289 | Crafting A High Concept Pixar Film w/ Hoppers Writer Jesse Andrews
Pixar's Hoppers writer, Jesse Andrews, joins Meg to dive into all things Pixar process.
They start with Jesse's intriguing journey into writing, from Art History in college to novels to adapting his novel (Me And Earl And The Dying Girl), to animation with his first film, Luca.
Then, they talk shop and craft through the lens of the recent fantastically hilarious, high concept, Hoppers.
Jesse's collaborative spirit is on full display throughout and really instills the reasoning behind why leaving ego at the door is the key to creating.
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The Screenwriting Life is produced and edited by Alex Alcheh.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Meg: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Screenwriting Life. I'm Meg LeFauve. Today we're joined by novelist and screenwriter Jesse Andrews. Jesse studied art history at Harvard, and it wasn't until after college that he found writing. His first film, he adapted from his first novel, Me and Earl, and the Dying Girl.
The film won the audience award and the Grand Jury prize at Sundance, where it premiered in 2015. He then transitioned to animation, co-writing the gorgeous film, Luca, with Mike Jones. His latest Pixar piece, Hoppers is in theaters now. It's a sci-fi animated adventure following an animal lover named Mabel, whose mind is transferred into a lifelike robotic beaver so she can communicate with animals and save their habitat from destruction, and it's fabulous.
Jesse, welcome to the show.
Jesse: Ah, thank you so much, Meg. I am so, so delighted to get to talk to you.
Meg: I loved this movie and I can't wait to talk about it, but there's so much to talk to you about in terms of you're novelist and the Luca, so many things. But before we get into any of it, we're gonna do what we like to call adventures in screenwriting.
Or how was your week? Which basically we just talk about our weeks. It could be craft, it could be emotional, it could be whatever, you know, whatever is standing out to you. This week. I'll start, 'cause mine's super easy and I know our listeners have heard this before, but you know, it is my week, which is, you know what?
I loved Jesse about working at Pixar of the many things. Like you, you had a schedule and you had to do it, meaning you're gonna be in this room at this time and you're gonna talk about this story with three people for the next eight hours, and then tomorrow you're gonna go write and you've got three days and you're gonna write, and then you're gonna bring pages back on this day so that you were just always on track, always creating somebody was managing your focus.
My focus anyways, now I'm out here in the wild world of. I should be writing. We have, my husband and I are writing a script together. I love the idea. I'm so excited about it, and I can't get to the, I can't get to it. Everything just keeps invading the time, you know, from your kid to the, you know, go and consult on that thing to this, to that.
I just, I have no discipline. I have no discipline about the writing, and I needed Pixar to help me do it. I don't know. Did you ever have that? But you've been a Pixar for so long now that I'm sure it's just natural, but did you ever like to write your novel? How do we do it? Do I have to say like, from eight in the morning till noon, nobody's allowed to talk to me?
But see, this is what, tell me, I workout, then I'm hungry. I gotta go get breakfast now I gotta walk the dog. Help me. Jesse.
Jesse: Meg I miss that feeling so, so much. I miss the feeling of needing to work on something and just not doing it. And like spending the whole day like, “Well, I gotta go to Trader Joe's. I might as well do that.”
'm like, “I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be able to write until I go to Trader Joe's.” So then you do that and then you're like, “Well, I do need to act. It's almost lunchtime. I'm not gonna start writing right before lunch.”
Meg: “Why would I start? I only have like an hour or 40 minutes. I might as well go eat.”
Jesse: “It's not enough time. I need to get deeply into the game.” And so you just, you waste a whole day and you get some things done, but they're completely trivial. And then finally that desperation kicking in around like, EH, 3:30, 3:40 5:00 PM and you're like, “Well, if I don't write something now, I am never going to forgive myself and I might need to just leave the house and walk into traffic and my wife is gonna ask where I went.”
Meg: or I have to do all these emails because they all just come in right now.
Jesse: Gotta do that. I deeply miss that feeling because that is the feeling of being a wild writer. And I've become such a domesticated animal now. I've been, the last time I was out in the wild was, I think. Five years ago wow. I had a little, I had an eight month break between Luca and Hoppers.
Luca was three years, hoppers was three years. And then I've been working on something else for the last, like one and a half. And those eight months was like, yeah, I was a, I was an alley cat that some family took in. And then after three years they were like, get outta here. Stop peeing on the furniture.
I was like, I will never stop. It's part of my process. And they were like, okay, well you have to leave. And I left for eight months and it was really nice, but also really disorienting. And I had to hunt my own supper. And after three months my agent was like, we gotta get you a job, man. You haven't worked.
And I was like, “I know, but I'm writing something really good. Or I'm going to, after I go to Trader Joe's.”
Meg: “I'm gonna. It's gonna be amazing when I write it.” What do you miss about that? Do you miss the kind of because I do think, okay, in my defense, I do think that part of me is writing. I know I'm not writing words, but part of me is actually trying to figure something out.
The story, and I think it's part of the reason why I keep not going back because I intuitively am like, “This isn't quite working” or I hope that's what's happening as I take the dog on the fourth walk of the day that I'm actually trying. But what do you miss about it?
Jesse: Well, and I'm sure you're right too because I know how disciplined you are and I know how brilliant you are and that like, that stuff I do deeply believe is just like totally subterranean and pre-conscious, and you can't just turn the light on and off.
And so, yeah, I don't know, like Pixar asks you to do that, you know? And I think you just develop a comfort with, like, “Today I'm gonna get the pages in and I'm probably not gonna love 'em, and the director's not gonna love 'em.”
