It’s the secret fantasy of every writer: you get a call from Hollywood, march into your daily work and tell everyone that you’ll see them in the funny books. Maybe someday you will decorate them with your presence to show them how far you have come.
Screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns is not nearly as theatrical, but she pretty much lives her dream these days.
The Scottish-born screenwriter canceled her bartender appearance when Penny Dreadful’s production team got her to join the writing staff in the middle of the series, but she still visits the old gang. This year she has a lot to do with her pub friends; She has found her biggest co-authored platform to date in 1917, Sam Mendes’s new drama from the First World War, reminiscent of a single, unbroken attitude. She will return to the cinemas next year when Edgar Wright’s new psycho thriller “Last Night on Soho,” co-written by Wilson-Cairns, premieres. Like any talented writer at the beginning, she has many ideas and is gradually finding the right places to place them.
In October, Wilson-Cairns talked polygon about the myth of the “big break,” the films that did not work out with Mendes, and the secrets she must keep for Wright. With her breadth of expertise, her passion for the business, and a handful of connections worthy of gold, she’s not going anywhere – except maybe back to the bar.
Krysty Wilson-Cairns Owen Hoffmann / Universal Pictures
Polygon: You wrote for novelette in front 1917, two projects of varying size, format and genre. Which aspect was the biggest change for you?
Krysty Wilson-Cairns: The very first was that Penny Dreadful was serial television, so you do not tell a story between the beginning and the end of two hours. It’s an open narrative that should last 10, 20 or 50 hours. The finiteness was the big difference. 1917 is a narrow, compact font. We needed a satisfying real-time arc for these characters. Besides, it worked with a new group of people. Working with a director is a world where you do not work with a showrunner or other authors. You are talking to the person who translates your work directly to the screen, and that’s a pleasure because half of the work is already done for you. I wonder how I could imagine, and Sam [Mendes] says, “Well, that’s how I imagined it.”
So you were in constant contact during the writing process?
Hangin ‘out, best time of all time, total dream. Sam Mendes is a real genius! And a lovable person. This is actually our third common movie. We had two who fell apart because of the right issues.
Can you say what these two were?
Oh sure. We had The Voyeur’s Motel, the real story about the man who spied on the guests who lived in his Colorado motel. You have made a great documentary about it. Amblin bought the book Gay Talese had written without knowing that the documentary filmmakers were already investigating it, and there was a sort of kerfuffle that I’m not very clear about. Then we had another, which was based on a podcast about a small town in Denmark and did not work for licensing reasons. When Sam called me, I was at home in my pajamas, still waiting for something good to happen. I got the call and tried to play cool, saying, “I have this big idea, are you free? I want to tell you more about it.” And I want to say, “Yes, I think I can spare some time “I would set my house on fire if it means liberating me.
Then he told me it was going to be a World War I movie, and I gasped because the era of World War I until the Second World War was my great obsession. There are not that many great World War I films, and an opportunity like this came to me like a manna from heaven.
What sets the First World War apart from all other wars?
The First and Second World Wars are constantly being compared, and the real difference is that World War II had real bad guys. To put it in scripts: Nazis are really good villains – total assholes, the worst. World War I is a more complicated historical show, as there is no better word. Reich versus Reich, war for treaties, men fighting for king and country, without really knowing what that means. What fascinated me about the First World War was that the trenches were sometimes only 50 meters apart. The man you hated there was exactly the same person as you. When we arrived in 1915 or 1916, many people realized that the enemy was as human as they were. This conflict had something powerful and unifying. That alone is enough to grab my attention. 60 million people were dragged to war, and that’s 60 million stories. I said, “Gimme.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcmZN0Mbl04 [/ embed]
Shot in the dark: I take it nothing new in the West Were you thinking about scripting?
One of my favorite books. It’s incredible. The scene in no man’s land where he stabs the French – I mean, my God. I probably read that too young, about 11, and it stayed with me forever. It is such an intimate and terrible scene where two people who do not want to kill each other are forced into an impossible position. That was massive for me. I definitely tried to bring elements of it into 1917, yes.
How did you and Sam get together?
I wrote a script called Aether that made it a blacklist, which was nice. I was still bartender when I wrote the screenplay. That was in 2014 and John Logan read that and our agents met because he was looking for writers for Penny Dreadful’s third season. We had a long talk and found that he did not understand anything of what I said because of the combination of telephone line and crazy accent. He said, “The script was enough for me to hire you.” He gave this to Neal Street, Sam’s company, and Development Manager Julie Pastor wanted to meet me to talk about it. While I was in contact with Penny Dreadful, I sent them another script that I had written for Darren Aronofsky, and then Sam asked me to write to Voyeurs Motel.
