was like, I need to go away as fast as possible. And then I was like, Meg, come on. You're a professional. Put the game away. Put, turn the phone off. Keep going. Because again, we're gonna talk about this. I could see Joe smiling. None of you can, but Joe is smiling because he knows what happened after that, which we will talk about.
But I hear you on sometimes it's the hardest person to make respect your own boundaries is yourself.
Lorien: Yes. And this occurred to me like an epiphany as if I'd never heard this before. Like, oh I am sure I've heard this a thousand times, or, but it just uh, it was startling.
Joe: But this is why consciousness is a spiral, right?
Because you keep going around and get getting reminded, and hopefully every time you're just doing it a little bit of bit better or noticing it at all, noticing it at all is huge.
Lorien: And I, that's the huge part for me is noticing like not being trapped in the emotional, the panic, the desperation. It's like, well, what works for me?
What doesn't work for me without judgment? That is the hard part.
Meg: Yes. That's my words of the year. Make space. And by that I mean make space for, well, I just broke my own boundaries. Make space for my boundaries. Like make space for the positive of course, which is sometimes even hard to do. You have to make space to, let's be happy right now and in awe of the draft was rewritten and we did it, and now let's move to the next, but let's make space for that.
But let's also make space for. I just broke my own boundary. I forgot to feed the dog that thing, and like all the things that I beat myself up about once I make space for them to exist and like you said, not be judgmental about it somehow just lessens the whole. The, and the life energy of holding that stuff down or hating yourself about it is stealing all the energy you need to do your creative work.
Lorien: I like make space more than respect my boundaries because boundaries feel so rules. You're over there, I'm over here, this is the line. Rather than I'm making space, I make space for you. I make space for myself.
Meg: Yeah. And a boundary version is, you know, right now I'm gonna make space for myself. And that means there's no room right now for you child, so you should go over there and do your own thing or whatever.
You take your attitude and go upstairs, whatever. I wouldn't be talking about our child at all.
Lorien: No, not at all. My almost 14-year-old super respects my space physically, personally, emotionally, work-wise. All right, so how was your week, Meg and Joe?
Joe: I'm just super excited to be here. Like that's why my like…
Ending up my week on Meg and Lorien's podcast like dope baby. My week was good. My week was good. My word, whatever you guys were talking about. Mine was trying to be celebratory. Meg and I did not get to spend New Year's Eve together, and we both got to the office after I picked her up at 11 o'clock at night on Wednesday.
Ready to dunk, jump back and work, and I just was like, stop. Let's talk about all the good things that have happened, big and small. You know, and we did that and then got back to work. But you know, I think along with both of what you're saying, like just trying to celebrate the wins, the small ones, all the ones that lead up to the big win.
Meg: Yeah. We literally went through the year and we were like, what is the good stuff that happened this year? What did we accomplish this year? Because it's so, your brain wants to go, well, for next year, I need to do this better and I need to do that better. But how about, you know what we did this year? We did this and we got a dog and we did this.
Like, I think that it was so, Joe's instinct was so good.
Joe: Well, and you know, the humility of remembering that a year ago, you know, LA was on fire and just. You know, and just, that was an unbelievable place for everybody involved. The city, the people who had their houses burned down, our friends who are still going through it, you know, so just gratitude came out of even like sort of remembering that you've gone through something incredibly traumatic which that was so, it's, and we can dwell on the trauma, but we gotta also cleanse it by, you know, celebrating what's working.
Lorien: The hard part then is turning the celebration into a TV show or a movie, right?
Joe: But I think when you're in that open place, like that's where the inspiration comes from, right? And the ease of being able to work.
Meg: Our friends who has her house burned down told me that she to, to mark the anniversary, she and a bunch of her neighbors walked through their street, which of course is gone. And they spread sunflowers because sunflowers are flowers that actually take the toxins out of the ground. And I thought that was a beautiful metaphor for any endeavor or be that trauma.
Like, what are you gonna, what would you grow from this trauma? And to, to me, us going back through the year and saying what worked and what happened and what we accomplished was our, those sunflowers. Like, yes, the trauma happened and some things happened that were disappointing. And, you know, this is a writing podcast and to me, you are gonna have things that don't work.
You're gonna have things that fail. You're gonna have, you're gonna get your movie made and guess what? Nobody watched it or got a bad review or, you know, tho those dips, those things come.
And it's more what you take, what you learn from them, of course, and then what you plant next. And so always being, like Joe said, grateful and acknowledging both sides of that.