And then we'll all look at it and decide where to go from there.
Meg: Which is a gift and a curse. And because I remember when I was at Pixar, I was longing for, “Can I just go walk around and decide what I'm gonna write?” Because you know, I, it isn't, it's not a tap I can turn on and off. And I'm sure television is the same, like you can't just, you got a to TV room to go to, you can't just not turn the tap on so I can turn it on.
I don't know. How was your week?
Jesse: Oh man, my week my week was good. My week was a rare week. It's so rare to have one of these come out, as you know. And so Hoppers is coming out tonight, basically like tomorrow. And it's been I am really proud of this movie and I'm usually not someone who likes.
Their own work very much. And like I don't return to things that I've written and just read them or watch them like that sounds like torture to me. 'cause you know, like the pro, the process was like the exciting, comfortable part and now it's frozen forever and you can never go back and change it. And so that's kind of agonizing to me.
But I have to say, Hopper's landed in a place that I feel as comfortable with as anything that I've done. And the response has been good. Every time I have something come out, I'm like, I'm not gonna read the reviews. And then I read all of them, every single one. And then I find the mean, the meanest one.
Yeah. You find the meanest one and you fixate on it and you're like, “This person knows who I am. They saw through the whole ruse. They got it.”
Meg: And then your friends going, “That person is just trying to get attention because everybody else likes it and they're a rotten tomato. Like everybody's trying to help you with that one review.
Jesse: I've come so close to commenting on a very specific review, “Congratulations on hating the thing everyone loved.” And I'm not going to do that 'cause I, that's insane. And it's not like everyone loved it, but the response has been really positive.
Meg: The response has been so good.
Jesse: I'm trying to really let myself enjoy it.
My wife is really enjoying it, so I'm sort of vicariously living through her. She sends me stuff and I'm like, “Ah, that is, that's a nice thing to say. That's, that makes me feel-”
Meg: It's funny, isn't it? How all our longing for people, you know, to receive the story, feel impacted by the story, even better if they're writing about that.
And yet it does somewhat makes me feel vulnerable.
Jesse: Yeah. Yeah.
Meg: Suddenly I'm like, “Okay, what? What's gonna happen? Something bad's gonna happen.” I don't know. My brain will not, 'cause it's an anxiety based, will not just, like you said, just accept it. Like, just yeah that's, how great is this, Jesse? It's so wonderful.
Jesse: And maybe I mean, you just wrote a script about that.
Meg: I know I did do some research.
Jesse: Pretty beloved. Yeah. I, it's it’s the dissonance between the cocoon that you go in to write and the absolute naked vulnerability of the thing that you wrote in the privacy of your office or your home or your mind suddenly being out there for everyone to see and interpret and judge, you know, and reject.
That is. There's always a moment where I'm like, “Wait, why do I do this? What is wrong with me? Why can't I, why am I, why did I choose this job?” But then, I don't know, you see like a little furry like beaver stuffy.
Meg: But I feel like that bookends. Like I feel like when I start and I'm like, “Wait a minute, none of this works. It's just getting, it just so doesn't work.”
And I'm like, “Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this to myself?” And then you go through the whole thing and then you're like, “It's done.” Yeah. And then the reviews come in and you're like, “Why did I do this? Why am I doing this?”
Jesse: Yeah. And then you're like, but next time-
Meg: It's gonna be totally different.
Jesse: Yeah. I'm reminded of like, there's this Arrested Development gag where Tobias and Lindsay are like trying to, like, their marriage is failing and they're like, you know, “Should we open it up? Like, does that ever work?” And like Tobias is like, “No, that never works for anyone. But maybe for us.” And I'm like that, like delusion feels so applicable to like, everything.
Not that I think opening your marriage is a failure. I'm just, it's just the joke. It's just the, it’s just-
Meg: And it's true. Like this time it's gonna be different. This time I'm not gonna have to write 20 drafts this time the first draft is going to be so impressive. So amazing. Everyone's gonna get it right away.
Everything that's in my head. It all gonna work. It's all gonna work, I think where there's a needed delusional naivete every time you start over. I do. But let's start, let's talk about where you started, because as we, I mentioned in your bio, you started as an art history major and then went over to being a novelist, and from that to screenwriting. So writing, how did you find it?
Why the jump over to it all those years ago?
Jesse: Yeah, it was a journey. It was, I mean, I always wanted to be a writer. As a kid. I was making little books. I actually tried to teach my little sister how to read so she could read my books. Like, it wasn't altruistic. It was like, I need an audience and my mom's not cutting it.
Meg: I can't wait to see this in a Pixar movie. That's amazing.
Jesse: And, so, so that was always something that I wanted to do. And then I like had these other interests. Actually in college I was applied math physics for two years.
Meg: Oh wow.
Jesse: Because I liked doing it at the high school level, but I think purely 'cause I was like kind of good at it, like, not great, but like, I was like, oh, this is fun.
And then at the college level I was like. Not at all good at it. And I was like, oh, that was the only reason I liked this. It's done. It's over. What do I do? Art history had the fewest requirements, so it was the easiest to switch to. But it also was like, I was realizing like there was something about writing about art that was really slippery and difficult and really kind of trained you as a writer to, mm-hmm.
Get a handle on ideas and, you know, ways of thinking and seeing and feeling that are hard to articulate, hard to capture. And so I left college kind of determined to be a novelist. I spent six years basically writing two books that were, that are unreadable. I mean, they're really bad. Because I didn't have any training and I was just kind of out in the wild, totally feral, trying to figure it out on my own and also like.
