279 | Rian Johnson on Writing High-Concept Stories with Deep Emotional Stakes

Rian Johnson (KNIVES OUT, LOOPER, STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI) joins Meg for a deep craft conversation about balancing bold, high-concept ideas with intimate emotional storytelling.

Rian breaks down how character - not plot mechanics - is the engine behind mystery, world-building, and genre, from crafting unforgettable character introductions to using theme as a dramatic misdirection tool. They also explore how emotion drives high-concept rules, how to write suspects with clarity, and why outlining is essential when juggling complex narratives.

A masterclass in marrying big ideas with human stakes from one of today’s most distinctive storytellers.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Meg: Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Meg LeFauve, and today I'm joined by Rian Johnson, a two-time Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated filmmaker, known for telling bold, distinctive stories across an incredible range of genres. His films include Knives Out, Glass Onion, Looper, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Meg: Through his company T-Street, with creative partner Ron Bergman, Rian also co-created and executive produced the hit Emmy nominated series Poker Face, and Executive produced the Sci-Fi Series 3 Body Problem. His latest film Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is the third installment in the beloved whodunit murder mystery franchise, and is now streaming on Netflix.

Meg: I am so thrilled and a huge fan to have Rian Johnson here. So Rian, welcome to the podcast!

Rian: Thank you so much for having me.

Meg: Rian's been a good sport and he's gonna do our first segment, which is Adventures in Screenwriting or “how was your week?” I'll start really quickly. My week was still writing. Yes, we're getting towards the holidays, but I am, you know, pages are due and, we had so many balls in the air. I don't, Rian, I'm saying this to the master of balls in the air. So I say this with a small caveat, not as many as you, but that we were trying to work in a rewrite, my writing partner and I, that honestly we forgot one of the balls completely, which is the antagonist.

Meg: Like, 'cause we were almost ready to think, okay, we're ready-

Rian: It’s a pretty big ball.

Meg: It's a pretty big ball! Yeah. In terms of the note came in to change who he is in terms of he's not a boyfriend, he's an uncle, something like that.

Rian: Okay.

Meg: I just, you gotta take the time to go, Well then what is the difference between an uncle and a boyfriend?

Meg: And therefore, what's his backstory? And the motive actually starts to change. It was very interesting to see that. 'cause you're going in so many directions and you think, well, that's a, that's an easy fix and we'll just go through and fix it. And they're like, Nope, nope, nope, nope. It's completely different and we need some space.

Meg: And I realized that I had an actor in my head as I wrote this character. So I went and looked at this actor, when he's an antagonist and started to see, oh, this, he always has a very clear philosophy of his behavior.

Rian: Mm-hmm.

Meg: That he could tell you, right? That he could tell you, I believe in fate. 

Rian: Right?

Meg: So I'm helping fate, like he has a whole worldview. So it was really fun to take a moment, stop the speeding trains and say, let's just dive into something that we're missing, which is this guy's philosophy and how he sees things. So that was my week in terms of really digging into the why of a character.

Meg: Why is he doing this deeply? And then hitting a little burnout, but I think everybody is, at this time of year, I don't know. How are you feeling? Are you feeling the burnout of the year or are you just flying high from your amazing film, which we're gonna talk about today.

Rian: Well, no, I mean, kind of both.

Rian: I, it's been. I mean, writing wise, I have, I have a thing I'm, I'm writing that I'm still in kind of notebooking outlining phase on, but I have been so busy with the movie promotion for the past few weeks slash month and, and that's a whole thing unto itself because it, it's I'm looking forward to doing it right now.

Rian: That, but it's interesting. Talking about a movie that is already made and what that does to your head in terms of being in the creative process of actually writing a new one.

Meg: Does it make you overthink or is it helpful?

Rian: I don't, it's definitely not helpful. It's, it's, it's a weird thing where it, because you end up analyzing a finished film and looking back on what your process was for that film, and it's such a different thing than finding your way forward with something new in a way.

Rian: This process of talking about the film is, is a, I personally find myself losing touch with what the actual process was of making it, if that makes sense. It's because it becomes an object outside of myself that I'm talking about, and other people are talking about. It becomes this thing that becomes suddenly foreign to me in certain ways as opposed to when you're writing something, your hands are in the dirt.

Rian: It can be you really, you're moving big things around. You're not being precious or thinking about it as kind of this polished, finished thing you're really working with. Working with the dirt

Meg: One is kind of, you're like in the bright light of day and you can talk about it, and the other one you're like splunking, right?

Meg: You're like, and it's very hard to describe to people the spelunking. 'cause you're like, well, we didn't know. I know that, you know now, but we didn't know at that time.

Rian: No, exactly. It's, yeah, that's, that's, that's a good analogy for it. So, but also, I'm just trying to, so I'm, I'm also, this week has been, which finally started to slow down a little in terms of interviews, but I haven't yet gotten back on the horse of actually engaging my head in the writing.

Rian: So I'm still in that, in that InBetween place this week.

Meg: Do you have any process when you, when you're gonna go back in and you're like, today I am doing it, or do you have any processes, do you, or rituals or do you, are you the kind of “dive in” guy.

