Writer/director Josh Klausner (DATE NIGHT) debuts WANDERLAND at the Hamptons International Film Festival

A number of years ago, I interviewed screenwriter Josh Klausner about how he broke into the business and his work on SHREK FOREVER AFTER and DATE NIGHT. Today, Klausner's latest film WANDERLAND debuts at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

WANDERLAND is a low-budget film, written and directed by Klausner. It has musical numbers, but as he told the Village Voice, he doesn't think of it as a traditional musical.



Josh Klausner’s lively, lovely film, shot on a dime in and around the Hamptons, does not exactly have the trappings of what we think of when we think of musicals. Inspired partly by Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, partly by Homer’s The Odyssey, and partly by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Wanderland — which premieres at the Hamptons International Film Festival this Friday — follows Alex as he drifts through a weird night trying to make his way home, coming into contact with a whole host of local oddballs. It’s a strange, atmospheric little film, occasionally hopping genres and always keeping us wondering as to where it’s all headed.

It’s quite a change of pace for Klausner, who made his name as a screenwriter on Hollywood films like Shrek Forever After and Date Night. But that was sort of the idea: He says that after years of working in the mainstream and studio world (he started his career as an assistant to the Farrelly brothers, eventually becoming a second unit director for them), he felt he was “creatively dying” and wanted to get back in touch with his own voice.

Coming from a regimented world of carefully placed plot points and clear, preordained through lines, Klausner embraced with this film a drifting open-endedness. “When you work for so long in the studio system, for better and for worse, you kind of know the pattern that works,” he says. “So as you’re writing, you basically know where you’re going at every moment. I wanted to have the experience of writing again when I didn’t know where I was going — to once again have that feeling of discovery. I tried to make an intuitive movie.”

The rest of the profile is worth a read here, and has me hoping it won't be long before WANDERLAND is available for general viewing.

Interview with SHREK FOREVER AFTER and DATE NIGHT writer Josh Klausner - Part II: Date Night

Part 1 - Breaking in and Shrek

We continue our talk with screenwriter Josh Klausner.

I understand that Date Night was a case where director Shawn Levy came up with the premise and then handpicked you to execute it. Did you have a working history with him?

Nope. We’d met a few times, and his company was trying to the script I mentioned before called (Saint) Peter. He loved the script and wanted to find something for us to work on together. There was another project we started throwing around that didn’t end up working out, then Shawn suggested this.

How did Date Night evolve? Did Shawn just have a one or two-line pitch and ask you to run wild in finding the story, or is he one of those directors who sat down and talked you through every major action beat that he’d like to see?

A little bit of both on that one. We discussed the premise, and then I went off and came up with some ideas for it that I pitched to him. We then sat down for a day and brainstormed off of that. I then took our brainstorming and transformed it a bunch as it turned into a script.

What do you find most rewarding about working on assignment like this?

Well, I’ll tell ya, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have Shawn Levy in your corner when you’re writing something for Fox. I really like Shawn and the people at 21 Laps, so working with them was a great experience. Also, just how quickly the project all came together was pretty fantastic. I handed in my revision off the first set of studio notes, and 24 hours later we were out to Tina and Steve.

I perceived a definite Hitchcock influence on the film – was that more your or Shawn’s vision there?

I’m obsessed with Hitchcock. If you see my film, The 4th Floor, there’s certainly a homage to Rear Window in it (although what I tried to do is make you realize halfway through the movie that we weren’t seeing the story unfold from Jimmy Stewart’s perspective – WE were the building where the murder was going to take place) What I love most about North by Northwest is how a large, expansive and dangerous adventure starts from a simple and innocent case of mistaken identity – it’s not like our heroes are drug dealers or have any nefarious connections… they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. As an audience member, I immediately connect more to the adventure because it really feels like it could happen to me.

What was the first thing you guys really cracked on this script? Was it the structure, the character arcs or the set-pieces?

