AN INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE MALKO (PART 1 OF 2)

George Malko is an accomplished fiction and non-fiction author, journalist, documentarian and screenwriter whose life and career has been as adventurous, fascinating and eclectic as any of the stories he has had a hand in creating. In the first of a two-part interview I spoke with George about his early years as a film fan, his foray into screenwriting via making TV documentaries in Rome, and his experiences making the films ALIEN THUNDER (1974), with Donald Sutherland; Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial LA LUNA (1979), with Jill Clayburgh; and the war movie THE DOGS OF WAR (1980) with Christopher Walken.   

What are your strongest memories growing up of watching movies? 
I was afraid of movies for a long time when I was a kid because I thought they were real. As a very small child in Copenhagen, where I was born, I was taken to see SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937) and I was carried screaming out of the theater because I thought it was real. I must have been about 10 or 11 when I suddenly realised that these were adventures; that they could scare me but that they couldn't necessarily get me. The first film that I felt comfortable with was PINNOCHIO (1940). It was playing at a local theater on an Easter break and I went to see it every day. I saw it eleven times. 

How about as you got a little older? 
When I was getting older and not yet in high school there were a couple of movie theaters in the neighborhood which showed foreign films and brought back certain American films. I remember going to this one movie theater and seeing BITTER RICE (1949). It made an incredible impression on me. Another theater brought back CITIZEN KANE (1941). I don't know why I went because it looked like it was about newspapers and stuff and I didn't know anybody on the poster, but I walked in and watched it. I was in my early teens and what got to me was the way the story was told. I was absolutely astonished that they were smart enough to find a way to tell me the story that made it interesting to me. It wasn't just a lecture. I thought some 'grown-up' movies were like lectures. 

What are some other films that you saw a lot in your teens? 
I must have seen A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951) fifteen or twenty times. STALAG 17 (1953) and THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (1955) left huge impressions on me. I had never seen anthing like SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952). I thought that whoever made it were geniuses because they made me fel so great. AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) had an incredible influence on me because I ended up studying at the Sorbonne. I'm sure it was all because of that movie. I didn't see myself as a struggling painter living near Montmartre because I lived on the other side of the river, but whatever I was expecting from my year at the Sorbonne, it delivered. I saw a lot of movies there. As you know, in Paris, there are places where you can see films that everybody else has forgotten. I remember seeing HALLELUJAH THE HILLS (1963), made by the Mekas brothers. Eventually here in New York I came to meet Jonas Mekas. 

When did you start to entertain the idea of becoming a writer? 
I always entertained the idea but I never thought I had the right to want that. There was a point where I realised that I had to stop wanting it and start doing it. I had written some stories and published some articles and reviews. We were living in Rome in the 60s and a couple of our friends were in the film business. There was a producer named Gabrielle Silverstri, who was this independent producer. Like a lot of people have said, the film business can be found in the briefcases these independents walk around town with. Their lives and the possibilities of films are in those briefcases. Hope springs eternal. I was making documentary films for CBS News and I got to meet some of these producers because we did a documentary on how some of the low-budget sword and sandal movies were being made. We followed the entire production of one of the movies. We were on the set, we watched the dubbing and we watched the sound effects guy do the effects with equipment he carried in two suitcases. The documentary was called The 150 Lira Escape (1964). Being around movies is intoxicating. It takes a while but eventually you realise that all of these people are actually working and not just having fun. But the impression is what a great life it is.  