Kind of overcoming a problem that I think a lot of writers have, especially young men, which is like, you have nothing to say yet. You know, you really wanna be saying something and you are in love with like, some of the things about writing that are pure, like, you know, what you can do with language, what you can evoke, the places that you can go.
But I had nothing yet to actually say with it. And the stuff that I wrote really reflected that. In the sense of it wasn't about anything, and it seemed to be, but there was no plot. It was very experimental. I was like, “I'm gonna liberate literature from the tyranny of plot”
Meg: Of course you are. Of course you are. Yes, you are.
Jesse: And I wrote it
Meg: The tyranny of plot. Yes. Okay.
Jesse: Yes. Yeah. The, just the iron fist of story is. Has held literature in its grip for too long, and now it's time to read stuff that goes nowhere. And even the characters start talking about, wow, nothing is happening in our lives. Why are we here? And then the author steps onto the page, which I sure did.
And I was like, “You're here because I'm here and we're all here and that's what this is.” And it was so bad. It was so bad. And I would send it to agents like, “I'm pretty sure you're gonna wanna read this” And just crickets, you know? Of course.
Meg: So how did you get to Me, Earl and the Dying Girl?
Like, what do you think shifted that over?
Jesse: I can point to a very specific conversation that I had with an editor who I went to college with who acquired Young Adult Fiction. So what I was trying to do was like, I would never have considered doing young adult, I was doing literary, high-minded fiction, and she just, she had read some of it as much as I think it was.
Possible to read and said, Hey, you know, like you really seem to wanna do this. Have you ever considered like trying to do young adult? And I was like, no. Why would I do that? She's like, it's actually, there's a lot of interesting stuff there, and especially if you're interested in voice. You know, the voices of those characters can often be really specific and satisfying and showed me some stuff and I read it and I was like, oh my gosh I had no idea this was going on.
I wish, you know, there had been more of this when I was a teenager. But also I can imagine reading this as an adult and being satisfied, you know? And so I. Then sat down to write a book and just the act of imagining a teenage reader snapped me out of all my bullshit, because I was like, “Oh, if I don't sustain this reader's attention, they're gonna put it down.”
Meg: Yeah they're gone.
Jesse: It’s a teenager. Yeah. It's such a basic, stupid lesson, but it took me seven years to learn. Yeah, Me and Earl came out of that. I was like, “Okay, this teenage character, whoever he is, he has to be interesting. He has to be struggling with something.” And then, and by that time I had experienced enough life and, you know, loss and things to, to start to feel like what a book could be about.
Meg: And then you adapted it into a film. How was that to adapt your own work? Because now it's a whole other learning curve, right? Like you've gotta now jump into, well that would work in a book, like you said, language and how language evokes things, but now it's all gonna become behavior and you know, how was that for you?
Jesse: Yeah, it was, oh my gosh. I think getting to adapt my own book, turned me into a screenwriter in a way that I would not have gotten to do because the book had already been written. I had already told the story the way I kind of wanted to tell it, and so I didn't feel the need to do that again. And I felt very loose with all of the pieces of it.
And I was mentored by Dan Fogelman, who produced it and is like this-
Meg: Wow.
Jesse: Pretty,
Meg: Yeah.
Jesse: Accomplished screenwriter you know, he's, he’s done This Is Us and Only Murders in the Building and lots of stuff. And at that point it was already like, on the way he had done crazy stupid love and cars and a few other things.
But anyway, he. I felt so kind of open and interested to his suggestions and that like the story could become all of these other things. And he said early on, like, the book is the book and the movie will be the movie. And, you know, the, they might be kind of different and are you okay with that? And just him saying it made me feel like, yeah, of course.
Also like not having money and not like, you know, like living on, not sleeping on what you would call a bed. You know, it was a mattress on half of a bed that I found outside somewhere, and milk crates were the other half.
Meg: That really opened you up to changing Dan. Absolutely. Was there one specific creative shift that you remember kind of opening up to the new story that you made?
I mean, it's such a specific tone and narrative structure. You know, what, could you, can you remember back to that?
Jesse: Oh, absolutely.
Meg: 'Cause we have a lot of working writers who are interested in this kind of, you know, shift.
Jesse: It really, I would say the biggest one, and it was enormous, it was like global holistic change was came from the director who read an early draft of the script, Alfonso Gomez Reon, who, you know, this was his second feature.
And you know, had like studied under like Scorsese and you Ritu and all of these great directors to, so this absolute like student of film and such a warm, wonderful guy. He anyway, he had lost his father a few years before and had not really found a way to process that. So he found this moment in the story that, for me was kind of a throwaway line.
It was a line that a teacher says to the main character that the main character really dismisses and says, I don't believe in that. You're just trying to turn this into some stupid lesson. The main character, pretty cynical, nihilistic teenage kid. And that line was that people's lives after they pass, can keep unfolding to you if you just continue to pay attention.
I'm paraphrasing. I forget the words.
Meg: Mm-hmm.
Jesse: Which is bad 'cause I wrote it. I should know.
Meg: Come on.
Jesse: That's a bulkier paraphrase. But whatever. That idea really spoke to him and he said, I, if that is sort of at the heart of this movie, then I think I know how to make it and I'm excited to make it.
And I was like, yeah, you feeling it? And you sort of. Using that to, to, you know, think about your father and find like a way forward, you know, after this like, door seemed to close and you know, it did. I really wanna do that with you. And so we totally rewrote the script and it became. Less of a comedy, you know?