Definitely the character arcs. We knew the story we wanted to tell was all about this couple and their relationship. How they aren’t out of love – they still love each other very much – but life has gotten in the way. They’ve stopped communicating. And it’s only through the high stakes they get thrown into that all the small things that add up finally come out and they’re honest with each other. And in that honesty, they fall in love all over again. The worst night of their life is the best Date they’ve ever had.

Whose idea was the car chase gag?

That was a great example of collaborating with Shawn. We had reached a point in the story where Shawn really felt the urge for more action. He wanted there to be a car chase with the cops. I objected because a car chase just felt generic to me – what could force our relatable characters into an extended car chase that wouldn’t feel like every other “nervous normal people in a car chase” scene that we’d seen before. I didn’t want to do it unless we could find some way to make it different. It’s then that Shawn recounted how the day he got his driver’s license, he tried parking his car and smashed into the car in front of him and the bumpers got stuck together. I thought it was amazing and the conjoined car chase was born! I then got the idea that Phil and Claire could end up in the different cars during the chase, trying to work together to drive, so it became in many ways about their communication in their relationship (with, of course, a marriage counselor of a taxi driver along for the ride as well) It was really fun to write.

I really like how there was a strong effort at giving the couple a real arc rather than just putting them in these extreme situations and watching them react. It’s something that seems to be less common in today’s films unfortunately. Were you making a conscious effort to bring that back?

You hit it on the head. It’s what I’m proudest about with the film, I think. Unlike so many of these comedies coming out that feel like someone came up with a bunch of funny gags or concepts and situations and then had to think of character arcs to string them together and make them work, I really feel like the comedy comes out of the relationship journey that Phil and Claire go through. In our movie, their relationship was our “concept.”

I rail a lot at bad spec scripts that throw in gratuitous scenes in a strip club, or find really thin reasons to get their female characters mostly naked. Yet I like the way that even though Tina Fey has to get disguised as a stripper, you guys found a way to play that beat so that it really addressed something in their marriage. Did it take some effort to get that in there so seamlessly?

Well, one of the things we wanted to play with (and were also criticized for in many reviews) was what would happen if an everyday couple that we established with real, relatable problems was thrown into a crazy 80’s adventure movie, with car chases and gangsters and strip clubs. How would they react, and how would the journey affect the real issues in their relationship. We thought it was a fun idea to play with. Along those lines, another thing to play with as well is the roles that men and women play in these movies, and switch them up too. It’s Claire who goes to see Holbrooke, making Phil jealous. Claire who breaks into the real estate office. And Phil who in the end has to work the pole to woo the DA. I think when Phil is chosen by the DA and Claire turns with a smile and says the whole, “You’re the father of our children” line back at him, it’s a fun moment where we realize how deeply ingrained these gender roles have become… certainly in movies.

Were there any unique challenges to writing Date Night?

I would just say the juxtaposition of grounding the real and relatable world and relationship of the couple with the heightened and sometimes absurd movie reality of the adventure they get thrown into. And balancing a bunch of tones – feeling their real fear and jeopardy while remaining a comedy, and the finessing level of discord in their relationship so we feel they have serious problems, but not so seriously that we love with each other. It was a fine line to walk the threat to their relationship without ever having it seem like they’d break up.

In later rewrites, when you knew you were writing for two brilliant comedians and improvisers, did you have to watch yourself to make sure you don’t get lazy and figure, “Eh, Steve will have a funnier line on set?”

No. But he inevitably did think up funnier lines, as did she. Those two were amazing, and we were very lucky to get them. It’s hard now to believe the original script wasn’t written with them in mind. They just fell so naturally into the parts.

Is it easier to accept rewrite notes on assignment work like this because the script is less “your baby?” Or do you find yourself getting attached as the script evolves, just as you would with an original spec?