Lorien: And it's always good to remember that you are actually a badass and that you do things and to notice what was working, how you, what happened around that thing that made it work rather than, well, this didn't work and here are all the ways I fucked up and here's all the people that got in my way.
It's like, okay, what? What was happening? What's the common denominator in the way those things worked, and how can I continue to recreate that?
Meg: If your brain is constantly going back to the bad stuff, it's like a groove and the, and so once you've learned something from it, I'm not saying you don't have to assess it, think about it, be honest about it, but then you've gotta move forward because otherwise you're just re grooving it in your brain in a loop, and it's just getting deeper and deeper, and you can only see now with that lens.
So it's just something to think about.
Joe: When we were at Austin Film Festival, a couple years ago, Meg made this incredible, spontaneous, passionate pitch that everybody in the room was a warrior. You know? And part of being a warrior is you're gonna get hurt. You're gonna get, you know, there's gonna be the dips that Meg's talking about, but also you have to celebrate the battles.
You have to celebrate. I put on. The shield, you know, I put my shoes on, like, you know. Okay. Last year, I mean, 'cause everything runs in cycles. I've had terrible. Almost destructive out of the game kind of years in my career, you know, so it, you know, that I'm having a good year is great, but it's seasonal, you know, so people are in different places always.
We're not always all on the same warrior path. I, you know, I may have just drank a cup of wine and you're just like walking out of burning ashes, but that's. That's the journey and that's part, you know, you're making the journey because you're in those battles. So, you know, even if it's hard you know, still find the way to look at the small wins, you know, and that, that keep you going.
Meg: And when we were at AFF that, that warrior thing came out of you know, they were asking questions about, can I approach the panelists? Can I ask them to do this? Can I ask them to do that? I just was like, people are holding up panelists as these gods who've made it and they're done. And they were these perfect beings who just, and it's like, no, they're warriors.
They're battle scarred warriors. They're literally scarred and bruised from their accomplishment of being able to stand up on that panel and as are you right that there is no us and them of that warrior metaphor. Everybody. Even people like, you know, our son's in film school, so there's always like, they make schlock or whatever and you're like, it's still a battle.
I don't care. Like it's still a battle.
Lorien: When you have someone going into that battle, like a another warrior at your side, does it make it harder or does it make it easier?
Meg: Both.
Joe: I say it makes it a hundred percent easier, 5000%. You are the leverage you get from having a great partner. Is incredible.
Meg: It is. Both in the actual writing where the idea comes in from the other person and you're like, oh my God, that you fixed it. That's so good. From the moment you're getting notes and you can look at each other and not say a word, and both know that you're both thinking, what the fuck is that note? And you can leave and be like, did they just say that?
Do you think they meant that? Like just having somebody to download that process with? So it is, for me I love it. And you know, even though I was solo running at Pixar, you're in a room full of so many people, it still has that feeling and that it's so collaborative. So that, I love that. But, just to talk about Joe Forte having to be my partner, because here's this the weird thing, because he's my husband there gets this waverly line, right?
Which we can talk about, but I do think. You know, I don't think yesterday was fun and great to have a partner. If you were Joe Forte and I was your partner because I was overwhelmed and I was really tired 'cause I had a very hard New Year's week. It was lovely but challenging mentally with some family issues.
And I was tired and I was reading through his rewrite and, if I can say he had understandably put little notes on the side of what his thinking was and the rewrite itself. Okay. There were a couple places that I was like, I'm not sure, or does that whole scene not work anymore? But when I started to read the little notes, my head exploded because they were things like, maybe this whole scene needs to be rethink, rethought, or, and I was like, what?
Like I can't explain it. My head. I went on fire and I did so good all day trying to control myself, and by the end I was not. The most fun partner and Joe was in another room and I'm yelling out at the room, I'm just yelling and I'm just like, you know, just turned, doesn't work anymore. And I just yelled, this is not that much fun.
I realized two things as I was shrieking at port. My poor partner in panic and terror. Which is number one, I need to go to therapy and deal with this because this is not his issue. It's my anxiety and for me to deal with, which I think is a lot about collaboration, you have to be willing to. Deal with your own shit.
And the other thing is, I think I have small letter case PTSD because at Pixar it's blow up, go faster. There's a hundred people waiting. Why did you do that? You know it's a churn and I get very distressed as I think, oh my God, it's blowing up. Oh my god, it's blowing up. And it's due, and you know, so.