Rian: I need a certain amount of panic that I'm way beyond my deadline.

Meg: Oh my God, you and I. Me too.

Rian: Yeah. That's the most useful tool in our toolbox. That's part of our screenwriter's toolbox.

Meg: That's right.

Rian: Part of it, I think, is. The diving into the pool thing is a little apt because the pool's always a little chilly and you kind of have to force yourself to dive in, even if you know you're gonna love it once you're in there.

Rian: So part of it is just kind of forcing you, so there's nothing, it's just blunt force. It's just making yourself sit down and, and focus on this thing and start, start writing words and thinking about it. And then it's, hopefully it starts to roll.

Meg: Yeah, sometimes I'm like, just open the document, Meg, just open it.

Meg: Start to read some stuff. Yeah. And you can go play that farm game on your phone in an hour and a half if you sit here for an hour and a half.

Rian: Yeah exactly.

Meg: You could, you could do it. All right. Well we are gonna talk about the movie because we are so fascinated. I am so fascinated. I'm saying we, because our producer's a huge fan and you've got a big fan club here off, off mic.

Meg:, But we would love to dig into your brain, hopefully maybe in a new, different way in terms of a writer perspective, in terms of we have emerging writers that listen, but also pro writers. So we'll kind of take it from both angles. You know, this is your third Blanc mystery. For you as a creator, what pulls you back to this world?

Meg: Why, why do you feel the need to do another one with him?

Rian: Well, that's a really good question. I mean, I guess part of it is that part of it has to do with the genre itself and kind of, you know, when I wrote the first one, I had no idea that we would make more than one of them. And once we, it became clear that we could, what I got excited about was the idea of how many.

Rian: Different variations of the murder mystery, there were, and even, even with Agatha Christie's books, like she was trying something different with every book. And the notion that this a blanc mystery can be knives out. It can also be something as big and wacky as Glass Onion. And then it can be something more grounded like this third one, but, and that we can also use it to explore different things and also to kind of encompass different sub genres.

Rian: It just, it felt, that felt genuinely exciting. And I also, it is one of my favorite genres. I just, it, for me, it's a joy just kind of, you know, digging into it. I love the tropes of it. I love the ways that good authors kind of twist those tropes.

Rian: I love, I love the fact that it's essentially a character based genre and that there's that for all the plotting and everything, the reality is that these, the engine, you know, the car doesn't run if you don't have the engine of a good character based story inside of it. So I like the discipline of that. So-

Meg: -I can feel when I watch them how much you love it. And, and I think that's part of the special sauce. And we tell emerging writers all the time, right? Not what you love in terms of the world, but the genre you love, what you keep watching! Because you know it innately just know it. So, and I love how each one is tonally specific.

Meg: Let's say so. Mm-hmm. When you're beginning a new one, where do you start? Where are you starting now in the cold pool? Do you start with the mystery mechanics? Are you starting with that engine? Is it different depending on, you know, where you are and who you are and what you're tackling?

Rian: For me, I'd like to, it starts with kind of two free floating things that have to kind of connect. It starts with not necessarily the mystery part, but the genre part. Like specifically kind of what the, I dunno, I do tend to think in terms of genre. So in the, with the Blanc mysteries, it is kind of okay, what kind of whodunit is it?

Rian: With Wake Up Dead Man, that was me realizing, okay, I can do an impossible crime whodunit. Which is the specific thing that we try in this one. But then there's also sort of the I hate to use the word theme, 'cause theme sounds like a boring, dirty word. I know a lot of writers hate the word theme for me.

Rian: I don't mean theme in terms of like a message or, social message or anything like that. For me, theme is kind of just what the thing is essentially is about the question that I'm sort of asking myself with it

Meg: Emotionally, because you're pointing to your chest like that heart, the heart question.

Rian: It's absolutely gotta be an emotion based heart question and-

Rian: And so in this movie it was, it was faith and kind of my history. With faith and growing up Christian and not being Christian anymore. And so it's when I, but really the process starts when those two things kind of click together and I realize they can serve each other. So the notion of a, whodunit with all the moral implications of guilt and everything that comes with that, and an impossible crime, which seems miraculous.

Rian: And the idea of that genre being able to really not just fit over a story that tries to have a conversation about faith but actually clicks together and they can drive each other. And that's kinda where, where, where it sort of actually begins is thinking about how those two things are gonna

Meg: Come together.

Rian: Yeah.

Meg: And when you're working with a reoccurring character. Like Benoit Blanc.

Rian: Mm-hmm.

Meg: He is also part of that theme. He's not kind of this extra person who walks into all these characters on that theme. He seemed to have a moment or more of faith and questions of faith and, you know, normally it would be easy to say he doesn't change, he's just the detective, but he is struggling too.

Meg: Is that kind of, how did you do that in everyone? Is that how you're keeping him fresh? 'cause you know, obviously self parody becomes a danger. When you're repeating him, what, what was your approach to him?

Rian: Yeah.

Meg: With this theme?

Rian: Well, yeah, I mean, I, I feel like part of my global approach to, to Blanc in these movies is to, is to not really think of him too much outside of the scope of each individual movie, which would seem like it works against what you're saying, but I I think it actually ends up working for it because.