It’s definitely easier. This was always Shawn Levy’s baby, and while I was of course emotionally invested, I felt lucky to be asked to be a creative part of this project. The script that made Shawn want to work with me, (Saint) Peter, is a screenplay that I feel very precious about. And there have been others where the changes have upset me more. I actually think it’s good to have a balance of the two kinds of work as a screenwriter – projects that are your babies and the ones that you care about but don’t get too emotionally involved in. It’s an interesting process a lot of the time with studio notes, because I find I learn a lot and push myself as a writer by stepping outside of my comfort zone and finding ways to satisfy the problems their having without feeling like I’m compromising myself.

It’s interesting that your resume includes an animated comedy, action-comedy, and a slow-burn thriller, three genres that are somewhat different from each other. Is there a particular genre you prefer to write in or do you enjoy changing it up? Would you like to write another horror film?

And I was primarily a dramatic playwright in school. It’s essential to me that I keep doing different things. I try to mix it all up as much as I can – it keeps the stories interesting for me. I like many different genres of films for different reasons, so I don’t want to limit myself on the type of stories I want to tell. I just finished a live action version of Thomas the Tank engine set in England during World War 2, I’m working on a very emotional and sweet movie for Amy Adams and Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps called The 10 Best Days of My Life, and on a kind of action adventure film involving Houdini’s magic legacy for Mark Waters and Walden Media. Then, hopefully, I’m going to take some time to write for myself… something I haven’t had the chance to do in a few years.

Thanks again to Josh for all his time in doing this interview. You can follow him on Twitter at @jcklaus.

Interview with SHREK FOREVER AFTER and DATE NIGHT writer Josh Klausner - Part 1: Breaking in and SHREK

Once again I'm in the position of interviewing a screenwriter the week after his movie hit number one at the box office. For Josh Klausner, this is becoming something of a habit. Not only did his Shrek Forever After top the charts this weekend, but it was just over a month ago that his previous film, Date Night, reigned. Despite being a very busy man at the moment, Josh was nice enough to submit to an email interview.

IMDB gives a hint at your career path, but I was hoping you could fill in the blanks. You got your start as an assistant to the Farrelly Brothers on one of my favorite comedies, Dumb & Dumber. Any notable anecdotes from your time working with them?

Well, when I started working on it, Dumb and Dumber was supposed to be a small movie starring Jake Johansson, and then a week later Jim Carrey came on board and everything changed. Maybe because it was my first real job in the movie industry (and maybe because as their assistant there wasn’t a great deal of responsibility on my shoulders), it’s the most fun I’ve ever had working on a movie. It felt so epic… because it was a road movie we travelled to so many different climates and terrains over the course of shooting, and also had these extended holiday breaks in the middle (one for Jim Carrey to have Gall Bladder surgery, if I remember correctly) It was interesting too because, as it was the first Farrelly Brothers movie, it was very hard for us working on the film to gauge what the tone was going to turn out like and if it was going to work – it wasn’t like any of the comedies any of us had seen before.

Looking at your credits, I get the impression that they’re good to people who have proven themselves with them because you got to direct second unit on four of their subsequent pictures. Did it take much persuasion for them to give you that job?

I’m incredibly grateful to the Farrellys. They took a huge chance on me when they were making Kingpin by having me direct 2nd Unit. I had loved being their assistant, but knew the longer I stayed in that position, the more it would come to define me. So when they called about me working on their next movie Kingpin, I naively told them that I wanted to be their 2nd Unit Director. Pete Farrelly was stunned at first, I think, but then his take on it was, “Sure, why not? We can always fire you if you fuck up.” I worked hard not to fuck up on that job… the 2nd Unit on Kingpin was crazy. Everything from all these bowling ball rigs and special effects to car jumps to Amish Barn raisings with helicopter shots. I’m not unique – the Farrellys have been great to just about everyone who’s worked with them – they’re very good about letting people move up if they have the ability and initiative. They even went so far as to write and produce a movie for their original AD JB Rodgers to direct.

During all this time were you still working on specs, trying to break in as a writer?

I was writing, but at the time I thought that the way I was going to “break in” was as a small indie writer/director… not as someone selling big Hollywood scripts to studios. I thought my path would be through small movies in the independent world. Ironically, it’s ended up being quite the opposite.