How did you come to write ALIEN THUNDER? 
One day in Rome, Gabrielle said ''I'm looking for a script. We've got some German blocked funds that some people need to spend on a Western. '' I said ''I got a Western. '' This was a Thursday. He said ''You do? I'd love to see it. '' I told him ''I'll show it to you. '' I went back to my home and over the next few days I wrote a screenplay. On the Monday I sent it to him. There was total silence for two weeks, and I was dying, wondering what was happening. I called him and asked ''Did you get the screenplay?'' He said ''Yes.'' I asked him ''Did you read it?'' He said ''Of course.'' ''Did you like it?'', I asked him. ''Yes, I loved it'', he said. With mounting excitement I said ''Are they going to make the movie?'' He said ''No.'' ''Why?'' I said. ''They disappeared. ''

I wanted to continue writing but CBS wouldn't let me. They wanted me to stay on as a producer, so I quit and we went back to New York. I thought ''Either do it, or shut up. '' So I started trying to write. And trying to write is the correct way to describe it. It took me a long time. During the first years, I did narrations for a couple of documentaries, I had some plays done off-Broadway, I published a couple of short stories, and then finally, a friend told me that Cinema Century Films had a film project in Canada that was in trouble and needed a complete rewrite. It was a Donald Sutherland movie, that was at that time called ALIEN THUNDER. It later became DAN CANDY'S LAW. I went up to Montreal and spent some time rewriting the script and then they shot it. I once tried talking to Donald Sutherland about the movie and he turned on his heel and walked away. He wouldn't talk about it. He had been friends with the people who made it and he felt betrayed by the movie. 

How do you feel about the film? 
It wasn't very good. It wasn't well cut. I got a cassette of it at one point amd my youngest son and I sat down to watch it. After 15 minutes he asked ''Dad, what's this about?'' and I said ''I have no idea. '' But hey, it was my first screen credit. 

Did they change your script a lot? 
They didn't really change the script. It was the editing. At one point they convinced their friend Dede Allen to come up from New York to look at it. I flew up with her. She was one of the greatest editors of all time. She looked at a rough cut and made some comments and they said ''Yeah, yeah.'' The only thing of importance that happened at that meeting in the cutting room was that they started talking about what happens when the Cree Indians are speaking Cree. I said ''Leave it. '' They said ''What do you mean? We need to know what they are saying. '' I said that all we need is a fair idea of what they are saying and that what they said in the film was self-evident. Dede agreed and said ''Yeah, just leave it. It'll be more authentic. '' Look, the director, Claude Fournier, is a sweet guy and we spent time with him in Montreal after the movie. But the movie is out of focus. There's a scene where two women are playing badminton, and it's snowing. 

The film comes across as like a fever dream. 
If only it had that mystical quality. 

How did you follow up the film? 
I did a television movie and got an agent. Work came in, but it was the usual thing. Two-thirds of the stuff you work on doesn't get made. 

What were the events that led to you co-writing LA LUNA with Bernardo Bertolucci? 
Bernardo was represented by Carol Levy in Rome, who was with the William Morris office. I was also with William Morris. Bernardo and his wife Clare Peploe came to New York because Twentieth Century Fox insisted an American writer be on the project. The original story had been written by Bernardo, Franco (Kim) Arcalli, his longtime collaborator, and his brother Giuseppe. Fox was producing with Fiction Cinematografica. Two things happened. First, Arcalli died, which was a terrible personal blow to Bernardo. Then, Liv Ullman, the film's original star, dropped out. 

My agent knew my background – that as a child I had lived in Rome a little bit and then later with CBS News I had lived and worked there. By this time I could read and speak Italian comfortably. He put us together and I wasn't quite sure what the movie was about. I missed the moment of the conversation where they had explained it. After we had had lunch, Bernardo asked me ''Why is it that you know Italian?'' I said ''Well, my father was a conductor and when I was 12 or 13 he was over there conducting and we all moved to Rome. I went to the American Overseas School of Rome for a while. As a kid in Rome it was really quite amazing because you felt you had the language and could get around. You felt the city belonged to you. '' Bernardo looked at me and said ''That's what my movie is about. '' I read the extensive original treatment, and a week later we flew to Rome and began working, meeting every day at Bernardo's home. Giuseppe was there much of the time, but not knowing English, his contributions were minimal, even though we discussed many things in Italian. At the time, Giuseppe was also involved in trying to get what what would be his third movie off the ground - it was made eventually and was called OGETTI SMARRITI, or LOST AND FOUND in English.