Rian: You know, it's not like I plan out a big backstory for him. It's not like I write out kind of where he came from or how he became a detective. I really want to be discovering him myself in each movie. And I only want to be discovering him through his, what he's actually doing in each movie, which is, yes, solving the mystery.

Rian: But more than that, all of these movies are centered around. His relationship with the protagonist. So in this film that means that as opposed to bringing in kind of the Blanc that we know from the backstory outside these movies, it means he's showing up and I can spend all of the real estate that I have.

Rian: Building his relationship with Josh O'Connor's character, which is going to be connected to the theme, is gonna mean that he is gonna reckon with the things that our main character's reckoning with, in this case, faith and you know, then it means I can, I'm not beholden to anything. It means I can make the choice to have him.

Rian: The opposite side of Josh in terms of faith at the beginning of it, which is the strongest, dramatic choice.

Meg: Right.

Rian: So, and gives them the farthest to go in terms of forging our relationships. So, to me, it helps me make sure that Blanc is gonna feel alive in each movie. If he's there to do his purpose in the film, and I feel like I can kind of shape him around that, I guess.

Meg: I love that. And I thought, I won't, no spoilers, but I thought his choice, his character choice and his own climactic character choice in the third act was quite beautiful and emotional. And it served a plot twist for sure, but it was a much deeper, clear character moment. I thought it was very moving.

Meg: I also just loved the character introduction of Father Judd. Like I literally whooped because I loved it so much when I was at Pixar. Andrew Stanton would say, when do I fucking love your main character? When do I love them? And all I could think Rian was, oh my God, I love him in the first five seconds of the movie.

Meg: I just love him and he can do anything now because it was, I thought it was genius. I thought it was active. It was thematic, it was character, and it was plot, it was everything. And I'm not gonna tell people what it is. 'cause you have to see the movie. Yeah. It was everything in 15 seconds.

Rian: Oh man.

Meg: To me it's just, I loved it so much and I loved when he comes very quickly, he's gonna move to this new parish, which we're very early in the movie, like, like 10 minutes in.

Meg: Yeah. And he says, I'm young, dumb, and full of Christ. And I was like. I thought I couldn't love you more, but I do. And of course it's great acting and he's an amazing actor and brought so much, but the writing of that opening 15 minutes.

Rian: Oh, I appreciate it.

Meg: Oh my gosh. I think everybody should watch it. If you wanna be a writer.

Meg: I'm just saying. You just gotta so I know there's not a question in there. There's just a lot of like fandom, but I'm gonna, I do have a question.

Rian: Yeah.

Meg: Which is, so we often ask people for a craft question for our audience, and we have asked in the past how what is a great character introduction for you.

Meg: You have to introduce so many characters so fast.

Rian: Yeah.

Meg: They all have backstories that are important to a mystery.

Rian: Yeah.

Meg: Do you approach character introduction in any kind of specific way?

Rian: Well, I mean, yeah, the ideal thing, and I mean it's, this is, I mean, part of and I won't, I won't spoil it either, but, and I appreciate Meg, those kind words.

Rian: I really appreciate those. Part, part of Joe's introduction is also essentially. I basically give him a Disney Princess “I Want” song. I mean, when he’s doing-

 Meg: You do!

Rian: No, when he is doing his little tribunal, I just have him say it. I say, I just want “blank”. And then there you go. That's you. That's what you're aiming for at the ending.

Rian: Let's put him through hell and then have him learn that in the way he didn't expect it. So, and I think with each of the characters, I mean. That is definitely the hardest thing about writing one of these movies is you just, you have to have six to eight suspects and you have to introduce them all in the first act, and they all have to be very different from each other.

Rian: And yet crystal clear in terms of, and I think that's with a good character introduction, I think I'm always, I'm, I'll say, I'm usually going for clarity in these movies specifically. There's very little room to leave. Somebody hazy. You kind of want the audience to have a very firm grip on who the person is, what's wrong with them, what's driving them from, from the very, very start.

Rian: Yeah. You, you just don't have-

Meg: So what's their problem and what do they want, like how do they feel they're gonna solve that problem? Yeah. Though some of them you don't know the “want” until later. Right? That you, they may know, I feel like you, the writer know, but you're letting us know really specific times.

Meg: And they're all so specific.

Rian: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, you see, you see basically their, their problem I guess right away, the thing that is, yeah. You have to get them in different ways. I mean, obviously it's, it's the suspects. You're trying to do that as well as you can. The, the, the really important one though is your you know-

Rian: Yout Protagonist and your antagonist, which in this movie are Josh O'Connor and and essentially Josh Brolin at least Josh Brolin kind of is the firmest, clearest embodiment of the thing that is the antagonist for, for Josh.

Meg: And you give me a scene, and I'm taking inspiration from this as I go to work on the antagonist in my film.

Meg: You give me a scene with Josh Brolin. That is so, “I wanna talk to you have something to talking about”. It's so funny. And yet, so chilling and there's narration happening of how our protagonist is realizing what's happening to him. Yeah. I'll let, I, I think it's in the beginning of the filming, he's taking confession of this priest and he's realizing it's total bullshit and he's just doing this to manipulate, play with me, and, and it's so…SHOCKING.

