We Asked ... Susannah Grant, "The Soloist"

Screenwriter Susannah Grant is best known for her Oscar®-nominated screenplay Erin Brockovich. In her latest project—The Soloist, which opens April 24—she takes on another true story. Based on the book by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, The Soloist tells of his encounter and subsequent friendship with homeless musician Nathaniel Ayers.

Dreamworks had optioned the book and bought the rights to it, and sent it to Grant in hopes she would get on-board. Grant didn’t hesitate.

“I lay in bed one morning reading it,” Grant recalls. “I put it down, and I had no idea what the movie was, but I knew I had to tell it. It wasn’t a conscious working out of it. It was purely visceral. There were issues and a relationship that were so moving … I jumped at it.

“There are a lot of [projects] I like and think I might want to write. This is something I absolutely had to write,” she explains.

“I was really drawn to telling this story," Grant continues. "It’s a love story. It’s not a romantic love, but it’s as true a love as you will find between human beings: People who are brought out of their own lives and into a life that’s richer and fuller and more compassionate for having known each other.”

Grant shares her experience and her expertise with the StoryLink Community.

How do you go through the process of adapting from real life, as you did in The Soloist and Erin Brockovich?

I start by spending as much time as possible with the people involved. And I try to be as quiet as possible, and listen and observe.

There’s a guy in my neighborhood who spends all day, every day, sweeping the street. And he appears to be homeless. I thought if I could write a movie that would make everyone in this neighborhood look more carefully at this guy and see him not just as the guy who sweeps the street, but as somebody’s child, somebody’s brother, somebody’s uncle, somebody who has somehow fell out of relationships with the people who love him, that would be a job well done.

I start with a goal like that and build it from there.

Were there any similarities between writing Erin Brockovich and The Soloist?

Only in that you are doing the incredibly presumptuous thing of putting words in the mouth of somebody you know and creating a character that’s supposed to be someone you know. The only way I’ve ever found my way around that is to divorce them from each other.

Say, there is this Steve Lopez whom I know, for whom I have tremendous respect. And then there’s this other guy that I am writing. He will be informed by that respect and empathy and compassion and fondness that I have for Steve. I am not in charge of Steve Lopez the man, but I am in charge of Steve Lopez the character. And if I separate them that way, I find they come a lot closer to each other than if I try to replicate the guy I know.

If I thought I was creating the real Steve Lopez, I wouldn’t be able to write a line. Because what right do I have to say what Steve would say or think or feel?

How do you approach the blank page? What is your process?

I always have a road map. It is an outline that gets revised as I move along. I start with, “How does this movie start? What’s the first scene? What’s the scene after that?” And I bite off a little piece at a time. It’s like climbing a mountain. You can’t look at the mountain top, you just have to look at the ridge you’re on.

I start with a full outline. Not every beat will be hammered down and I rarely stick to the original file. I always over-outline. … As I write, I amend and revise and condense. I wouldn’t call it an outline, I’d call it a road map that I detour from.

What is your method for adapting a novel to a screenplay? (In addition to adapting The Soloist, Grant has written In Her Shoes, Ever After, and 2006’s Charlotte’s Web, among others)

The work is different, obviously. You have some things in the novel that are there already.

Some of the work is done when you are adapting, and so you are making adjustments. And when you’re inventing—when you’re doing an original—it’s all from somewhere mysterious inside or outside of you.

It all comes down to the same job. Just different materials you’re working with.

How do you go about intertwining theme throughout a film?

You just have to know from the get-go why you are telling the story and what story you are telling through it. Once you know why you are telling that story, then it helps you decide what is helpful to telling that and what is not.

Whenever I have adapted a novel or something from real life, it’s less about changing what’s there and more about selecting the pieces of what’s there to tell the story that you want to tell.

How do you infuse humor into your dramatic screenplays/films?

It’s what the material suggests. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything that’s purely dramatic or purely comedic. I like to represent the full spectrum of human emotions, and humor is such an important part of getting through a day, I wouldn’t imagine not using it.

There are a lot of heavy, serious, dark, depressing issues in The Soloist, and that is a very real part of life And there’s humor in all of it. There’s humor in the night Steve spent on Skid Row with Nathaniel; not mostly humor, but moments of humor, and you can’t ignore that.

What advice would you give to someone trying to "make it" as a screenwriter?

Get the internet off your work computer. I don’t have internet in my office, and it’s the reason I’m productive.

What is something you know now that you wish you knew when you first started writing?

One of the things I wish I had known and I value now is that there is no right way to do this. There’s no manual that everyone else has that you don’t have. There’s no road map that will make it easy. It’s very hard. That’s the job. That’s to be embraced.

I used to struggle through a script and end up a weeping puddle when I was around page 80, and thought that meant there’s something wrong with what I am doing. The truth is there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s the process: it’s the process of ripping it all apart and not knowing the answers and getting a little bit more comfortable with how difficult it is.

What’s the best part of being a working screenwriter?

The writing. The sitting in my office.

People say to me, “Isn’t it lonely, sitting there alone?” I am never alone. Never. When I am working hard and writing eight hours a day, it’s eight hours with the most interesting people in places I could never go in my day-to-day life, doing things I either wouldn’t do or can’t do or am too frightened to do or whatever. It’s an entire world I am living in. There’s nothing dull or lonely about that. It’s such a luxury. It’s the best part.

There are a lot of parts that are good. Seeing your movie made, seeing people go to your movie. All that stuff is fun. But nothing compares to the joy of having “living in your imagination” be your job.

It’s a luxury and something I do not take for granted at all.

What do you do if you get stuck?

I get up. Or I go for a run. Or I do some gardening. I don’t force anything. I know that an answer is there.

There are some purely practical things. If a scene isn’t working, I try flipping everything in it—doing the opposite entirely—and seeing if that makes it more interesting. If something isn’t working, I look at the beat before. Often it’s not the moment you are working on, it’s the moment before that’s not giving you what you need going into the scene.

If I literally don’t feel like I have anything to write about at that moment, it’s like talking. If you don’t feel like you have anything to say, you should probably shut up. So, if I don’t feel like have anything to write in that moment, I don’t try. I get up and walk away and then come back when I am feeling like I have something I need to write.

For more on Susannah Grant, check out her interview in the current issue of Script magazine or go to www.soloistmovie.com.