Because the original star was to be Liv Ullman, in the movie, where Jill Clayburgh goes to VillaVerdi, outside Parma, which was my suggestion because I had worked in Parma, we were originally going to go to Oslo. After Liv Ullman fell out, they met with Jill, and liked her. She came down to do camera tests while we were working on the script. She had just won an Oscar for Best Actress for AN UNMARRIED WOMAN (1978). It was only then that Bernardo learned her grandmother had been an opera singer. Jill did all the singing in the film. I remember that originally, for the role of the best friend, who is played by Veronica Lazar in the film, Bernardo wanted Monica Vitti. When he first talked about that, I thought ''Hey, I'll be there!'' It was a smart decision not to use her really because Monica would have overbalanced the movie. Jill was wonderful. A terrific actress and a terrific person. But she couldn't have held the frame against Monica Vitti. 

See below for notes.
What kind of experience was it making the film? 
It was an amazing experience. I'm disappointed that I don't have the correct credit on it but I have made peace with that. I wrote the screenplay with Bernardo, and when we finished I said to him ''I should really share the screen credit.'' He said ''You're right, but I can't do it. '' I asked him ''Why?'' and he said ''I promised it to Clare and my brother. I just have to. '' The film wasn't covered by the Writer's Guild so there couldn't be a credit arbitration. He said ''I'll get you another good credit. '' I believe that if it had been possible for there to have been a Writer's Guild arbitration, the final credits would have been determined to be 'Screenplay by Bernardo Bertolucci and George Malko. Original Story by Bernardo Bertolucci, Franco Arcalli and Giuseppe Bertolucci.' But we will never know. If I could do it all over again, knowing how it would all play out, I'd still be with him in a heartbeat. Because working with him was wonderful. All the conversations of any kind. It's not a question of overt confidence on his part, it's working with someone who has nothing to prove, which means nothing threatens them. If you have an idea, you talk about it. When they shot in New York, I was there and it wasn't like ''What's the writer doing on the set?'' 

Did the script change at all as he was filming? 
What changed unfortunately was some of the locutions that they gave the American boy. The problem was that they didn't have an American on the set. There are moments in the movie where the boy says things that aren't American. When I wrote the novel I fixed all that. Bernardo said ''I don't want a novelisation. I had a novelisation on LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972), and I hated it. I want a real novel. '' So I wrote a real novel and he was thrilled. In the book, I drop the other shoe. In the movie it's ambiguous whether the mother and son sleep together. Not in the book. By the way, Bernardo and I had previously met briefly when I was at CBS News in Rome. I had shot a documentary in Parma, and I met his parents. His mother had grown up in Australia, and my wife is Australian, so they had a nice talk. 

Did you have any worries about the subject matter of LA LUNA? 
No, not at all. I think I had already seen Louis Malle's MURMUR OF THE HEART (1971). The only disagreement that Bernardo and I had was the extent of the son's so-called drug 'addiction'. I felt that the addiction was convenient for any moment he needed to push forward. It wasn't an ongoing addiction that he could turn on and off. I told him that ''You're either addicted or you're chipping. If you're chipping, then fine, but the boy seems to be too young to control that. '' Bernardo said ''No, no. It's fine.'' 

How happy are you with the final film? 
Bernardo is great at flirting with the ambiguities in people, most effectively in THE CONFORMIST (1970), but in LA LUNA, I think he tries to do too much. It's one of those films that you don't want to dislike. I don't really like it, but I guess it's okay. 

How has the film impacted upon your own life? 
Well, I was in a restaurant in New York years ago, and the owner came over and said ''My analyst says I have to see LUNA because it will save us months''! 

How did you end up co-writing THE DOGS OF WAR? 
I had been offered the book years before when a producer named Sir John Woolf had an option on it. That fell apart. Later, my agent put me together with another producer called Larry De Waay and the director John Irvin, who were in New York, looking for a writer. By then they had seven or eight drafts. Everybody had done a draft of it, including Michael Cimino. I had read the book years before when Sir John Woolf had it. They said ''What did you think of it?'' I said ''Well, its main problem as a book is that A hires B to do C and B does it. That's it. There's no conflict. '' They agreed.