How did working for the Farrellys put you in a better position to launch your writing and directing career?

In so many ways. In working for the Farrellys, I was essentially paid to go to film school. It gave me the firsthand experience of seeing how the page ends up translating to screen. I saw the way that they interacted not only with the actors but also with the financiers who were making their movie. As their 2nd Unit Director also I got to work closely with their editor. Often, there would be two different comic takes from one scene that the Farrellys wanted but didn’t cut together, so we’d figure out cutaways or insert I could shoot to connect the two. Moreover, during those years working as their 2nd Unit Director certainly allowed me to stay in film and make a decent living so that I had more time to write. It’s all about time in the end, isn’t it?

In 1999, your professional writing and directorial debut, The 4th Floor, was released. Can you talk a little bit about how that came together?

My 2nd Unit work on Kingpin actually got me some interest from agents, which was all the more reinforced by the fact that they discovered I was a writer. I ended up signing with Joanne Wiles, who is still my agent, right around the time I has written the script for The 4th Floor. We luckily were able to get William Hurt and Juliette Lewis interested as soon as we sent it to them, which led to the film getting financed rather quickly.

As a first time director, did you have many clashes with the production companies on the film, Millennium Films and Top Floor Productions?

To be honest, the whole experience of making The 4th Floor ranks up there as among my darkest days. The company behind the film was Nu Image, which has a very specific and financially successful model for making movies involving foreign presales with internationally known stars. Most of their movies are action adventures along the lines of Cyborg Cop 3 (which I haven’t seen, so it might be great).

At the time, Brad Weston, who I really liked, was starting up what was supposed to be their new boutique division called Millennium Films. The 4th Floor was supposed to be the 2nd film under his guidance, but the head of Nu Image got nervous about Brad’s first film being too “artsy,” (a great movie called Guinevere) and took Brad off of my film and put his Nu Image action B movie producers on it as we started shooting.

I had originally written a very atmospheric, slow moving story that was along the lines of Roman Polanski’s THE TENANT about living in apartment buildings with unknown others and getting into an altercation with a mysterious neighbor, where our protagonist slowly realizes she’s battling against someone who’s not playing with a full deck and that her life is in danger. It was all about how, when it comes to our home space, we become instinctual animals again, peeing in the corners and doing whatever it takes to protect our sanctuaries. Well, this wasn’t what those producers were interested in. The only thing they understood about my script was that Juliette Lewis and William Hurt had agreed to do it. They wanted action, terror, gore and nudity. There were producers’ girlfriends demanding scenes be added so they could have parts, producers’ assistants writing scenes behind my back that they tried to force me to shoot.

Being a first time director on an isolated film shoot (we shot this story, set in New York, in a paper mill town in Canada called St. Johns that you had to take a propeller plane to get to), I bent much more than I should have, agreeing to film an extended “chase” scene at the end that didn’t make much sense. But then it all finally came to a head and I reached my breaking point when they threatened to fire me if I didn’t film some cheesy “creepy possessed talking puppet” scene that some assistant had written. I told them they could do what they wanted, but I couldn’t shoot it, and walked off to tell Juliette Lewis that I was being fired. Juliette came to my aid and told them she wasn’t working on the film if it wasn’t with me – I was the reason she had signed up for it – and Nu Image backed off for the final few days of shooting. That didn’t stop them from doing reshoots without even telling me and recutting the movie.

All that being said, there’s a lot in the first hour of the film in terms of tone and look that I like and feels like what I was going for. And I was able to make a movie on someone else’s dime as a first time director, which is incredibly fortunate. I also certainly wouldn’t be the writer I am today without that whole experience. It taught me a lot about the stories I want to tell.

I read an interview with Austin Pendleton where he talks about how after the table read for The 4th Floor he suggested you drop a lot of little jokes and bits of humor from the script, and praises you for being so immediately receptive. Is his memory accurate, and if so, why was your instinct to listen to him so immediate?