I jokes are really like my comfort zone and trying to really defer and deflect as much as possible with comedy, and I want there to be emotion there, but I also, I usually just want it to be just kind of peeking over the edge of the joke. He went to a much more sincere, heartfelt place that it was an honor to like write that for him.
And he had me on set. I was, we were making adjustments through production. And he was so open. And you know, that's part of that is his generosity and I think part of it was that he sensed how open I wanted to be, and how much I really wanted to make it his, you know, and just deliver whatever he needed for his vision.
Lorien: We will be right back.
Welcome back to the show.
Meg: I can really see how that also helps you at Pixar because you really are there to help that director with their vision. That is your role as a writer. I mean, I think that's your role as a writer in film anyways, but really you know animation and Pixar is so director driven.
How did you get over to Pixar? How did that happen?
Jesse: Yeah, as you know, I'm so excited to talk to you about that part. I mean, we've talked about it offline so much, but it's such a crazy job, dude. It's so crazy. It's, how did I get there? I had tried to I put together like a package of a script and a couple actors to try to direct and unfortunately went through because it was a really expensive yet small movie.
Which is the worst kind of script to write. But I love writing them. It was set on a cruise ship and like a lot of like sets and stuff and sort of-
Meg: Did it have animals and dogs and water and you know, just all of it. Just throw it in and it's period.
Jesse: Yeah. Yeah.
And it's period. Yeah, no, it's said, and it has to be said in 1831, and I'll tell you why. Half an hour later, everyone has left the room. So anyway, that, that didn't go. But my agent sent the script to Pixar you know, just because she knew what esteem I had for the place and the movies that have come outta here you know, pretty typical, like I just went into interview on Luca.
They had a writer, you know, gotten kind of as far as they were gonna go and, they were looking to, you know, they had just started reels, so I showed up. Reels are basically, you know, after there's, you get kind of one crack at doing a script, right? A director and a writer get a crack at it, and then they put that script into reels, and then ever after, there's no chance to write the script front to back.
You're just putting up an animatic every three to four months. Taking stock of it and then going back in and saying, okay this needs to get rewritten. This, we can change and edit. This, we're gonna give to the janitor you know?
Meg: This goes right out to boards.
Jesse: Yeah.
This, we're just gonna send directly to John Ham and hope that he has some ideas. So I never got to like write Luca front to back. Never got to do that with Hoppers either.
Meg: So you and I have talked in the past and you talked about how it's like getting a movie out of traction, I think is how you Yeah.
Like it's really and and I did that on the Good Dinosaur where you're really coming in to rethink a project under incredible deadlines. Just to be fair in terms of this crew is they're waiting for you to rethink it. No. You know, so how. Yeah, it's no, no stress, no pressure. It's, oh my God.
Yeah. How how did you approach that? How do you, as a writer, and maybe you can't get into too many specifics of old versions, but how do you, as a writer, in terms of craft and approach, think, okay, let's, I mean, it's great 'cause you have a different view than everybody else 'cause you're coming in fresh.
That's always good, but how, what's your approach there?
Jesse: My approach is, has. Not a ton to do with the act of putting words on the page. To be honest. It's very much about coming into a situation and assessing the team, and especially the director and going, okay. There's a concept here and there is a director who is the director for a reason.
And there are some things that they'll do incredibly well and there's other things that you know, are not as strong in their toolkit and there's also certain kinds of moment and certain kinds of story that they just steer to. They'll always steer to it if you try to steer away from it. You're going to give them something that they are going to struggle to direct.
'Cause no, no one can direct anything. So the first part was really on Luca and on Hoppers it was like, who is Enrico? Who is Daniel? What do they like to do? What do they do well? What are, you know? And then. And it's so, like, I, I try to contort myself into the shape. That, to me, feels like it fits the best, you know?
And maybe it's like someone who is like really about tone and protecting the tone of the movie. Maybe it's as like a rigid structuralist if the director is great on tone, but you know, is sort of like. Pitching movies that lose their way somewhere, you know, along the line. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And have a kind of shapeness, which is incredibly common.
It's so maddeningly hard to structure these movies and do all the things that they're meant to do. And yeah. So I try to come in with as like hefty a toolkit as possible. And then the, yeah, there's, on top of that, there are the things that I really value. And it starts with character. It starts with.
Just having like people that you, that live outside of the movie, outside of the screen, hearing their voices as much as you can and finding all of whatever is like subversive and unexpected that there is in there. Like if it's someone where you're like, I have them pegged. I know exactly what they would do in any situation.
I almost think that's kind of a bad thing. Like I try to like have a character. At somewhere along the line, do something that jolts you out of familiarity a little bit. And it's such a balance because you don't want them to become not themselves. You don't want them to become like someone who, I don't know, just doesn't cohere in the mind of whoever's watching them.
Meg: Can you give an example of, in Luca, or even Mabel in Hoppers, can you give an example?
Jesse: Yeah, that's, oh my gosh, this is the worst. I am so bad at this because my mind is a sieve. I live in the eternal present. I am water. I flow through the thing, and I don't remember the stream that I was.
Meg: I’m literally trying to think about Luca, because there are places that, as a viewer, I was surprised, but I hear what you're saying. It's the knife edge because it still has to be within their character and maybe it even surprises them, you know, that they would. Do that, right? That they would at this moment. But I think that's part of the change in the character too.
You know, a lot of times I'm talking to emerging character, emerging writers, you know, the character is evolving, they are changing, right? Like I, so they are gonna do things that surprise even them, I would think, right?