It's something that I think part of really good collaboration is I had to go to Joe, I had to apologize. I had to say, this is my work. That was not fair to you. This is my work. I'm gonna go work on it. I make a pledge to work on it. You might have still have to do it a couple more times, but and then something you said to us, Lorien, I'm realizing would've been really good.
Now because we're married, this will work. I think if Joe had just hugged me and given me physical input, I'd probably, my brain would've stopped. And I think that's something we can work on with each other. Again, if you're not married and you're collaborators, maybe that is not appropriate.
Lorien: But it works with friends.
It works with anyone you feel safe with when they hug you, right? When I get outta control, I feel really unsafe and I don't quite know. What to do. 'cause I'm working on it on my own, but my husband is my partner and so I've asked him like, no matter how what he says, “Spiky, you're like a big cactus.” I'm like, “Come hug the cactus.”
And I won't remember to ask you that in the moment, but please just, and he, it's hard for him, right? Because I can be a lot.
Joe: I think a money maker is a mug that says, “Come hug the cactus.” Okay. Just first of all, I enjoy working with Meg so much. I mean that at you know, at and I understand what's going on and we're able to talk about it from many years.
And like in the back of my head, I know that Meg went away for a week, had a crazy hard. Emotionally wonderfully. Good week. And she just got back and I'm handing her the script that she was supposed to read on the plane but was exhausted. No worries. Right? So she's diving into it and I feel like what I need to say to her is, you've been away for a whole week.
That there's time, you know, and which is what we do say, it's like, listen, there's time. We can figure it out. This is just a conversation like, you know, just so in terms of partnership and collaboration, it's great to be able to recognize your partner's triggers and then help talk them off the ledge.
Yesterday, because Meg was so exhausted, it went on for a while. So I go into the other office to work and I'm like, what is this? And I'm like, me I'm doing this other thing. I, we, are we working on this or not? So it, it was more of like. She was exhausted and that's okay. And then when she was just like…
Losing her mind, and I don't mean in about these, you know, script note flags that were all through the script. I was like, that's from my first read three weeks ago. And me just thinking out loud, I just put it over in the sidebar, “Stop reading it.” and she'd read the next. And she'd read. I'm like “Stop reading it!”
Meg: That is your responsibility as the partner. Take 'em out. Don't give them to me, because if you're gonna put 'em in, I'm gonna read 'em.
Lorien: Have you communicated this to each other in a partnership setting?
Joe: Yeah. Everything is brand new because we're making up our methodology all the time, right? So, anyway the cap of that story was when she was getting to that point, I just yelled out, “This is not pleasant.” “This is not fun.”
Maybe fun. And she got it and she said, “Okay, I'm sorry.” And, you know, then we reconnected and we, you know, like I feel like the number one thing of partnership is do not break it.
Meg: Repair. Repair. Things are gonna happen, things are gonna crack. Things are good. You're gonna have fights.
Joe: But don't break it.
And you know, that's our, you know, work that we've been able to do both as a married couple. And bringing that to work. And some people can't believe we can work together, but, you know, I get it. I get it. But also, like we've put in a lot of work to that and, you know, you can just distill it down to triggers, attach, repair, and finding really, non-con condemnation language, which therapists use all the time. It's like just how you communicate. Like, instead of saying, why are you doing that, you say, oh, I see you're upset. You know, and then I am a tuned in partner and I go, well, duh, you just got off a plane and all of a, so it's like, not person.
But it can feel personal because she's reading my writing. You're like, wait a minute. No, there's a lot of good stuff in there. And then we got into this, we'll go into this later, but we're directing this. So now we started to have our first directorial conversation. I'm like. And Meg had a really strong directorial point of view, which totally pissed me off 'cause I was like, shit, she got the better call on that scene.
And I was like, “Oh, that's what you're doing? Oh, that's great.” Y’know? And so like some of it, just like you have to pull apart the taffy to get down to what's really going on in this conversation. 'Cause like I'm getting a little defensive on my writing, she's getting a little defensive on her writing then I'm getting defensive about my directorial, Y’know?
And then, but I quickly calmed down because I'm working with Meg. And I'm like, “Wait, what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? Oh, that's really cool. Okay, I get that. Let's do it that way.” Y’know?
Lorien: We'll be right back… Welcome back to the show.
So what are your rules in terms of you live together, you raise kids together, you work together, you drive around places, you go to meals together, you're with friends. Are there rules that you have about, like, we're not talking about work in these settings, or is it all the time you talk about work?