Freddie Forsyth had personally backed a failed coup in Africa. He had enlisted that famous mercenary, Mike Hoare. Forsyth had put $800, 000 into this failed coup and he wanted his money back. So he wrote the book as a way to do that. I went to London and we spent 2 1/2 months beating out the script, and United Artists greenlit it. While in London, I met with Pat Birch, the wonderful choreographer, who was going to direct a movie that Robert Stigwood wanted me to work on. It was a musical that was a crossover between Salsa music and New York, much like like the way SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977) had been a crossover between disco and New York. So I came back to the States and started working on that. Meanwhile John Irvin and Larry De Waay were looking for places to shoot THE DOGS OF WAR that were Africa but not Africa. I recommended a particular section of the island of Puerto Rico that had been inhabited by slaves originally and was very African-looking. We were in touch about that but they ended up shooting in Belize. It looked great in the film. It was very effective. One of the wonderful things about the movie is that all the money is on the screen. 

When did Gary De Vore come on board? 
They wanted a polish and another pass at it and John Irvin wanted me to come to the Coast. United Artists said ''No, we have someone out here to do it. '' Gary took a pass at it and did beautiful work. I think at the time his credits were stronger than mine so he took first position but that was fine. My opening was different than the one that Gary wrote about them leaving the country after a battle. His opening was terrific. John made that look great. 

Can you talk about your opening? 
My opening was in some African country after a coup and they are all in a whorehouse, just collapsed. Theres smoke in the air from after the battle, there are girls around and there's drink around, but no-one is drinking because they're all listening to Shannon on the phone confirming that their money has been paid into their Swiss accounts. They're not leaving until it's done. Finally it's done and then he says ''Now we can leave. '' They get up to leave and Drew, Shannon's friend, passes one of the exhausted black women and says ''You gonna miss me?'' Then the story moved to New York.

It was an interesting lesson for me. In a story like that you want to start out big. The choreographing of the explosions as the plane takes off is beautifully done. After having seen Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and seeing his other work over the years, John's use of music is quite wonderful. The end, when the jeep is leaving, and he has that English hymn on the soundtrack is very strong. John and I came close years later to setting up a comedy that I wrote. A producer came on board and we sold it to Interscope and Ted Field in Los Angeles. Five days before going into pre-production, all of the top people at Interscope were replaced and of course the first thing they did was get rid of all the projects that had been in-house. John and I have tried to get other things going but they didn't happen. 

Was Michael Cimino ever in line to direct the film? 
No, he wasn't. I read his screenplay. It was terrific but it had absolutely nothing to do with the book. It was just a lot of stuff getting blown up. I had to look at all the scripts because there was an arbitration. There were eight or nine scripts. Everybody who worked on the scripts could have formed their own affinity group. We could have gotten on a bus and gone touring. 

What can you say about the scenes that were deleted from the movie? 
I don't really remember much about the missing footage. I think it had something to do with the funeral of a friend who was near death when they left whatever South American republic they were fighting in in the opening. I think it also had something to do with Tom Berenger's character. I saw Tom at a screening of a cut of the movie in New York, and he said to me ''Where am I? What happened? I'm barely in it. '' After that screening, John re-edited the movie and cut 18 minutes out of the film, and as a result, Tom was very much back in the movie. I told Tom as much but I don't know if he agreed. The shorter version of the movie played better and really moved. 

Part two of the interview. 

I spoke to George by telephone on 21st October 2015 and would like to thank him for his time. 