Jesse: I think I have an example that may not feel like it's terribly outside of his character, but in Act one, you know, Luca is incredibly timid.
And wants to go above the surface but doesn't and then is essentially like dragged out of the water by this, you know, kid Alberto who is, you know, everything that he is not and really brave and rash and has a lot of fun, but you know, is lacking in connection for sure. And Alberto kind of rubs off on Luca to the point where like late in Act one is Luca's parents find out that he is going up to the surface and they, you know, have a big argument with him. And he pushes back and he kind of yells at his mom in this way that like I think the moment you see him, you're like, he would never do that.
And so it, it marks this growth that he has, you know? And you feel him changing, which, especially in a coming of age movie is so important.
Meg: Yeah, absolutely. And what about theme in terms of, you know, Luca belonging and… Are you, when you come into a movie, especially these that are already kind of in the shoot, are you spending a lot of time with the director talking about, obviously what it means to them, but you have to also feel it.
You have to also center everything on that theme. How do you approach that centering, emotional pivot, or rudder? I should say.
Jesse: Oh man. Yeah, without it, I wouldn't take a project, you know. Without it like, why are we doing this? What are we saying? Why would we say it? On Luca, it was really straightforward.
It was in the interview, you know, Enrico was talking about this friend who, you know, like pushed him out of his comfort zone and was so fun to be with, but kind of scary. And I was like, oh, I had that friend, you know, I was like kind of a wallflower kid and like kind of shy and really like. A stick figure basically who kept getting snapped by people.
And that, that happened on the soccer field. You know, I playing pickup soccer and this kid is like, you know, big hockey player. And I knew he was like smart and funny, but I also lived in terror of him and he, you know, knocked me over and I started crying and. And he just kind of stood over me and he was kind of agonized about it and I was like, I'm sorry I'm crying.
I always do this. And he was like, no, I always do this. And like, and just in that moment, like a friendship was born and we. Became like best friends and, you know, made all this stuff together and we're very different from each other. But so the notion of a transformative friendship, which I think is what Luca is all about that was so clear.
That was automatic on Hoppers, I would say was a little different. But still, you know, it came kind of out of. The, just talking with Daniel initially about the movie and I was pitching him on this idea that, you know, it was clear it was always gonna be a funny movie and it was always gonna be full of action and full of entertainment and I loved that and I was so excited to, to work on that.
Meg: Yeah, he's so, so good at all of that.
Jesse: He crushes that. You know, I did feel like there was still, the movie was still kind of circling its meaning. And what I proposed to him is that any movie about the natural world set today sort of has to be a movie about loss. And it has to be a movie about grief.
Because to not address what is happening with the natural world today is dishonest. And people will feel that, you know, the movie would feel naive. And at the same time, that doesn't, that can't overtake the movie, but you know, it felt like. Mabel should be dealing with, not just losing potentially like a piece of land, a place that is really special to her, but a person, you know, and the person who introduced her to it, we were asking ourselves like, well, people love nature.
Why do people love nature? And there's all kinds of reasons, but I think. One really compelling reason that is usually true is that it is shown to us by someone else, and we have a relationship with that person that our love for nature often grows out of our love for the person who loves nature and is sharing it with us.
And so the scene where Mabel's grandma takes her to the glade and shows it to her. Came outta that conversation and was almost immediately the bedrock of the movie.
Meg: And it's so, so smart. Because you know, I've been in the business a long time, and not just animation, but I was a producer. So I've heard so many pitches on, you know, pro-environment movies, right?
This is, and the bad developers are coming, right? But you guys were able to take that environment versus businessman, right? It's not, it's in the movie, but it's not what it's about. Right? It's about this much deeper loss and the, I love what you're saying about nature, because what's so very clear and profound in the movie is the experience they're having together.
And that's what's lost too, is this, I'm having an experience with my grandmother, which she then gains again with the king of the beavers, right? That suddenly she's getting that again and how personal that is and how human that is. I just thought that was so, so smart. I also really, I mean, I just love the movie, so I'm gonna talk about so many things, but.
I, I really, I just adore Mabel's character. I mean, her character design fantastic. I mean, just, I don't know who did it, but I don't be amazing. And so many things about her and how Daniel directs her and and they animate her. But I wanna talk to you about. Her as a character in terms of she is surprising and she is kind, but she's kind of super stubborn and almost stubborn to a fault.
How did you balance her? Where did you find her? Her voice in terms of her dialogue is so specific and wonderful. I'd just love to dig into your brain a little bit about Mabel.
Jesse: Oh yeah, she was a joy to write. I felt like I got her immediately, but also struggled for a long time to get that on the page.
You know, and I think that's a great kind of character that tells you that you have something, you know who they are, but it's not obvious, you know? And sometimes I would write her and I'm like, “Ah, I think I'm choosing the easy way out here. If I just make her like purely combative.” You know, or like purely anything like there, there is this complexity to her, but it's also, you meet her, you know her.
Meg: She's so full of almost idyllic hope. Like she's stubborn.
Jesse: Yeah.
Meg: But it's towards this hopeful thing.
Jesse: Yeah.
Meg: So you go with it. You just are with her, on her on this. That. And she's so brave too. Like, so she has all these other admirable qualities that we all wish we had too.
Jesse: Yeah.
Meg: So I just love that complexity of her and then of course how that works.
And how did you guys, what was your thinking on the Beaver King? 'Cause he is, again, a very specific character for her to meet. Like why this character for her to meet, do you think?