Joe: Listen, like when you're taking a walk or on vacation, it's like the greatest time to work. So, you know, like, you know, your brain goes off for a couple of days and then suddenly you're walking through the woods and you're like, “You know, on page 25?” and like, “Yeah, I was thinking about that too.”, y’know?
So I think I think it's like what you were saying at the beginning. It's just like really being clear about a boundary. Like if I'm like, “Hey, I can't talk about work right now.” Then that's what I said.
Meg: He's really good at that. I'm terrible at it.
Joe: Meg will walk into a room and talk about something and I'm like, you know, doing the thing that we just said, I would do like.
You know, like are we writing now or am I calling the plumber?
Meg: He was really good too. Like I used to, we would go meet at Pete's in the morning before, work our grandpa's hours and you know, I'm thinking about something, or I would just plop down while he's reading and be like, okay, vaccine where he does this, it makes no sense.
Why are we doing that? And he'd be like, I'm at Pete's in the morning reading my book. Don't do that. And I just realized that's not good to do. He needs his space in the morning. To not be doing that no matter what the hell's going on in my brain. And that's my job. Like he, that's when he needs space. Because my brain is moving all the time with story.
Like it doesn't stop. Like ever stop.
Joe: One, one of the things that I really admire about Meg is I can walk in anytime and interrupt her, and she just goes to what you're talking about. Like, and I can't do that. Like I'm much more com like, I'm doing this now. And so, you know, because she's so fluid at that, I'm like, oh, well this is just my mode.
It's not the right mode. It's just my mode. So I've tried to take things from her mode of like catching myself feeling like. You know, wait, like I'm if she's ready to flow over to the script and I'm doing the plumber. Then I'm trying to work on transitions and go like, okay, right, like this is the connective moment for you.
I'm dropping this. Let's talk.
Meg: And I think that comes from me being a producer, because when you're a producer, you have to switch projects on a dime and just drop in and be really present and clear on what's happening, and then drop to the next one, and it starts the same. Somebody walks in your office about the art, about the thing.
You just gotta go. Okay, what we're talking about, the dinosaurs. They have mullets. Okay. Thank you. That really helps me with character. I'm not even on that scene, but. Thank you. So you have to grab information as it's flowing by. So I think my brain just got very used to doing that promise. It never turns off.
Joe: But the other side of that too is make so good at that fluidity. But then there's also like, the danger is that you don't ever. You know, create a boundary.
Meg: When we got great advice, because we spoke to a married couple who also write together, and we went out for dinner with them and we were like, okay, what's the one piece of advice you give people, especially when they're married and he being forward, he goes, “Drive to work in different cars.”
He was like, “Don't spend every waking hour together.” So his, there’s two rules: you drive to work in separate cars and when you're outlining or beating out the story and then you start breaking it up for people to do different parts, they were like, “Whatever you do, you have to write the version that has been created together.”
And then if you have a crazy idea that's gonna take it off left, right, backwards, forwards, you can write that too, like over on the side, but you still have to write the other version. So I was like, okay. Those are two really smart rules for collaboration that are very practical.
Lorien: We had that at Pixar, like I'd have story artists come to me and say, I have a different idea for this scene, and I have to say, great.
Do the scene that you have the script pages for, and then do the other thing. And I will check with the director to see if you can also pitch that. Right. But you have to stick to the outline because that's what you agreed on. So you mentioned not breaking the partnership. When does it get like, oops, we're on that line.
What do we need? It's easy to say, oh, you repair, you investigate, you go to therapy. But like in reality. A lot of people have broken up with each other over this, and you guys started in 2020. It's the pandemic. You're home alone all the time with your partner. You decide, hey, let's write together, which is a great way to like do something during the pandemic, but also a lot of people divorce, broke up, y’know?
Meg: I would not have, we could not, when we first got married, have written together. I don't think we were mature enough and we weren't developed enough in our own selves and in our own confidence of our own Joe was honestly, but I was nowhere near developed in that way.
So honestly, it's taken all these years of. Knowing each other and being confident enough in our own wells and abilities that we could, when you would disagree about something in the script, hold your space at the same time you're opening up to find this third solution. And you know, even that in terms of script writing.
Is this a hill you're gonna die on? Right? Like literally yesterday I said to Joe, I totally get that, and that. I hear you. I prefer the other way, but I hear you and we should try it that way. But this one is really important to me. Like it's really important to me. So can we make a deal? Like for now we'll adjust it, but it's still the same.