Yes… I would say that was pretty accurate. Whether he knew it or not, we were always after the same thing... his character needed to feel charming and endearing when we meet him, then surprise us with what he turns out to be later on. Because Austin organically has that likability, we could tone down the comedy a lot and still get across what we needed for the character. Also, it was important that Austin owned the part and believed in it himself… if he felt silly, it wasn’t going to work. I’m a real believer in film as a collaborative art form, and that it’s more exciting for me to see how an actor adapts what I’ve written down in ways I could have never imagined as opposed to them simply hitting the marks and inflections I had in my head.

Is directing still something you’d like to pursue?

Definitely… but as is probably obvious from my previous answer, The 4th Floor was a good lesson that I don’t want to direct at all costs. It has to be the right material at the right time with the right people, who respond to not just the actors involved but also to the story. My script (Saint) Peter is something that I hope to direct, though it might take a little while… it’s an adult comedy about faith with a 10 year old protagonist whose brother everyone thinks might be the 2nd coming of Christ. Not exactly hitting those comfortable 4 quadrant buttons the financiers are looking for these days…

What were you doing between The 4th Floor and Shrek the Third?

Man, that’s a good question. All I can say is The 4th Floor was a real trial by fire learning experience for me, and was one of those situations where I had done that thing that I thought would change my life and answer all my problems – make my own movie – and it hadn’t. I kept writing, some things came close, but really I was just trying to find my voice as a writer. And you just keep the faith and do what you can to make ends meet financially until the next film job.

You are one of five writers credited with “additional screenplay material” on Shrek the Third, and the last one listed, so I assume that means you were the last rewriter on the script? What did you contribute to the final product?

I feel a little strange whenever someone refers to me in reviews or announcements as the writer of Shrek the Third. I came in really, really late on that project and had so very little to do with it. I had been hired to write the 4th Shrek, now called Shrek Forever After, while Shrek the Third was finishing up, so they asked me to come over and work on Shrek the Third as well for a little bit. The storyline and scenes for Shrek the Third had already been well established before I started, so I mostly punched up some of the dialogue where I could and helped with the emotional scenes.

How did the story for Shrek Forever After come about? Was the “It’s a Wonderful Life” riff always in place, or did the producers ask you for a pitch for the new Shrek movie?

No. Originally everyone thought it was going to be a story about taking the kids to meet Shrek’s Dad. We always knew we wanted Rumpelstiltskin to be our villain – the fairy tale “deal” thing just felt right, especially with Shrek and Fiona now having kids. We started going down that avenue, and everything just felt a bit stale, to be honest…. One more adventure with “the whole gang.” Which leads perfectly to your next question…

If the latter, was it hard finding a new premise for Shrek? It feels like the previous three films covered a lot of ground in the character’s development.

It was really hard coming up with a storyline. We went down a lot of roads before landing on this one. It just seemed to speak to so many things going on in Shrek’s life, as well as give us the opportunity to see the characters we love in a new way.

What do you do to avoid the frustration that can come with writing a character who’s already had so much ground covered?

Well, Shrek’s always evolving and changing – unlike James Bond who essentially stays the same but just goes out on different missions. Because of that, the issues facing him at this stage of his life are different from the issues in any of the other movies.

When writing a story like this, where do you start? Do you figure out the character’s journey and work outward, or did you try to find a new adventure to send him on and see what challenges arose from it?

I would say it was primarily the character’s inner journey that propelled us. Like I said before, we were really focused on where Shrek is now as a character. He’s gone from a feared and reviled hermit to a hero surrounded with family and friends. In this chapter, we wanted his perception of himself to mirror the way the audience has come to feel about him after 3 movies. If he’s no longer a “scary” Ogre to the world at large and a domesticated family man surrounded by friends, what happened to his identity? It’s a much different problem than he faced in the first movie, where he felt judged and ostracized by the world at large. That being said, we also had a feeling we wanted Rumpelstiltskin to be the villain, so by combining these two elements, the adventure seemed to evolve somewhat organically.