Rian: Yeah.

Meg: That it just makes you peek like what is happening. So you're really in the main character's point of view. Like, wait, what is happening? Yeah. He's really saying that. Again, but he's so delicious as an antagonist because he is so intentional. He is. Having his own kind of such specific pushback and a creative, innovative character way!

Meg: It tells me so much about him. But clarity, you said the word clarity. Yeah. Every script has to have clarity, but specifically now we've got, you've got so many balls in the air. How do you manage that on the page? So an example would be. When we meet one of the suspects.

Rian: mm-hmm.

Meg: She is taking care of a boy that her dad brought home many years ago, and on the page, her dialogue, she seems, yeah, she's fine with him and it's totally fine.

Meg: But as a director, you're showing me looks, you're showing me all of the emotion that she's totally lying. How do you do that on the page? How do you keep the character mystery clear?

Rian: I'd have to go back and look to see if I actually gave any indications of it in scene direction or in parentheticals.

Rian: And sometimes it's worth doing that. I mean, the ideal thing is I, I, the ideal thing is that it's clear from, from the actual dialogue you get the context and all of that. But when you're writing a script that is going to be dense for all these other reasons. I'm, there's part of my brain that's always, besides the viewer, because I know I'm gonna direct it.

Rian: I know it'll be fine on the screen, but I, you do have to also think about the reader. I'm always thinking about the reader and their experience. So, if you can, you know, hopefully in sort of an artful way, if something is ambiguous like that, give a little bit of a hint as to, and I think I might have, I think in the script I might have said something like, you know, Vera's eyes get cold, or something like that, you know, just-

Meg: -But that's so great!

Meg: It's so, it's so short, right? It's so quick.

Rian: Yeah. Yeah. And it's something that I might have even done that and then maybe been smart enough to take that out before I gave the script to Kerry Washington who played that part, because that's something that I think an actor never needs to read. It's like, “how do I make my eyes go cold?”

Rian: But it's it, or you know, it, it's something that is gonna, if it's not clear, the actor, then when we sit down and talk it quickly will be and I want them to be able to figure out how to embody that. And Carrie, obviously, she, you know, she doesn't need any help. But thinking of the reader, I think I wonder actually just on the page, usually from the context you find, you do tend to kind of be in the headspace of the character.

Rian: And just the way that that character in that scene, the way that Vera is talking about her son and kind of justifying it in the way she kinda sharply corrects Father Judd when he says you became a lawyer, you'll take over your family practice. And she kind of became a lawyer. 'cause I wanted to do great things, but I can't do those things 'cause I'm here, trapped taking care of this-

Meg: So she is saying it? She is saying it. Yeah, you're right. So in terms of the actual plot mechanics and the mystery I think you've been quoted as saying the movie's one step ahead of the audience, but not 10 steps, in terms of that clarity. You don't wanna give it away. But you got a lot to set up for the end.

Meg: And you need the audience to stay with you narratively. So how do you evaluate a scene? You've written a scene. How do you evaluate that scene in terms of that overall movement that you're trying to, are you outlining? Are you carding? Like how do you do it?

Rian: So I, I extensively outline and I, I work just in little pocket sized moleskin notebooks.

Rian: And the way I do it, I just do it with like a line with cross hatches on the line and I'll map that out for the act or for the, the ideal thing, by the time I'm done outlining, I can do the whole movie on one page, those pocket sized mole things, laid out just kind of sequence by sequence.

Rian: For me, it's, it, it is kind of you're thinking about, I mean, and hopefully this, and this is also part of the reason why it really helps me to keep it in that form for as long as possible. I hold off actually typing pages for as late as I can in the process, and I will be working in those notebooks, not just doing those diagrams.

Rian: I'll be sometimes even writing dialogue. I'll be writing character notes, I'll be writing ideas for scenes, just kind of doing free thinking stuff. I spend the first 80% of the process overall just in those notebooks. For me it is important because the misdirect, as you say, of sort of the genre of the mystery of like, okay, where am I headed?

Rian: And that means what do I want the audience to be thinking? The only way that I know how to accomplish that kind of misdirect is not through planting little clues or little things in the scenes. The only way I know how to actually misdirect the audience is dramatically. Is to sweep them along in a dramatic current that is taking them, taking their eyes where I want their eyes to go.

Rian: And that means thinking in terms of. Again, it's, it's, the basics is in, in any given scene, who's the character, who wants something, why can't they get it? And, you know, by the end of the scene they get it or they don't, but something completely changes. And so it's thinking in terms of that as being your main, the thing that you're doing, the, you know, the card magician doing this, so the audience looks here while you're slipping something in your pocket. That's, that's the only tool for me that I've found that that consistently works-

Meg: Is to get them dramatically looking one direction. And you don't notice that this other thing that happened.