It was such a simple collaboration with him. Sometimes, as a woman, you get nervous when you go into rooms full of experienced men who simply ignore your opinion. That’s what happened, but Sam’s a different experience. You feel so confident that you can even set up your terrible ideas, and sometimes your terrible ideas are at the heart of a good idea. You have to have that comfort. In one way or another, I’ve worked with or for him throughout my career.
You mentioned during a panel in 1917 that your first attempt at editing the script was far more tricky. Can you even talk about it?
I do not know if I can even tell you what’s not in the movie, to be honest. The actual structure of the film has remained unchanged throughout the course. Sam told me his idea was to create the script with the one-shot technique. Two days later, I showed up and we sat down at his kitchen table. He had the idea that messengers would go through no-man’s land to provide important information. What happens to you on this trip? We created a wish list for what we wanted to see in a World War I movie, a dreamlike scenario that came together in about four hours. That has never changed. There is not much left of the movie. I think what he was slowing down was an impulse to go over it. We had to be careful with the bow of history. This was a complicated push and pull.
This script must have required many small adjustments because the action on the page must fill in an exact amount of time in front of the camera. Were you on the set to restart the writing while recording?
Every day. I was at every rehearsal, every set, every place. I was with Sam in his garden and we wanted to test how far we can go while talking different dialogues. Tinker a lot, fine tune. Editor Lee Smith is critically involved in keeping the movie together, but there really is no cut in the traditional sense of a scene configuration. What I mean becomes clearer with time. So it looks like if a lead did not work, if it was not delivered correctly, it does not matter if it’s perfect. That goes to the trash. There are no repairs if you work for such a long time. You can not handle it!
Universal pictures
To what extent is production about making peace with these imperfections? Is there a perfect setting?
You just have to get it. I saw it and when it happens, you know it. Sam and Roger Deakins, they are not quite perfectionists, I would rather say that they strive for brilliance. You want the best version of everything. We all could feel that, and we took that over. What makes Sam a unique director is that he has a clear idea of what a scene should be, but he is not rigid. He is open to new ideas. He is a cool motherfucker.
Some artists speak of the idea of the “big breakthrough” that occurs suddenly. Others say it’s more of an incremental thing that happens over time. How did you experience the success?
The second. This year was surprisingly beautiful. I’m worried that my agent has sold her soul to the devil because she keeps coming through so hard for me. This movie [and] Edgar Wright’s next film was both shot at overlapping times. I wrote for five years, wrote for television, wrote a series of film scripts, but nothing came together. Either the talent could not or the rights problems I mentioned, it just never worked. Only bad luck. Now it sometimes feels like I’ve arrived somewhere, but that’s how I felt when Aether was blacklisted and when I got the penny dreadful offer. I hope I feel the same way every time I get a new job. I hope I never stop feeling that way. I have to cancel my barjob! I am a writer! Sometimes I miss my bar job, especially because I like to drink.
Do you ever go back to the bar where you used to work?
The whole time.
This is a show of strength.
It’s in Last Night in Soho, the movie Edgar Wright and I wrote. You have reconstructed the whole thing! I’m also allowed to make a little cameo as a bartender.
What should we know about the neighborhood of Soho for an American public unfamiliar with London before we shoot this movie?
Soho is a very lively place. I lived there for a few years over a strip club. It’s a strange little community in the middle of London, very run-down and grubby. In the 60s, it was the center of the vice in the UK. It was also the center for art, jazz and pop. A bit grainy. It has now been cleaned up a bit. It’s not even remodeled into expensive condominiums or anything like that, they just want to scrub their hearts out because it seems a bit dirty. They will get rid of sex shops, strip clubs and character.
Sounds a bit like what happened to Times Square in the 80s.
Yes, exactly. They will redevelop to place nothing new, just to drive them out of the running houses. I like having her there! The people work there! It’s a magic to look out the window and watch a domina bring a customer on a leash into the front door. Come on, city life does not get better!
Everything is still under lock and key, but it has already turned out that you and Edgar Nicolas took Roeg’s Do not look now as an important inspiration for your script. What did you like about Roeg’s movie you wanted in yours?
Main reference point. We liked the thriller component. England’s visual landscapes were very important to Edgar and DP Chung Chung-hoon. It’s definitely an Edgar Wright movie, whatever that may mean for a viewer at this point, it just got a little bit more nervous. Like Roeg, he comes from a perspective on the psychological thriller. It’s a very specific thing that does not mean much, but that’s all I can say.