Jesse: I think these two, I mean, some of it was like coming onto this project and Daniel's been working on it for a little while.
There was stuff there, you know, when I got there that already made it really exciting. And some of that was like George and Mabel. And then, so being in the room, you know, there was this writer's room we did get to have like. Sometime, you know, like a couple months where it was just me and Daniel and Maddie Ian, who is like a hilarious genius who was the head of story at the time.
And then John Kim, who was the story lead who became head of story when Maddie went off to do her own movie and eventually Elio. So we would just do like fan art of these characters, you know, even I was like trying to draw them and just like little vignettes of who they are and like, so Mabel, you know, she sees.
Like some, an animal who's so cute that she starts like rage crying. You know, there was a lot of like kind of anime inflected moments. Yes. That like of her intensity, you know? And then George was this like perfect foil to her of just this like soft. You know, insane. He's also I idealistic and so naive in a way, you know, a middle-aged man and he's so conflict averse and I really identified with him as a sort of conflict averse millennial.
You know, at this point, middle aged man who just like, the most important thing in my life is for people not to be mad at me. You know, he would get so stressed out in some of this fan art and that didn't really make it into the movie because that gave him a kind of like an edge and a sort of electricity that just fought his contrast with Mabel.
Meg: So, so what I hear you saying that I think is so good for our emerging writers is, and you don't have to be able to draw, you can write, you can sketch out in writing like scene after scene of who are they. And even though you may love that scene that you sketched out where he's getting so stressed out, when you put it together with her, you're like, “Oh no, that's stealing her thunder.”
And that is, he's so patient with her, you know. Like his qualities is like her grandmother in a way, in some ways in terms of his patience with her and the space he's making. And he's so kind and he's so trying to be present.
And yet he's so sweet 'cause she is just dragging him into all kinds of stuff. And I love that about her too. That's what's so great. I love both of them so much.
Lorien: We will be right back.
Welcome back to the show.
Meg: Now the other question I have for you on Hoppers, and I don't wanna, I don't wanna give anything away and it might be a little spoiler but I really wanna talk about it in terms of craft. So, you found a way to get an antagonist in a Pixar movie that really kind of is just bad.
I mean, because every time you try to do an antagonist in a Pixar movie, they're like, but why? Why is he doing, why is he human? Why would we and which is great. And everybody should ask those questions about their antagonist, right? But sometimes you're like, can't he just be bad? He's just a bad guy. He's just fucked up.
He's been, he's just messed up. He's just a bad guy. And you know, the answer of course is no. 'cause we have a higher bar, blah, blah. I get it. You. He's, but he's deliciously bad, which is maybe the secret sauce. He is deliciously bad, and I'm not talking about the human, this is the spoiler. The human, of course, is doing bad stuff, but he has his own little arc and his own reasoning.
But can we talk about the caterpillar? Can we just talk about him
Jesse: Yes, 100%. And I think we like hid him under the human, basically. Like we have a human who seems to be the antagonist for most of the movie and certainly is doing, you know, if you go by like your conventional definition of the antagonist, like who's putting the pressure on the main character and it is him, you know, that he's just, he will not let her rest, you know?
He's going to take away the thing that she loves. So, but then, because that is someone that we, you know, want her to like come to have a different understanding of, and honestly, some of it was truly like, once we decided that like a bad thing was maybe gonna happen to him, we're like, “Well, let's cut to him. He's blissfully unaware.”
I’ve got to shout out Margaret Spencer one of our story artists just drew a scene of him getting ready for the day that made us love him so much.
Meg: I know it was the pancakes. The storytelling. The pancakes.
Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. For his mom. It, and it just dehumanizes him and you feel the joy that he has.
And you know, we, at that point it's like, well, of course he's gonna be redeemed, but then like. Then where does the true kind of danger come from? Like it can't just come from misunderstanding. It has to it. It also feels like if you have George saying in this movie, everyone's good, deep down, he can't just be right.
It would be so unsatisfying if the movie were to just kind of give itself over to his worldview and like raise his pot at the end and say he wins this like rhetorical argument. This philosophical argument. So yeah, landing on it, it kind of forced us to have a character who, no, he's just bad, and who knows how he got that way.
I mean, he's really spoiled. Some people are sociopaths. He's probably a sociopath, you know.
Meg: He’s a sociopath.
Jesse: He's a sociopath. We live in a world with sociopaths.
Meg: There are sociopaths. There are.
Jesse: Andd one of them is in a Pixar movie, you know, and hey, there's a couple others I can think of. I can think of Hopper, you know, from A Bug's Life.
Meg: Oh, yeah. Well, he's delightful. And part of why he's so delightful is the humor. That you guys are engaging in all over the movie, but even, you know, especially with him. Can you talk, okay, you're a funny person. You said you like, you love humor, but I'm always so fascinated by the process of that.
Are you a joke guy? Are you a guy who can do both jokes and kids coming from character? Like, I can't. I went into a punch up room once and I was like, “Oh no, I should never ever do this again. I dunno how to do this. I'm sweating down my back.” 'cause I'm like, “Wait, I just have to throw out jokes.” But I would, this is me.
I was like, “But who is he?” They'd be like, “What?” How do you approach humor? How do you approach that kind of comedic element, which is so strong in the movie?
Jesse: I'm very much like you. I really struggle to write jokes like set up punchline. I'm like, I just kind of freeze. And I think some of it is because I find so many jokes sort of unsatisfying. Like so often in the setup, punchline, you know, convention, you just start, you see it coming, you know, or like you, you feel like the rules changed in some way.