Rian: Well, and also that means that when you're on, and this is more of a directing thing, but when you're on set, anytime an actor starts asking you 3D chess questions about, wait a minute, what am I thinking here? Because this and this and this and this. You can tell them-

Rian: Just play as honestly as possible the scene as written on the page. Just play the dramatic stakes of what's right in front of you in terms of the scene. And don't worry about all that stuff. That all that stuff will be there and it'll work itself out.

Meg: I love that and it's good for us to remember as writers too, just be in the scene where you are right now.

Meg: I just wanna talk a moment and then we're gonna move on to some of your other films about the, thematic, this faith question, and you said it came from your own upbringing. I was raised Catholic, not anymore, but it's always in you, those questions of faith and values and sometimes I talk to emerging writers about how at Pixar or other places I've worked, we would just start with a word.

Meg: Because we don't yet have, as other people would say, a thesis about it, an insight about it. But we know for the director, it's somewhere around this. It's somewhere around forgiveness, it's somewhere around, and then the writing and the churning is kind of starting to help us understand. What it is he's trying to say or she's trying to say because they don't even know at the beginning if you are trying to create these amazing hatch marks of the plot.

Meg: Are you also still in your drafts learning emotionally what you're talking about? Or are you the kind of person who you really have to know what your insight, emotional insight is about? Faith? Right? You know, which comes first is a little, you know, mine is, I have to go through the drafts in order to really find it, articulate it.

Meg: It's just a feeling? Or do you really like to think it out?

Rian: It, it's, it's a little bit of a combo. I won't, and I guess the way that I would phrase it is it's and this is how it can both be kind of clear, but also for me, but in terms of my perspective on the thing and also be a process of discovery, is that-

Rian: I'm not kind of expecting to get to an answer for myself by the end of it per se. I think I start maybe with a little bit more of the fully formed perspective on what the question is and what I, how I feel about, about the question at the start. And then as I'm working through that step by step, that does actually, you know-

Rian: Develop it, it rarely flips to the opposite thing, but I find that I end up learning so much about it. For me, it is, I do start with something that's a little more developed than just like a basic notion or it's not like I just started with the word faith. I started with a very, kind of, very, kind of clear but complicated.

Rian: Notion about specifically, I grew up in the Evangelical church and I was very personally Christian up through my early twenties. And I grew up sort of in a time when it was Reagan era kind of politics, sweeping Christianity into it and where those two things were starting to fuse in a way that I feel like-

Rian: Has just continued and can, and maybe even curdled a bit more today in today's politics. And so I was thinking in terms of my perspective on that. But then I was also thinking in terms of my perspective on faith itself and the things that I truly valued about when I was a Christian and the things that I feel like myself as a secular man in his fifties now, the things I kind of wish I feel like I need more of in myself.

Rian: That I saw in myself when I was a Christian, when I was in my twenties, and wanting to reclaim those things for me. So it's coming into it with a little bit more of a developed idea, but it, you're trying to, that's the other element of it as you're outlining it, that's why it also helps me outlining.

Rian: Every, you know, if you do it right, every single scene is some meditation on that theme, is some reflection on that theme, has something that questions that theme for you and, and pulls, draws a little more out of you on the topic. You know?

Meg: Because every character in their own way is prisming that theme.

Meg: I think sometimes emerging writers have different themes for different characters, and I'm like, no, it's all, if the theme is deep enough about being a human being,

Rian: Yeah.

Meg: It can prism into how they're all dealing with that question.

Rian: Well, that's the way that I approach the suspects.

Rian: Essentially, I think about the central hub, which is the theme, and then for example, in this movie. Every single character, every single suspect reflects a different fragment in my experience with faith growing up, whether it's kind of the raw emotional need of wanting. Faith to take pain away. That kaleigh's character, the cello player represents whether it's a basic bitterness and kind of a, I mean, honestly growing up in the church as a, as a young man, there was a real element of kind of sublimated misogyny that was there and, and putting that.

Rian: Exploring that through the character of the doctor who feels like he's had this injustice and is increasingly building up this head of steam of resentment or the notion of feeling like you're defying yourself as the good one as opposed to the bad one. If I just do this service, I'm gonna earn my reward, of Martha.

Rian: All of those things are things that I've even, that I've. Personally experienced as a Christian, not in other people and myself. And so starting with each one of the characters, having that first of all means they're each gonna truly be different from each other. And that also means I understand their perspectives and I'm starting from a place of empathy with their perspectives.

Rian: And they're all connected to the central theme.

Meg: And it's so beautiful that it's not just the theme that's, they're prisming, but they're prisming. Parts of yourself. Yeah. And experiences that you've had, which I also think is so important for emerging writers to hear This is the lava, this is the vulnerability, this is the art, in my opinion, that the willingness to take all those pieces of yourself and make them real and live and walking around and doing bad things and-

Rian: Yeah.

Meg: Saving them, being saved and not being saved and I think that's incredibly beautiful.

Meg: I have a question about Looper! because I love it. I can't let you leave without loop talking, asking a question about Looper. I love how you balance really high concept rules with this deep, these deep emotional stakes as we've been talking about, and looper, now you're adding in world building. How does that not overpower?

Meg: The character, like as you're creating it?