And then you'll read it again, and then we'll do the different, but so we're kind of bargaining, right? But I think that in terms of, you do have to have those boundaries around the marriage and when you're gonna talk about it when you're not. But I don't know. Joe, what would you say? Why? Why haven't we broken?
Joe: Listen, we have a phrase in our relationship, which is, “I'm out of the boat.” I'm out of the boat right now. We are not on the same team. We are not rowing together.” And we've both said it to each other, and that's like a red warning alert, right? And then you sit down and you start talking about why we're not in the boat.
Meg: And we can say it about the other person too.
“I don't feel like you're in the boat.”
Joe: Well, but I think we've gotten to the place where it's like, if I'm out of the boat, she knows it, so I might as well just declare myself out of the boat. Right?
Meg: You have to know your own process, which is part of the work, and then the other person's process, and how do we work well together.
I would also say that I think that. When you ask the question of how ha hasn't it broken, I think that we've gotten to a place that we're old enough and had enough therapy to. Try to stay present and be very honest about what's happening, even if it's not likable. What should be who you're supposed to be?
Like Joe and I have this song that we'll sing each other. I. I love you, even though I hate you. Like it's literally like, I literally hate you right now, but I still love you, but I fucking hate you right now because that's life. And there's something about that honesty that releases a lot of all of the other fucking trauma and weirdness that's going on.
'cause let's just be honest right now in terms of that depth of presentness and who you are. And so what we're all, I guess what I'm talking about is trust. Any collaborative process, be that with a producer, another writer, an executive, there has to be trust, right? There has to be some shred of trust. And that trust can come through that kind of, especially with a writing partner, honesty about it.
Lorien: There's so much in any kind of relationship. And a writing relationship is particularly hard because you have to put yourself out there, you have to be vulnerable in the process and on the page, and-
Meg: But then you have to take that into, we're all artists and artists, we put ourselves and the people we know into the work.
Lorien: Mm-hmm.
Meg: So once Joe was pitching to me about a female character and I was like, all of a sudden I was like, “Wait a minute. What? Do you think that about me?”
Like I literally was like oh, she re, she's that. Is she like it? That's a whole other layer that starts where I'm kind of pitching myself when I'm also pitching you, because you don't even realize that you're pitching each other because you're just drawing, drawing, drawing.
But that's great, right? Like, everything we're talking about is about relationships and when is the person ready, when are they not? Where are they blind? What's their process? The triggers, all of that actually could, has to go into the script, right? And our blind spots are our defensiveness. The other person is gonna poke them, right?
Like, I don't want that character to be this. Okay? Why not? That might be just what it is or it's more about yourself or what you're trying to project. So it's a very deep process to be artists together.
Lorien: When I was talking to Noah Baumbach and Emily Mortimer about Jake Kelly, Noah said, “Everyone says my work is autobiographical, but I look at as everything in my work is personal.”
And 'cause we were talking about lava and I thought that yes. It's such a good definition. 'cause everything we write is personal.
Meg: And it might be we're currently writing characters who are our best self, or who we wanna be, or who we wish we were, or the fantasy version of ourselves or whatever. And we don't even know that until somebody starts poking at it.
Right? In terms of you're like, no, she would never do that. And you're thinking, because I do that and I hate that, I do that.
Lorien: We'll be right back… Welcome back to the show.
Shared Mission. Shared Mission, in the partnership, shared mission on a creative concept, how do you make sure that you're writing about the same thing and what happens when one of you notices in the other one? Like that sort of clash against each other.
Meg: Can I just say, when I was a producer, multiple times I would have writing teams come in, or a writer and a director, and as an executive I would start asking questions about what they pitched and suddenly they're arguing with each other in front of me and I was like.
Okay. You guys have not thought about this and not had enough deep conversations and you don't know politically you should not argue in front of me because now I'm absolutely not buying this. But so I think about that a lot and we, I think Joe's a director and so I do often, let him lead there, because I'm going to direct with Joe, but I'm not a director.
Joe is a director. So, there's areas where I think we allow each other to lead, but we have to do a lot of talking.
Joe: Well, I wanna address something that, or go back to something that you brought up, which is, I don't think we could have done this, you know, at this level. When we were young, and I love when Meg's saying she's reading the script and something I've written and she's like, oh, is that what Joe thinks about me?