It just doesn't. I don't know. Some jokes are killer and some jokes are like, yeah, okay, A joke was told, let's move on. It's so much more satisfying for me when it comes out of character and that is just a much harder thing to engineer. And so I do what. Probably writers shouldn't do, which is I just am like, I don't know.
What would I think is funny here? You know, it's, that's really not a solution to the, I'm not answering your question. I'm just like that and I've tried to like refine that over time and, you know. Certainly like tilt towards not just what do I think is funny, but what do other people think is funny? What do we all think is funny?
I think Hoppers has the very specific comedy flavor of the sort of improv troupe that we were during the time that we made it. And so that was me. And that was Daniel. That was Maddie and John. That was Margaret. That was Hannah Roman. And we, you know, if there was a joke that made one person laugh, but no one else, it's not going in.
If we all think it's funny, then we're gonna try to find a way for it to go in. And I think too, there's, it's usually the kind of joke where there is like some deeper thing underneath it. Some truth about the character or about like, the unfairness of the power dynamic there, you know? Or taking a look at like.
Something that's like a little bit uncomfortable. Like I, I think of like canvassing for example, as like, God, don't we all wish canvassing worked? I don't know that it does. And if you've ever done it, just the like bottomless disappointment of. Doors slammed in your face and just people like clearly, like they're being nice, but they don't wanna engage, and you just have this feeling of like, oh, I'm actually, I'm chewing up the commons of our shared willingness to talk to each other.
I'm reducing it by trying to get you to care about a thing. And you're gonna be less willing to care about another thing because of me, I'm actually the problem here. You know, like the, just how-
Meg: But I love how you guys take out the joke. Like there's one joke slam slam door slam in your face, right?
But then you take, this is the genius. You take it to the next level in terms of the old man who's like, I'm, he might sign it if she helps him with this and she helps him with that. And that whole sequence, it's so human, it's so lovely. And so. So funny. So you just guys took it to the next level and I hear you about the room for sure.
If everybody in the room. We had a moment, an inside out two, where literally we were crying, we were all laughing so hard and nobody could talk, which is John Hoffman. We were trying to figure out. At the end, the how at the end, like when they're on, she's in the back of the mind and how the hell are they gonna get back?
And so, you know, the director Kelsey had the idea of, well of course we're gonna call Pouchy. And then we're like, well, what do you do? Because we already did pouchy, like we did this. Like you gotta amp it up, like you can't just do it again. And John Hoffman was like, you know what I do? Because I'd be so sick of this guy.
I would just grab that guy and I would just shove my hand down in there and I would just gru me. And he starts acting it out. Oh my God, we were laughing so hard. But it also came from John being very honest about wouldn't you just be so frustrated by this point, like as a human being and be like, dude, I'm not listening to this anymore.
I'm just gonna, you know, root around inside your guts and pull out what we need. And we're like, yes. So, and there, that's the one that's my, another favorite part of working at Pixar other than the time management, is that community fun. And I know for our writers who are feature writers or don't, you know, aren't in a room, but you can do it because you can give it to three of your friends and you can be like, “Let's just spitball fun things. Or where is it not feeling like it's working? What could be fun that could happen?”
And just start bouncing the ideas. It's really fun. It's really really fun.
Jesse: Yeah. But actually there's like a, there is this deeper truth there of like, yeah, like sometimes it's like the joke often comes from like, what shouldn't the character do?
Let's have them do it.
Meg: I love to ask writers the question. Character introductions. What for you when you're gonna, you know, it's the first time we're gonna meet Mabel. It's the first time we're gonna meet the Caterpillar. It's the first time we're gonna meet the Beaver King. Do you think about it?
Do you or do you do it later? Like, kind of, or do you, how do you approach character introductions or what do you think is a good one? What do you, are there elements you're looking for?
Jesse: Oh that's such a good question. And that's something that I am trying to get better at. Honestly, that's like a part of my toolkit that I think is not as developed because I can be pretty superficial about it.
I'm like, just like, I just wanna see him do something funny and memorable. And then often I'm trying to like back form character out that I'm like. The notion of like, what is the A to the B of their grand character arc, you know, and how can the first thing you see them do be, in some ways the opposite of the final thing you see them do?
That is a kind of math that I, that's like college math for me, where I'm like, it's too hard. I don't know. I don't know how to do it. And you know, I mean, I find my way to it. I kind of struggle my way to it so often. Like it's pretty rare that like the first. Time, the first draft I do of a character intro even looks like the way that it looks in the end, you know?
And I guess I, I just would say I'm not afraid of like, using a crutch, you know? Yeah. If you hear their voice before you see them. I kind of love that. I kind of love, like I'm I am not an enemy of like voiceover or narration. I usually find it like really exciting and maybe that's 'cause like thats coming from books, you know, and just loving the text.
And hearing the voice in the text.
Meg: You're gonna write 20 drafts. Just go ahead and use the voiceover. Just learn who they are, let them talk to you however they're talking to you. You know, it doesn't have to be perfect. I think that's sometimes why we lock down. 'Cause another question I have for you that we're asking every guest is, you know, for you, what are the elements of a good scene?
Sometimes you just have to write a bad one because to think you're gonna write all good scenes at the beginning. There's so much layering in a scene. How do you approach scene work?
Jesse: Yeah. I think that's, it's so important to just have like starting point and end point and like has something changed, you know, from the beginning to the end of the scene and trying to be as like, simple about it as possible.