Notes on LA LUNA photo by George: ''This is in Queens; the funeral at the beginning of the film, after the stepfather has a coronary outside the family's Brooklyn Heights home and dies. I am behind Bernardo's right hand shoulder. He had originally wanted to shoot in Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetery, with its distant vistas of New York Harbor. Apparently some of the Italian families with relatives enjoying eternal rest there nixed the idea. Queens was fine. Bernardo brought several of his usual Italian crew and supplemented it with New York crew. At lunch everyone went into an open-sided tent where two tables had been set up. There was veal in several forms, and fresh bread and pasta, and bottles of red and white wine. A New York grip took a look and said ''Damn, you guys eat like this all the time?'' The nearest Italian said ''Of course.'' The New Yorker said ''I'm in the wrong place. '' The Italian said ''Come to Italy. '' Another New Yorker nearby, union of course, quietly said ''Yeah, go to Italy and starve looking for work. '' It was a fabulous lunch. ''   

Interview by Paul Rowlands. Copyright © Paul Rowlands, 2016. All rights reserved.

DANIEL WATERS ON 'HEATHERS' (PART 1 OF 2)

Daniel Waters exploded onto the film scene with his brilliant, perceptive, wickedly funny screenplay for HEATHERS (1988). His subversive, outrageous, satirical sense of fun brought extraordinary qualities to films like BATMAN RETURNS (1992), THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE (1990), HUDSON HAWK (1991), DEMOLITION MAN (1993) and VAMPIRE ACADEMY (2014), the latter of which was directed by his brother Mark Waters, the director of MEAN GIRLS (2004). Dan also wrote and directed the unfairly underseen comedies HAPPY CAMPERS (2001) and SEX AND DEATH 101 (2007). In the first part of our two-part interview, I spoke to Dan about the writing, influences and initial reaction of the HEATHERS screenplay, and also the casting of the film.    

What made you decide that you wanted to make 'The greatest ever teen film'?
It was almost exactly like that. I've learned that naivete is one of the strongest forces in the world. The sad thing about becoming an old, grizzled screenwriter is that you lose your naivete and you start to think about what can be done and what can get made. Back then, after I had just moved out to L.A. and I was sitting writing my first screenplay, it was a case of ''What do I want to see?'' I see so many movies and what I wanted to see was a high school film with Stanley Kubrick's satire from DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) and the narration from Terrence Malick's BADLANDS (1973). The high school films that I was seeing lacked a certain something. The parents were always to blame. The kids were always innocent. Even when they weren't innocent, they were never to blame. I didn't want to make a documentary saying ''This is the way teenagers really are. '' I wanted to take a step back and take a darker, more epic, cynical, satirical approach. Stanley Kubrick did his science fiction movie. He did his horror movie. He did his war movie. Well, what if he did his teen film? So I wrote this three-hour script. Screenwriters today they read Variety, and they read the trades in order to find what is hot right now, instead of just writing. I've always found it ridiculous. It's like the light of a star of a planet that blew up two hundred years ago. By the time you write what's hot, it won't be hot anymore. I just went in headlong and wrote this three hour teen film. It was silly and insane of me but in this case it worked out.

You're a fan of John Hughes but the film is often described as an 'anti-John Hughes' film. Do you think of it that way?
In a way it is, yes. That doesn't mean I hate his films though. Looking back now, the thing that I didn't like about them, the quaintness and silliness of them, is even more endearing today. They're time-capsule fun. Even at the time I enjoyed them -it was just certain elements of them I always had problems with. In THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985) a character says ''When you grow up, your heart dies. '' HEATHERS is saying ''When you're 14, your heart dies. '' Evil and bad behaviour can happen at a much younger age than just when you're becoming an adult.

Did you ever think it might have been possible to get Kubrick to do the film?
I honestly did think that somehow he would see the script and say ''Yeah, I'll do it.'' I thought I would have to go to England and work with him, and he would probably take a screenwriting credit with me. That was me being realistic!

Were you inspired by any particular films or books when writing the script?
Both the movie BADLANDS and the work of Kubrick were definitely inspirational. PRETTY POISON (1968) was another one. I also love Michael Ritchie's SMILE (1975). And not to sound too pretentious but I love the whole Shakespeare thing, man! I was always jealous of him because he always wrote about the top people. So, I thought ''Wait a minute. If I go to the royalty of high school, then I can have that same ambience. '' It's funny. To this day I get notes like ''Why can't you write the way people really talk?'' I take all the transportation in L.A., and I hear how people really talk all the time and it can be fascinating. I like it when characters, even the stupid characters, speak as though they were given an extra ten minutes to come up with a good line. I like the dialogue to be elevated. You can say it's Shakespeare or it's Turner Classic Movies, but I'm the last of the anti-naturalistic bent when it comes to screenwriting.