Rian: Yeah. Well, I, the way I approach world building, for instance, in Looper is to think about, think about every choice in building your world in terms of how it can most magnify or, or put it this way, how can it best motivate your main character in a way that makes sense for them.

Rian: So in Looper, really the world building just goes as far as the world has kind of collapsed. And it's the notion of the world that we're living in every single decision about visually and also on the page, how we represent that world. All is done with the eye of what would motivate a young man to completely throw away his future in order to be able to go out and party at night, you know, to be able to what, what would motivate that kind of carpe diem.

Rian: “Me first” attitude, that Joe starts out with in that movie. And so then it's the world building becomes, as opposed to a distraction that becomes a tool because every single thing that's horrible about the world and you see his heart and you see the poverty around him and all that stuff, you can contrast to his life in the club.

Rian: And you can understand now a little bit better why this young man is attracted to that. So,

Meg: So using the world to understand the character more deeply.

Rian: To understand, but also I think to motivate, again, it's, it's less of, it gives you insight. It's even more that it actively motivates that it's an active participant that oh my God, it's cold outside, so I understand why he wants to be inside and be warm and get inside there.

Rian: It's as basic as that, I think.

Meg: Oh, it's so important what you just said, how to activate your character. Because so many emerging writers or me on my first draft, they're not, they're not active. They're watching everything. Yeah. And you're actually using the world building to activate them.

Meg: Amazing. I'm just highlighting it so people hear, listen to what he's saying. People, it's gold. Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I get a lot of questions for myself having worked on the first Captain Marvel. So I'm interested to ask you the question I get all the time, which is when you're dealing with in this case, a legacy franchise-

Meg: How do you take creative liberties in respecting that legacy at the same time? And, you know, Marvel movies are slightly different, but it has the same kind of core question of the expectations people are bringing to it. There's a huge fan base and yet as a creative being, you have to take risks and push the narrative to something.

Meg: What was your approach there?

Rian: Well, I'll answer and then I'm curious to hear your answer many times. I mean, I, for me there, the one big thing that I think made it a little, I won't say easier, but made it a little clearer for me, was just the fact that it was Star Wars and it was something that I had grown up with, almost like a religion I had been raised with since I was a little kid.

Rian: And the fact that I felt like what Star Wars was to me and I felt like it's personal. It's always personal with something that, even something that's as broadly shared as Star Wars, every single Star Wars fan has their own personal, personal feelings about it and personal perspective on what makes it Star Wars.

Rian: But I knew what mine was and I knew mine was deeply rooted inside me since the time I was a kid. And so, that combined with knowing that George Lucas, when he was making that original trilogy, was making those choices from a very personal perspective that led him to some very risky choices that led him to not be precious with it.

Rian: And that, that to me is also. Baked into the essence of what Star Wars is, that the storytelling has always been truly mythic in character as opposed to being nostalgic in character.

Meg: I love that, and it's also why I would never write a Star Wars movie. Yeah. I mean, I love them, but it doesn't feel deeply, of me.

Meg: Right. Whereas when I read the Captain Marvel comic books and I didn't know her deeply, but even just reading them, I could feel myself.

Rian: mm-hmm.

Meg: Relating and, and deeply fascinated by her. So it was enough to start rooting me into it. So I wanna ask you some quick questions about the process of writing. So how many drafts do you do?

Rian: Oh boy. I mean, it's hard to que because, because I will literally, if I'm writing a script for a year, I'll spend eight months in those notebooks. So it, I do just over-

Meg: How many notebooks do you go through?

Rian: I'll go through about five or six notebooks over the course of the course of a draft.

Meg: So many, many, many drafts.

Rian: Many drafts, and then, but then by the way, once I get it down on paper, it's not like, it's like an immaculate conception. I then do about 20 drafts usually after I have my first draft.

Meg: After eight months of the notebook, so 20 drafts. Okay.

Rian: And this one I did many more I think, and actually did like. I have five or six completely different versions of the first act, just total mulligans that I threw away.

Meg: Yes. Do you ever write a draft? You're like, I don't even remember why I like this. I don't even remember why I'm doing this. Is there, do you ever get lost or, I guess here's my question. What do you do? I keep telling people you have to get lost! That's the process. Yeah. What, what do you do when you get stuck?

Rian: I mean, I wish I had a, I wish I had a useful answer. I mean, I, I think what I do is I take a step back and I look, I go back to my notebooks and I look at the outline and I go back and I look at the simple shape from start to finish. 'cause usually what's happened when I've gotten lost is I've gotten off of that spine or there's a choice that I've made that's not serving that basic spine and has threaded me out into someplace else.

Rian: And it also, it helps, you can just be lost in the forest of details of actually typing pages to pull your head back. And whether you do an outline or whether it's just you thinking about what the original story was that got you excited. Going back to that and allowing yourself the freedom to say, oh, that means that three scenes ago I have to make this big change that’s different.

Rian: And even if that pulls you in a totally different direction, allowing yourself the freedom to reset like that that to me can is what kind of gets me re-excited about diving back in again.

Meg: I love that I do it with, on a whiteboard I have, we have kind of a chart on the whiteboard, especially 'cause I'm writing with someone else. We always have to know this is where we are now.

Rian: Yeah.