Because I have that too. I'm like, wait a minute. And you know it, but I'm, I've come to really enjoy that. I like, it's such a gift that's the medium by which your partner tells you something about yourself. You know what I mean? And you can experience it and you know, go, oh, okay. You know, if it's good and oh, okay.
It's, if it's you know, something that you find less than flattering and that's just taken a long time to build up that, you know, muscle. In collaboration or in conjunction with the fact that we both have really distinct strengths as writers. You know, and I think like if I hate to quantify it or qualify it because, you know, I think we're both good at so many things.
When makes funny, she's really funny and it's so unexpected. And when she does a piece of action, I'm like, oh, okay. That's a really interesting take. So, but you know, I wouldn't say like, at the beginning of the relationship writing together, those were things that she was that interested in and now she's become really interested in them.
She's interested in the overarching story structure as her primary. Like she just wants to build the skyscraper. And then I think I'm really good with scene craft. I mean, I get, I can build the skyscraper, you know what I mean? But like just that she has that facility. So I, we talk in the same language all the time, but I talk maybe in some smaller, like scene craft or behavior or those kind of things.
So the reason it works is because we both have our own lane, but we also Venn diagram really well, and we have a shared, you know, language which has taken, you know, a lifetime to build. So, you know, I think that's why when we come to these impasses. That we have the skillset as makes as we talk a lot.
It's not like a conversation in which you're having a tug of war. It's a conversation in which you're having a conversation until you both agree, you both have to go. I love that, and that's what makes the two voices. come together in a way that are harmonious. Because you know, you both love it.
Meg: How crazy is this process that it takes all that time to both go, “Okay, I love that. I love that.” And then you get notes from your manager and he's like, “I don't get that.” And you're like, “Oh my God.”
Lorien: I like the idea that you're working to a shared love of it, rather than who wins in a disagreement or who is gonna, yeah, who's gonna win?
It's more about what do we both love? And getting there can be really hard because first you have to figure out what you love and not be influenced by how much the other person loves it, especially if it was your idea. Right? So there's a lot of personal and interpersonal negotiation constantly going on about external validation and internal validation about ideas.
And that sort of, Do I love this? Do I love it because he loves it?
Meg: Yeah, if you love it, but sometimes you still are gonna lose it. Like yesterday, part of the meltdown was he changed something that I loved and I was proud of. I was really proud of it. It doesn't mean it worked, it doesn't mean it needs to stay, but it creates a reaction.
Joe: But her saying that she loved it spawned a conversation in which she flipped my point of view on the whole thing, including how the scene was quote unquote directed. We're not directing the movie, obviously, but you're meeting on the page. We're writing a script. It's very much a script, but just even the sort of, where are we starting, you know, those kind of small things.
It was about being trapped. Right? And when she got to that word and whatever we got, whatever specific by leading into what you love and spawned the conversation that then I loved it too. I was like, that's right. “Okay. I see it now. I just misread it.”
Lorien: So basically it's about trust, vulnerability, honesty, all those really easy things.
Meg: Commitment.
Joe: Courage to say what I love. And if somebody, quote unquote, rejects what you love, then try again and keep talking about what you love. You know, just stay in the conversation. Don't get smaller because you've taken a chance to say, I love something. Stay in that. Stay in that place of, no, I hear you, but it's still, I love this feeling that she's under this thing.
“Well, we can't do that in a private jet.” “Well, I love that.” Then you're like, and it went back and forth and it was like, “Oh.” Y’know? Something just was, there was something tacit in the way Meg wrote it that needed to be teased up to the top, and you could have a big argument over that. Or it could just, you just work the taffy until it like pops we're like, “There's the pearl. Oh, yes.”
Meg: And you know, any collaboration, be that with your writing partner, your producer, whoever. You have to know yourself or try to stay present with yourself to know, is this my ego or is this about the story? Like, is this about, “Oh my God, you've said no to everything and you're gonna say yes to something?”
Like, because of my ego, I get some too. I get to win something. Right? I don't have that issue with Joe, but I've had it with other collaboration. Or, no it's really about the story and I cannot, I'm like a dog with a bone now. Like again, whether we change it or not, I really need you to understand that intuitively, so much of this story is built in my brain on this idea, so if we change it, I'm just worried the whole house of cards is gonna fall down in my brain because I built it on this idea and movement
Joe: And why I understood where Meg was coming from was because we both believed the whole DNA of the movie is in that first scene, right? As I'm sure you do. So I understood that I was picking away at the house of cards or picking away at it, but it's also like, but that gets you to the pearl, right?