Just how short can the scene be and what is the change in it? And you can always like put little Christmas tree ornaments on what is happening. But the more complicated a scene this, however, though I can feel my like lazy, domesticated, like animation brain talking of like, yeah, a scene can only be 45 seconds.
And you know, like, and then like what the rules that I'm describing would make it impossible to like. Do any number of like beautiful, sophisticated movies. Like, yeah, I, if you're listening to me like you're probably not gonna write Hamnet, you know, or something like that. You're sort of asking yourself what is up with this scene?
One place to start is just, well, what is the state of things and the state of the main character in particular at the beginning, the state of the central relationship, and then what is it at the end of this scene? How big is that change? How much of the scene was about that change? And like, how much do you feel it, how much does it sort of propel you into what comes next?
Meg: And all of that applies. All of that applies to Hamnet and The Brutalist. And you know, it may not be 45 seconds, but it all applies.
Jesse: And I think actually the scenes in Hamnet are kind of short, so that's not even a good example. It's like, that's actually like pretty like tidy writing right. It's a great movie.
It's really good.
Meg: It's an amazing, it's my favorite movie of the year, other than Hoppers of last year. Hoppers is the new favorite. Hoppers is the new favorite. I'm not even just saying that. 'cause you're on the show.
Jesse: Thank you.
Meg: So collaboration. A lot of feature writers, you know, they're not in this kind of room.
TV writers are, but I do think sometimes feature writers go and write with another writer. They have to work with a director. What's your favorite part of collaboration and what's the biggest challenge for you in collaborating?
Jesse: I love like the team sport of it basically. I just love like, trying to melt my ego and myself into like this bigger, hopefully better thing, you know?
Just like there's something, the funniest thing in the world to me is often just whatever someone else finds funny. You know, and like then your sense of humor has like doubled, you know, like a new room was added to the house. When you see someone laughing at something that you maybe didn't understand or didn't find funny and that goes for also like beyond comedy, like what's moving and or just even arresting, you know, what seizes someone else's attention, the way that it just can expand you.
Nothing. That's what any great movie does. I think just the act of watching it. But when you're making it with people like you, you get that more. So that's what I love. And then the hard part is like, it's exactly the same thing. It's melting the ego. It's like, and knowing that your ego should never be entirely melted, you know?
Right. Not that you can, but like it's remembering like I do have a point of view. There should be conflict in this process, you know? I, we're going to disagree. We have to disagree. That's fine. That's healthy. You know, that, that's like Hegelian, like thesis, antithesis, synthesis, that you get to a better, more developed place with it.
And that means that like. There, there's probably, there's some arguments where you're gonna feel good about losing them, but it won't be every argument and there's some that you're just gonna carry inside yourself. Like, yeah, you know, I actually still feel like it should be different and that's okay.
That's part of this process. Like when I'm, when I watch this movie, I'm gonna feel the whole thing. The whole, all of the harmony and like stuff that to me is dissonance that no one else sees.
Meg: That's, I love that so much. It's absolutely true. Okay. I'm gonna ask you the same four questions we ask every guest at the end.
The first is… Oh yeah, here we go. The first is what brings you the most joy when it comes to your writing?
Jesse: Anyone laughing at it. That's easy.
Meg: Okay. Good. All right. What pisses you off about writing?
Jesse: That it takes forever and that you are never happy with it, and that you can't just think it onto the page and you have to type it and somewhere along the way it gets all fucked up and you have to do it again.
Meg: It does so much get fucked up. Okay. If you could have a coffee with your younger self, what advice would you give to that younger Jesse?
Jesse: I would say like, just don't get games on your phone. Just don't get games on your phone. You're a, you're addicted to them. You have an addiction and you need to stop and you know it.
Meg: I'm totally addicted to the farm game. It's ridiculous.
Jesse: Oh! Oh man, I can-
Meg: But it's so satisfying. I think because writers, everything we're doing, putting hours and hours in and you're like, “It doesn't even work this, I just did this for eight hours and it doesn't even work. But you know, when I go in my farm game, I collected 120 tomatoes and that's that.”
Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. That's such a problem. It's not good.
Meg: Okay. Alright. What's your proudest career moment to date?
Jesse: I don't know, maybe it's right now. Maybe it's this movie, you know? I loved Me and Earl, I, nothing will ever totally feel like me and Earl. It was my first movie and it had a really positive reception at Sundance and it was the first time too that I like blended with a director, you know, Alfonso.
And it just was this extraordinary like leveling up feeling. That felt amazing. And yeah I feel a lot of that right now, and I didn't know if I would again, I mean, Luca also it's hard to talk about it, you know?
Meg: No, it's like picking, kicking a baby. But you know what? You should be so proud of Hoppers.
I loved it. I hope everybody goes and sees it. You hit it outta the park, Jesse.
Jesse: Oh, Meg. Well that means a lot coming from you. I, it's so much fun to talk to you about this stuff. It's, yeah. So few people know what's the job is.
Meg: I know. They can’t understand.
Jesse: You can’t understand. Yeah.
Meg: Thank you so much for being on the show.
Jesse: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Let's do this again sometime.
Meg: Thank you so much, Jesse Andrews. Hoppers is in theaters right now. The Screenwriting Life is produced and edited by Alex Alcheh. For more support, find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. You can also head over to thescreenwritinglife.com to learn more about TSL workshops.
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The link to sign up is in the episode description. If you have any questions, you can always reach out to thescreenwritinglife@gmail.com. Thanks for listening, and remember, you are not alone and keep writing.