Meg: So that as we go get lost. Yeah. What about getting notes? How do you approach getting notes?

Rian: Well, that's always tough. I have a couple of really trusted friends on this movie in particular. I have two friends of mine, Dan and Stacy Sheridan, who are a husband and wife screenwriting team that I've been dear friends with since college.

Rian: And we all have our friends who we like and their trusted compatriots and, and I, I just feel like I can even feed them pages while I'm writing and say, is this working?

Meg: What about studio notes or notes on your edit or-

Rian: it's tricky because it's hard, isn't it? I mean, in different parts of the process are difficult in different ways.

Rian: But getting, getting notes on the writing, on the one hand you. It's 'cause it's a balance, isn't it? You always want to listen and you want to make sure that you're holding the thing to the fire. On the other hand, you have to maintain your perspective on it and you have to know when the notes are, you know, not serving that.

Meg: Have you ever, in your career, even when you started out, had a fraud syndrome, had a sense of just so many writers that we talked to aren't writing because of it, and I think that's a tragedy because. I think everybody has it.

Rian: I have it. Every single script I write, there's a point in the script where you think “this is it”.

Rian: This is where they figure it out, right? In this script, I absolutely did this script. When I was in the middle of writing it, I felt like, oh my God, this isn't working. This isn't going to work. This is, what am I doing? This is kind of, and, and so no, I think it's a, it's something that if you feel it, it's not because it's true, it's because everybody feels it.

Rian: And maybe it's true for all of us in that case we're all in the same boat and we can all just be frauds together. But but it's, the trick is exactly what you say is to not allow it to stop you, is to not allow it to kind of get in your head to the point where you stop. But anyone that's feeling it, you're not alone.

Rian: And it doesn't mean that it's true. It's just, it's. Part of, part of the, I think it happens every single time.

Meg: I think it's part of being an artist. I think that we're so finely tuned and so sensitive that we can get mixed up about what that feeling is, right. It's just right now, it's not forever. So as a director, when I, I loved reading about how you began and, you know, you graduated from USC, was it right?

Meg: As a director. And you and kind of what you did before you hit and made your first feature, what for you would be advice to young directors who are graduating now in terms of basically why not to quit? How did you keep believing in yourself? How did you keep trudging forward to get to that moment of, okay, I can direct my first feature or my second.

Rian: I don't know. I, I, I feel like if you really need to do it, then you really need to do it.

Meg: Right.

Rian: I think the answer is if you need to do it, then quitting is not really an option. And the thing is, I do genuinely. And I look, I know that you know, it's funny, my wife is a film historian and one thing that you kind of learn the more, the more I just kind of like observe her researching the history of Hollywood, is Hollywood has been in a state of collapse since its inception.

Rian: That doesn't mean that the current state of collapse is not true, whereas an illusion, it is actually always collapsing. But, I think that ultimately though, I think that, I don't know. I really do genuinely think that if you focus inward as opposed to panicking about the outward of, okay, if I do make something made, how will I get it distributed?

Rian: Okay. If, how do I do, see, how will people see it? Okay. I was, I, I think that. If you turn it back inward on yourself, just focus on filling up your own well, in terms of life and in terms of things to draw from. If you are truly passionate about a story, and that's the place to start, the place to start is not, “I wanna make a movie”.

Rian: The place to start is, I wanna tell this story, and if you start there. First of all, that's the answer to everything. That's both what's gonna give you the fuel to drive through, for me it was eight years of trying to get my first movie made. You know, it's gonna give you the fuel to just kinda keep pushing.

Rian: 'cause you, you need to tell this story. You can't stop. And it's also at the end of the day, the thing that's gonna make the thing have value is gonna make people wanna be drawn to it. That's the most valuable coin in Hollywood still is somebody who truly has a personal perspective, has a personal voice, and has the craft to actually, to actually tell it.

Meg: And it can take those years. To find the voice.

Rian: Oh, yeah, absolutely!

Meg: And to get the craft at a level that you can communicate that voice. You have such a strong voice across genres. Do you have any advice for emerging writers looking for their voice?

Rian: Yeah, don't think about it. I think.

Meg: Okay.

Rian: I, I think, no, I really, I think that because, because voice can sometimes, you know, be seen as, as the affect of your storytelling or like a style that you have or something like that.

Rian: I, I think of voice as, I think literally in terms of voice, in terms of almost being like your regional accent that you speak with your normal speaking voice. I think that's, that is really what voice means to me. It's just when you tell a story, it's the shape that story comes out. Naturally, and I really, you can actually mess yourself up thinking about what is my voice?

Rian: What is my personality? I don't, I couldn't define what mine is at all for you. I think you just focus on what is the story I wanna tell? What are the things that matter to me? What feels exciting to me, the notion of what would that look like on the screen? And then just tell that as well as you possibly can, and your voice will naturally emerge I think.

Meg: I love that because I do think it's true. I've never thought about it before, but I do think it's true almost, the voice, my voice on the page is an unconscious thing. Like it, I'm not thinking about it. It's almost like the dream. The dreamer has the voice and so like let the dreamer talk however they wanna talk.

