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"BOOK REVIEW: I'LL BE IN MY TRAILER - The Creative Wars Between Actors & Directors"
Author: John Badham with Craig Modderno
Book Review by Matthew Terry
Published by: Michael Wiese Productions
ISBN#: 1-932907-14-9
I'm a screenwriter. I've been one for over fifteen years. Why, pray tell, am I reading a book on the "Creative Wars Between Actors & Directors" - I'll tell you why: IT'S IMPORTANT! It is very important that you, as a screenwriter, know all there is to know about the inner workings of Hollywood. And, yes, that includes the relationships between the Director and the Actor.
Lets say your script gets bought. You are a happy little camper and cannot wait to see your visuals and here your words and watch your story come to life on a screen that's bigger than God and you suddenly find characters that do not resemble those you wrote, speaking words you did not write, in locations that you did not describe, doing actions you did not put on paper. How, HOW did this happen?
Well, John Badham (with Craig Modderno), goes into all the machinations with an extraordinary amount of detail. They explain very clearly how the relationships work and, guess what? If your words do not work, they get chucked out the nearest window. If the location you describe is not available, or is too prohibitive - it gets changed. If the actor does not think (or they're too drunk, or too stupid, or too old) that they should walk across the room and pick up the gun and, instead, have the gun attached to their ankle - well, Director willing, here comes the duct tape and out goes your action.
What you quickly learn in this book is that what you have written, although it is VERY important, and got this whole insane ball rolling in the first place, takes a quick back-seat to the machine that is film-making.
Now, I do not want you to think that Messrs. Badham and Modderno do not give credit where credit is due, they DO give props to the screenplay early on in the book noting: If you don't start with a good script you will not finish with a good movie. and If a director cannot inspire, lead, cajole, or even manipulate his actors to give their greatest talent to the script you will have a mediocre movie. (Italics theirs)
But... Soon after, you'll see the headline: DON'T make the cast say the exact words in the script if they really can't make them work. (BOLD theirs)
Most importantly, though, later on in the book they write - not in italics, not in BOLD: ...the script is way more important than moguls want to admit. Stars don't matter, reviews don't matter, story matters.
It is sentences like those that I want to cut and paste and put in 72 Font and ship with every screenplay I have ever written to every executive in Hollywood. But I digress.
I was looking for screenwriting insight in a book about the relationships between actors and directors. How silly of me? Not really.
Like I said above, it is VERY important to understand how Hollywood works. Some screenwriters in my classes have this sort of "pie-in-the-sky" attitude about Hollywood. That all of Hollywood is sitting on their hands waiting for that one script, THEIR SCRIPT, to somehow, blessedly, come down from on high and land on their desk and speak to them in a way they have never been spoken to before. That it will be bought for a gajillion dollars and will be filmed as is with no changes and will make even MORE gajillion dollars at the box office. Blech. It ain't gonna happen and the sooner writers learn that (by reading books like these) - the sooner they are aware of how Hollywood REALLY works.
So, the book gives SOME credit to the writer - but how does it do on everything else? Well... With Agents and Entourages seemingly more in control of Hollywood now - I would have liked to have heard more about the interactions (both positive and negative) Directors have with them.
I also would have enjoyed more gossipy type stories, behind the scene shenanigans, stories from the trenches than they provide (though they do provide a lot of great stories).
All in all this is an excellent book about the sometimes dysfunctional relationships between actors and directors. It's about time someone wrote this book. Badham proves himself as good a writer as he is a director.
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