There's something where it's bumping me. Because I'm looking for the DNA as well, and that's that shared language of 30 years of understanding. Like, it all has to be encoded in this moment. And we have two, we have twin protagonists, so then we moved on to his scene and that wasn't quite right. And you're changing her scene.
You're changing his scene. They're in relationship. We just haven't got the click. But we'll get there. And that's also why we're okay with the kind of unknowing of the process because when you get to that click, it's like so great. You know? So it's like, like worth the candy.
Meg: Yeah. And for our, you know, emerging writers or anybody out there, like you we're talking about the opening scene and we're talking about how we meet them.
And we're talking about where they are starting as characters before they meet up each other, which is a pull of their character. It's gotta visually also match up to the moment that they shift and change or they don't. Because one can change and one can be a claiming character, whatever, but like.
That the, there's gonna be a lot of discussion and Lorraine, you know this from Pixar. There's so much discussion about opening scenes and meeting characters because they are the whole movie and they're also the poles of their character to create the structure. And so it just, they are going to take time and they're gonna blow up over and over again.
We're working on another idea to take in a Netflix and pitch, and I said to Joe the other day, I think you're right about what this opening scene. Is or could be, but how it executes and what it is, I have no idea because we don't have a third act yet, so we're just gonna literally put a pin in it. Right.
Like, and Joe was like yeah. That's just a stand it. Like we know it's just there as a maybe kind of sorta, but we have to so much work before we're gonna get know what that is.
Lorien: So practically speaking, are you splitting up the script into different scenes? Do you work on a whole draft? Are you looking at chunks?
I know you have a whiteboard, you're carting it. But like, are you rewriting the same scene? How are you writing practically?
Joe: The sharing has changed, you know, during the process. So intense intense intense sharing, during the iteration and the pitching phase. You know, I think what, like in one phase I just write 30 pages and then, you know, just get us started and then she comes in and goes, takes it to 60 sometimes.
Right now we're really close to the end. I mean, of this draft. So, you know, Meg's taken a couple of drafts and we said you'll just operate as the writer and I'll stand outside the process. Now, you know, we've traded off a lot and I'll stand outside the process. So somebody's outside and you'll take us through a couple of drafts.
So, you know, and I'll just give you notes, which is what she's done. And then now for the first time in like, maybe two drafts, I am writing again. You know, so, and that's a big thing because she's gotten a lot of ownership right. Of the last couple of drafts and now it has to kind of come back. And so I think and I think what we're doing is we're trying to.
I'm just hanging out in the firehouse and she's writing. And then when, you know, like starting Monday, she'll yell out, Hey, what about this? And I just have we have to now work together very closely again to like, you know, land it on the carrier because, you know, we are gonna turn it in soon. We, so now there's a lot of back and forth, but the critical conversation we had yesterday about that opening scene for both of them.
Is huge because that's our, you know, that's our destination, right? We're pointing the ship in the right direction. And so, you know, we land in London when we leave from New York, you know? The compass is, we're trying to set the compass so that the rest of the writing is, you know, easy and we can turn this around in a couple of days.
Meg: You're at the stage where one of you is gonna be like, “Okay, I'm just gonna take the draft and write.” You know, Joe's gone off to work on the other idea and he's spitballing, puke drafting that idea. So then we can start trading back and forth on whole scripts, you know, because it works for some teams to say, “I'll take this scene. You take that scene.”
And we have done that, and we will do that again. But sometimes you just need to, as a writer, say “Okay, I'm gonna write, I'm gonna just write this and just push through and you go do something else, and you go do another idea or spitball ideas.” I think that works the best for us, but every team and every writer is gonna be different.
Lorien: All right. Here we are, where I get to ask you the three questions we ask every guest. Joe, you're gonna go first. What brings you the most joy when it comes to your work?
Joe: Getting to do it.
Lorien: Meg?
Meg: Having done it. It depends on the day. Today, I just wanna have done it, but there are days where I love getting lost in the character's taking over.
That's my favorite part, but I'm not there right now.
Joe: It's a great way to spend your time, in the flow state, in the creative state. The process is just, I love process. So.
Lorien: All right Meg, this one's for you to go first. What pisses you off about your work?