Meg: And if you try to pull it back or stop it or clarify it or make it something else. That's right. The dreamer gets pissed and it leaves,

Rian: I think it’s true too. And I genuinely, I don't, I mean I wouldn't wanna speak for 'em, but I think even somebody who has like the. People have even the most distinct voice, like Wes Anderson, who is like one of my favorite filmmakers.

Rian: Like, I don't, he doesn't, I don't think he sits down thinking, okay, I'm gonna write my in this,

Meg: I'm gonna write a Wes Anderson-

Rian: No. This is just the way he sees the world. It's just the way he tells a story. 

Meg: And so many young filmmakers, like, I'm gonna do a Wes Anderson short film. Right? And you know.

Meg: I, I think that's, you know, that used to be how you learned painting in the Renaissance. You would imitate the masters.

Rian: Yeah.

Meg: In order to learn the craft.

Rian: Yeah.

Meg: And then use that craft for your voice. Like you are not Wes Anderson. You do it, but then keep, try something else. What's a different master to imitate until you-

Rian: I agree. I think, but I think that happens naturally, right? I feel, I feel like in, in terms of developing beyond that, like I, I actually love encouraging and I, I started with imitation, you know? I definitely, I think that's, like you said, that's a good analogy. That's the way to learn. And, and I think though you'll find yourself when you're ready, naturally growing past imitation.

Rian: Beause you'll get bored with it.

Meg: I've loved this conversation and we always ask the same group of questions to every guest. So I'm gonna ask you now our questions. What brings you the most joy when it comes to your writing or directing?

Rian: When it comes to writing, printing out a first draft. That'd be the first draft before you read it.

Meg: That's right! It's in your hands.

Rian: Oh, you just, just, oh, oh the, it's all, look, look what I'd made. I'd say that and, and also the very beginning of the process, the very kind of, when it's still that sparkle, that glint when it just feels perfect in your head before you actually start.

Meg: And realize it's not perfect at all!

Rian: slapping paper mache on it to make it a real thing, yeah.

Meg: I love that. I love that part of it too. Okay. What pisses you off about writing?

Rian: I, I think for me it's, yeah, what frustrates me most is, I mean, just the fact that it, it's so rare that you feel kind of like a feeling of. “That's it right there. That's perfect”. Or at least I don't, I feel it occasionally, but more and more it feels like it's, it's just a process of rewriting and working it over and over and trying to get it better and better.

Rian: And at a certain point it's like, okay, I think this is working and you move on to the next step, I think. But I, I find that, I dunno, you get a couple, I get a couple of them, a project, a feeling of like elation of, oh wow, that's really something special and that works. I wish I got it more.

Meg: I do too. If you could have coffee with your younger self during those eight years, shall we say, what advice would you give him?

Rian: Like, have you, have you learned nothing from looper? NEVER! NEVER!. You've learned nothing from my work! Yeah, I would. No, I don't know. But honestly, the honest answer is I don't, I wouldn't wanna tell them anything.

Rian: I wouldn't wanna miss, miss that person up because they're, 'cause the journey that they're on is their own journey. And I don't think that I. I definitely don't think there's any advice that can be given to somebody who's in the middle of that phase, other than trust yourself and keep going, you know?

Meg: I love that. I totally agree.

Rian: That'll work, yeah.

Meg: Even all that shitty stuff that's happening to you, it's happening for a reason. Just keep going.

Rian: Exactly. It's filling up the well.

Meg: What's your proudest career moment to date?

Rian: Oh boy. I mean, the reality is it's, it's, for me right now, it's, it's, it's, it is always kind of like the last big thing that happened because I feel like you just, you, it's not like the moments keep topping themselves, but I feel like the way you keep moving forward is just having each new experience that that fills you up inside.

Rian: And that always feels like the most vibrant thing. So, so for instance, when, you know, I don't know, like when with like, like reading the reactions that some people have had to this movie online. I had a moment where I read one and was just filled with tears. Just the notion of kind. 'cause you have that idea that you just kind of throw, put messages in a bottle and toss 'em out to the ocean.

Rian: You write something in the, then you, then you read something from someone who got the bottle and it truly. Connected with them and meant something and that feel that human connection through this weird medium that we have. Feels amazing, or I'll tell you the, but then, you know, the first big one was, was with Brick at Sundance and the very first screening of it and turning around and my whole family was like in the two rows behind me.

Rian: And they were, you know, and, and I was there with my cousin who was my composer, and we had been making movies since we were 10 years old together and showing them to our family who are sitting behind them in our living rooms. And now we are sitting here at Sundance with them showing that. So that was-

Meg: I love that.

Rian: That is pretty special. Yeah.

Meg: That is very special.

Rian: I'll go, I'll go with that one.

Meg: Thank you so much for giving us your time during this incredibly busy time. I wish you the best of luck jumping back in the cold pool for the next one because we need it. We need it out here. We need your stories, man.

Rian: Thank you so much.

Rian: This was such a great conversation and it's got me, it's got me inspired. I mean, I gotta go write!

Meg: Good, good, good. Go write! 

Meg: Thanks so much to Rian for joining us, his film Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is now streaming on Netflix.