That's not all. Check out Part II for a look at Date Night's genesis.

Compete archive of my interviews with pro writers

It seemed like a good idea to put together a post that links to all the interviews I've done with professional writers over the life of this blog. This will be updated with further links as each new interview is added.

Interview with Dan Callahan, writer of COLLEGE and DEMOTED:
Part I - The Writing Process
Part II - Getting an Agent and Selling the Script
Part III - Notes, Rewriting, Casting and SUPERBAD
Part IV - More Rewrites
Part V - Release and Reaction


Interview with Jericho and Human Target's Robert Levine:
Part I - Climbing the ladder as a writer's assistant
Part II - Working on Jericho's first season
Part III - Writing season two of Jericho
Part IV - Writing the Jericho comic book and getting an agent
Part V - Writing for Human Target


Interview with screenwriter Eric Heisserer - A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET remake:
Part I - Breaking in and writing the ELM STREET remake
Part II - Details on THE THING and FINAL DESTINATION 5

Interview with Privileged writer/"This is Your Pilot Speaking" blogger Margaux Froley:
Part I - School, internships and assistant jobs
Part II - The Warner Brothers Television Fellowship and working on the staff of Privileged
Part III - Staffing season, getting representation and spec pilots

Interview with Shrek Forever After and Date Night writer Josh Klausner:
Part I - Breaking in and SHREK
Part II - DATE NIGHT

Interview with web comedy filmmakers Chad, Matt & Rob:
Part I - Breaking out on the web
Part II - The Interactive Adventures
Part III - Producing web shorts

Interview with Amy Baack, Assistant to "V" showrunner Scott Rosenbaum

Interview with director Gregg Bishop:
Part I - Making a $15,000 film
Part II - Making DANCE OF THE DEAD

Interview with Scott Towler, writer's assistant to Michelle Nader (100 Questions, Kath & Kim)
Part I
Part II

Interview with SCREAM 4 Co-Producer Carly Feingold
Part I - The path to being Wes Craven's Creative Exec
Part II - What does a Creative Executive do and what do they look for?
Part III - Making Scream 4

Video interview with TV writer Liz Tigelaar, creator Life Unexpected.
Part 1 - Breaking in as an assistant
Part 2 - First Staff Writer Job on "American Dreams"
Part 3 - How Do I Get an Agent?
Part 4 - Selling a Pilot
Part 5 - Personal Themes in Writing
Part 6 - Genesis of "Life Unexpected"
Part 7 - First-Time Showrunner
Part 8 - Developing the second year of LUX
Part 9 - Dealing with network notes
Part 10 - Controversial LUX storylines
Part 11 - LUX lives on
Part 12 - Network overall deal, working on Once Upon a Time and Revenge
Part 13 - The Bitter Questions

Video interview with Franklin Leonard about Black List 3.0:

Video interview with screenwriter F.Scott Frazier:
Part 1 - His stats and process
Part 2 - "How do you get an agent?"
Part 3 - The Working Writer.
Part 4 - The Bitter Questions

Video interview with Franklin Leonard about The Black List:
Part 1 - The Origin of the Black List
Part 2 - Criticisms of the Black List
Part 3 - The Black List Statistics

Video interview with film and TV writer Jeffrey Lieber (Lost, Miami Medical, Necessary Roughness):
Part 1 - "How did you get an agent?"
Part 2 - First sales and going into TV
Part 3 - The early genesis of Lost
Part 4 - The process of developing a show
Part 5 - Cable TV vs. Network TV
Part 6 -  The Bitter Questions

Interview with Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, co-director of Radio Silence's DEVIL'S DUE:
Part I
Part II

An interview with Victoria Aveyard, writer of RED QUEEN and ETERNAL


Writer/director Riley Stearns and actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead on FAULTS:
Part I - Origins of the story
Part II - Complex Characters and roles for women.
Part III- Making your first movie.
Part IV - Having confidence as a storyteller.
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