When did you begin writing the screenplay?
It was the spring of 86 when I said ''Right, I gotta actually start writing something.'' My friend Larry Karaszewski was graduating from USC in the fall of 85 and he was getting a place. There was an extra place so I moved in with him.

Were you writing it when you were working at the video store?
Yeah, and part of me still wishes I was working there because there's something about being on the floor, surrounded by movies, that allows you to get your juices flowing. I have never been the guy who sits at a computer and says ''OK, I gotta do five pages today.'' I'm always the writer who sneaks up on the writing of a script. I'm always collecting notes. I call it 'collecting acorns for the winter'. I end up writing little bits and bits and then adding them all up. I do everything by hand, so by the time it gets to the computer it has cleared a lot of customs.

How many drafts did you write?
I think there were three big drafts and then a lot of putting once we got to the green, just getting it right for a movie. There were drafts that went over 200. I found the original draft recently, and I could only get through a few pages. I wrote everything! The draft I showed everybody was a nice, tight 196 pages! I remember Michael Lehmann telling me I had to cut it down, and I was thinking ''Who the fuck are you?!''

Was anything lost do you feel from the shortened drafts and the final shooting script?
The first draft was more like a novel. I have adapted novels myself and you just have to accept that a movie is a different beast. That draft had more characters and more of a Charles Dickens expanse to it. There was a lot more about what happens to the school after the suicides and there were more characters from the media. I don't really miss all that stuff. I used to think it would have been better as a three hour movie but I don't think that way now.

Was HEATHERS always the title?
Yes, always. I wrote a short script in college about a girl who gets burned at the stake during a high school football game, and I had three supporting characters named Heather. People liked that element so much that I jumped off from there.

When you were writing the script did you have any actors in mind for the lead roles?
I had a huge post-LABYRINTH (1986) crush on Jennifer Connelly and I thought she would be the perfect Veronica. To this day, Winona still teases me about it. She did a Ron Howard movie, THE DILEMMA (2011), where she got to meet Jennifer Connelly, and she told her all about it. It was funny when Jennifer was Oscar-nominated for A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001) because it was always like a punchline for Winona. I certainly realise now that Winona was the perfect person for it. I hadn't seen her in BEETLEJUICE (1988) yet because it hadn't come out yet. Michael Lehmann was friends with the writer of it and so he knew more about her than I did. I had only seen her in SQUARE DANCE (1987) and to me she wasn't the dark Audrey Hepburn ingenue that I wanted for the Veronica role. I had my arms folded but I soon realised how stupid I was.

It's incredible that she was only 16 when she made the film, and already a fan of film noir!
And she was really 16 too. I saw her in the elevator going up to meet her and I thought ''Who is this little girl?'' Other people liked the script, but it was only after I talked to her that I realised how good it really was. If a teenager with that kind of intelligence and cinematic knowledge loved it, I knew I must have really done something right.

Were you consulted at all in the casting decisions?
I wasn't initially as involved in casting as I'd have liked to have been. I wasn't even aware they had begun casting people and I got mad. I eventually got consulted. We were never going to get big, established stars. I had not been blown away by the films Christian Slater had made at the time. I really came to appreciate how charismatic his performance was in the movie. Critics complained that he was copying Jack Nicholson, but it's actually the way that he talks!

What sort of reaction did the script get once you began sending it out?
I was really low on the totem pole. I was literally a guy behind the counter in a video store. I didn't even have an agent. People starting out ask me how to get an agent. I tell them ''Write a script that you can get one person other than yourself to like, and people will be willing to pass on to other people. '' I got a lot of great responses from people who said HEATHERS was a great writing sample but that it would never get made into a movie. I did manage to get an agent off the script, but even he said ''OK, we're gonna put the HEATHERS script in this drawer here. It will be our little secret. '' Eventually I got an agent who was also Michael Lehmann and Denise Di Novi's agent (Bobbi Thompson), and she really loved the script. She was able to package it all together and help get it made. I was really lucky to meet all these guys, even though I didn't realise it at the time.