Meg: What pisses me off about writing is…
Honestly, I mostly get pissed off when I get a note and I know it's right and I didn't rise to that. I don't know, it's something in my brain. It's probably how I was raised that I didn't hit the mark and then I just have to move through the fuck you, fuck me, what's next stage? So, really that's what I have to work on.
Lorien: Joe?
Joe: I think sometimes I overwrite. I think I have to write to figure out what I'm thinking and so I have to go back and then strip it out and strip it out and strip it out. You know, it's just sort of the way I find the emotional depth. So it's, you know, it’s just, I wish I could kind of get there faster.
And I struggle with reading, so, you know, you have to do a lot of reading to do writing and that, that can be a pain. But you know, hills to overcome.
Lorien: And last, what is your proudest career moment to date, together and individually?
Meg: My proudest moment was I was asked to go accept an award for Inside Out for Pete Docter and the team here in LA and I went and at the reception, a woman walked up to me and said, “I work the county of Los Angeles and you have made my job so much easier with this movie.”
And I was like, “What's your job?
And she said, “I'm a psychiatrist who goes in the night of the trauma, the incident for the children. And I work with them on trying to help them with their trauma that is just so recent and fresh. And your movie now means I can immediately talk to them. I can immediately understand. And have a language with them so that they can talk to me and tell me where they are and what they need.”
And I thought, “Wow, what else do you need to do in your life other than help people communicate to each other about their interiors and their vulnerabilities and their emotions.”
And so it, I was very proud to be part of the team that put that in the world. Then, I think my proudest moment collaborating, there's so many. But the most recent one was when we turned in the script to Netflix and it got so well received and there.
I don't know, I just felt like, “Yeah we've done this, we're collaborating. We can do this together. And it works, you know?” Where it's gonna go. I don't know because that's my anxiety talking. But for that moment, I was really proud of the hard work. And that we got to that stage. Joe, what about you?
Joe: I was staying at a motel in a remote place and I came in late and I had to text the owner 'cause the place was closed. And the next morning I was walking out and she walked up to me and said, “I Googled you last night.”
And I was like, “Okay.” She goes, “I saw you're a filmmaker. We watched your film.” And then she got tears in my her eyes and said, “It was so beautiful, The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur.” And I was just like, “Oh my god.” You know, like that's what it's all about. Like touching another person with something that's, you know, meaningful to you.
That was great and so unexpected. And it goes from like uh-oh, I'm in Psycho now to, you know, a beautiful moment. I think career-wise shared, I mean, there's a lot, but Meg and I, in October did a event and we invited Jodie Foster to come and we got to interview her in front of a large crowd of writers, you were there.
And you know, that was, it was just so beautiful to have both gotten our career starts with Jodie, to come around full circle and, you know, get to sort of elevate and celebrate our mentor and show her our offices. And, you know, we're in the same bungalow as Mary Pickford. And Jodie was like, “Oh, that's, you know, United artists and United artists became Orion.
And Orion made silence, right?” It's like, it was just like standing there with Jodie and just all that little simple history. And so, you know, just like… Yeah, it was great just to be able to be able to sort of honor her, honor us, and and get amazing answers to, you know, such wisdom.
Lorien: Well, thank you so much for being on the show, and I feel particularly inspired in my own personal relationships and professional relationships to be more present.
I think that is really what I took away from this. That you're both working so hard to be present as you are and to communicate that. Am I in the boat? Am I not in the boat? Sort of shared mission. And I think that's where a lot of partnerships break apart creatively. Like are you all going down the same road, facing in the same direction, with the same goal in mind? And in long-term relationships that can get so confusing as people grow and learn and change and have different opportunities.
So, thank you. That made me feel great. And I love hearing about your story and your journey. I’ve known both of you for so long and it's really great to hear you both talk about this. So thank you for being on the show. We'd love to have you back sometime. So thank you so much for being on the show today.
Meg: Thank you. Thank you.
Joe: Thank you. Lovely to be here.
Lorien: The Screenwriting Life is produced and edited by Alex Alcheh with audio engineering and mixing by Urban Olson. For more support, find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, and you can also head over to thescreenwritinglife.com to learn more about TSL workshops where we have a growing library.
Prerecorded workshops covering everything from core craft, like character want, and outlining a feature, to the business side of writing, including how to navigate the elusive general meeting. We also host two live Zooms each month where you can talk with me and Meg about what projects you're working on.
The link to sign up is in the episode description, and if you have any questions, you can always reach out to thescreenwritinglife@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, and remember, you are not alone and keep writing.
