Written Interview: Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island) (2024)

Today’s written interview is with screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis. The sole writer credited on the recently released hit movie Shutter Island, WGA.org provides some info on Kalogridis’ background:

Like anyone who has survived over a decade and a half in the screenwriting trade, Laeta Kalogridis is both humble and really good.

The sole scribe for Martin Scorsese’s new film Shutter Island, based on Mystic River novelist Dennis Lehane’s same-titled gothic thriller, isn’t phony, Hollywood humble, that insipid brand of affected humility borne of equal parts insecurity, desperation, and self-obsession. She’s the unobtrusively profound kind of humble that comes from having truly worked hard and tasted both victory and defeat.

Kalogridis is very heavy in the victory column at the moment. She’s in the midst of what any writer would consider a shameless, unfettered fantasy. She ended last year having worked with regular collaborator James Cameron as a writer-executive producer on Avatar. Now, as several follow-up projects with Cameron impend on the event horizon, she is also enjoying the release of a script she wrote with no interference directed by a singular living legend of cinema in Scorsese.

Kalogridis, however, doesn’t come to this party without battle scars. She experienced similar good fortune 16 years ago when, before she’d even left UCLA, she sold her first script, an epic about Joan of Arc. After an incredibly fortuitous maiden foray into the biz, she was brought down to earth soundly by never seeing that script or any other feature of hers produced until the Razzies nommed Alexander in ’04, for which she was only one of several writers, including Oliver Stone. Still, through it all, she’s managed to live successfully as a screenwriter.

What’s different about this story compared to the other Lehane novels in terms of the heart and spirit of the tale?

A big part of what makes it different is that it deals with different themes. There’s a specific nexus of that particular time in American history — post-World War II, post-Holocaust, and the beginning of the Cold War, so there’s this almost institutional paranoia that’s taking root. It was something my grandfather had told me that sparked this. He said after the war, they had seen the Holocaust and what we did in Japan and they all felt like the world was ending, that we were on the edge of destroying humanity. So in this book Teddy [played by Leonardo DiCaprio] embodies this sense of horror and fear mixed with pride for what we’ve done. He’s an ex-soldier.

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So all told, from your first getting the book to completing your first draft, how long did this take?

I did a really extensive outline first that Brad and I went over together. It was about 40 or 50 pages. That took about two weeks [but] because I was working at the same time I was writing on other projects, I would say it took about a year.

Have you always been a big outliner? Especially since this is a thriller, how much important was the outline to keep things taut and well paced?

Of course, since I’d not really worked in thrillers before, it necessitated I do an outline where I could track where the reversals were and where each moment could go. That said, I started this extensive outlining process when I was working for Jim Cameron on the very first thing we did together, which was Battle Angel [set for a 2011 release]. This script process is part of how Jim works. I found once I’d done it, it was hugely helpful. It’s almost like doing an abbreviated first draft.

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And from this 16-year plus journey, what sage advice do you have about surviving this business as a writer?

Ha! That’s easy. LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS and you can capitalize those words. We still live in the same house we bought after I sold my first script. That was great advice I got from Dan Pyne, who was my independent study professor on the script that I first sold. He told me to not change my spending habits and live within your means. That’s the practical advice.

Then I would say on a creative level, if you want to follow your heart creatively, be prepared for success and disappointment. Don’t assume that it will be all one or the other, but for God’s sake, don’t assume it’ll all be success. I’ve taken a number of creative leaps, and some of them worked, and some of them didn’t, but I don’t regret any of them because you can’t possibly get to the ones that work without the ones that don’t. To me that’s a very artistically fulfilling way to live.

For the rest of the interview at WGA. org, go here