Was there a point where you realised you had something special?
A lot of people wanted to read it and it certainly got a great response from everybody that did. I was so naive that I was saying ''You really like the script? When do we start shooting?'' People would just laugh. The idea of actually making the movie was something that people couldn't deal with. Even when I was having meetings during shooting, people couldn't believe we were actually shooting it. They thought they had discovered this crazy script that no-one knew about and they couldn't believe it was being made into a movie. I call HEATHERS 'winning the lottery'. Writing that movie and having it get made was such a big deal but I didn't appreciate it at the time. I wrote my first screenplay and everyone loved it, so I thought it was just the first of a thousand great films I was going to do. I didn't realise that no-one was going to let me write a movie like that again. When I go and speak in classes with people, I tell them that they are at the best point of their life because for your first script, you're expected to write stuff that is completely out there and completely original. It's the only way you're going to get noticed. There's nothing worse than somebody who sells out before they are asked to sell out. The studios want somebody who is an original talent and then they want to take them and force them to do their crap, but you are in a position now with your first script where you are allowed to be out there. I was in a position later on where it was like ''You know, you should get that HEATHERS stuff out of your system now if you want to work in today's industry.'' You can see with the stuff after HEATHERS, especially the Joel Silver movies that I did, that I was promoted in the worst way possible. ''You did HEATHERS, so now you can do this crap.'' You need to somehow keep the naivete that you had.

How much did HEATHERS reflect your own high school life?
I feel like I'm on the outside looking in. I was the writer even in high school. I had a column in the high school newspaper, and I would write all the PA announcements. It was always ''Get Dan Waters. We need to write a speech for the Pep Assembly. He'll write a funny sketch. '' I always had a journalistic relationship with high school from the beginning. High school was certainly not the traumatic experience many people assume it was because I wrote HEATHERS. College was actually the worst four years of my life because I loved all the pain and drama of high school. In college everybody is just having a good time and for some reason, instead of going with the flow, I just hated it. I didn't wanna have fun. I wanted to see people cry! Everyone in my particular high school class was a friendly bunch. For HEATHERS I kind of stole from my younger brother and especially my younger sister's experiences.

How important was it for you to look at the social issues of high school life in your script?
If I had to write my Seven Deadly Sins in order, Sloth would be number one. I love writing but actually sitting down and doing it is difficult. I love having the ideas floating around in my head more than actually finishing something. When I say HEATHERS was written as a response to the teen films, that's correct, but I need more than that to get me to write. The way teenage suicide was presented in films and in the media as a news story incensed me. A teenager who had committed suicide would be elevated to this God-like level. The way the media talks about these issues makes it too real and suddenly suicide becomes something to consider when you're feeling depressed. One of my favorite lines in the script is when the teacher says ''Whether to kill yourself is one of the most important decisions a teenager can make.'' There was a certain sanctity and solemnity at the time about teenage suicide that I wanted to satirise – the highlight of that being the father saying ''I love my dead gay son'' at the funeral. Only now does the father realise the problems his son had been having. Suicide shouldn't be the way to get them noticed.

Do you ever surprise or shock yourself by the stuff you come up with?
I actually never do. And it goes to the part of the way I write. ''Fuck me gently with a chainsaw'' for example, was something that I had floating around in my head long before I put it in HEATHERS. By the time it went into the script I had digested it a million times. There was a review that I have always worn as a badge of honor that said ''Waters is chilling for what he assumes is common ground. '' In other words, ''He has no idea how fucked up he is.'' 

I spoke to Dan by telephone and would like to thank him for his time. 

Part two of the interview.  

Interview by Paul Rowlands. Copyright © Paul Rowlands, 2016. All rights reserved.