Eric Roth knows a thing or two about screenwriters. And more specifically, the relationship between a screenwriter and a director. He’s been a working writer in Hollywood for decades, and has collaborated with directors as varied and accomplished as Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, and Bradley Cooper. He’s been nominated for six Oscars, and has won once (for Forrest Gump). He’s had massive hits and disappointing bombs. Plenty of ups and downs. And at 76 years of age, you can hear in his voice that he still has the enthusiasm and love for the craft of moviemaking of an up-and-coming screenwriter bowled over by the magic of Hollywood.

Which is why, when David Fincher got the chance to make the film Mank at Netflix, one of his first calls was to Roth, with whom he had worked on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and House of Cards. The story of Mank traverses well-worn territory – it chronicles the writing of the original screenplay for Citizen Kane by alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (played wonderfully by Gary Oldman). The film doesn’t delve into the credits debate that ensued after Mank finished the screenplay, but instead it’s a story about a talented writer who’s been slumming it in Hollywood as a script doctor and finally decides he’s going to shoot his shot with a controversial, thinly veiled story inspired by his real-life acquaintance William Randolph Hearst (played in the film by Charles Dance).

What made Mank extra tricky to pull off was the fact that the script was written by Fincher’s father Jack Fincher, who died in 2003. David and Jack had worked together to develop the screenplay throughout the 90s, but failed to find a studio willing to finance the film – at least the way Fincher wanted to make it (in black-and-white with a 1930s Old Hollywood feel). When Roth got the call from Fincher, he was asked not to rewrite the screenplay as is normally his task, but to instead come onboard the film as a producer and work with Fincher to make surgical changes here and there to get the script in tip-top shape as they headed into production.

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It’s a somewhat extraordinary situation, as Roth was tasked with honoring what Jack Fincher had put together while also making small alterations here and there. And, of course, consulting with David to bring his decades of experience as a working screenwriter to the table, which would then inform what the movie has to say about Hollywood and the writer-director relationship.

So I jumped at the chance to speak with Roth about his involvement in Mank recently for an exclusive interview. While the discussion was pegged to Mank, it really went many different places as Roth elegantly and intelligently dove into the complicated relationship between a writer and a director, and why he believes a script can only take you so far and it’s up to the director to decide the direction it will take as it becomes a film. He talked about his relationship with Fincher, his specific role in bringing Mank to the screen, and why he feels it’s a true work of art.

We also talked about the craft of screenwriting in general and why Roth doesn’t feel like it’s an artform in and of itself, and he spoke enthusiastically about collaborating with Scorsese on Killers of the Flower Moon and Denis Villeneuve on Dune. It’s a wide-ranging conversation with a true Hollywood legend, and you’ll very quickly see that his passion for movies and moviemaking is infectious.

Check out the full interview below.

This is such a beautiful, well-crafted film.

ERIC ROTH: Oh my God. Yeah. I say this in all humility, and it's all about David, but it's as close to, I think, a really great work of art that I've been involved with.

When did you first learn of the script's existence? Did you and David discuss it while you were working on Benjamin Button?

ROTH: I don't know how much we discussed it. I do remember him saying his dad had written a script about the subject and that David was anxious to get it made at some point. And I think he tried a few times and maybe struck out. David and I are very, very close as friends and colleagues, so I was well aware it was something he was very keen to get made in some way or form or fashion. I think I didn't really get involved in any sort of critical way until I guess three, three and a half years ago, when David said, "If this was to come to some fruition, would you be willing to be involved?" I said, "Of course." And then I read it.

We had a number of conversations, just preliminary stuff about what was working, what wasn't, how did I feel about it? What do I feel is truthful, not truthful? What felt real? And all that stuff, which is not unusual for our relationship anyway in almost all of his movies. And it obviously became more personal to me once he said, "I'd love for you to be involved."

It’s also a unique scenario in that it's a delicate matter in terms of handling the script. So I was curious from your perspective, how you guys went about that and was there just surgical changes made to the existing screenplay? Was it more about just honoring what was there?

ROTH: Surgical is I think probably the right word to certain respects. We agreed that I wasn’t going to be brought on to just rewrite it. That would have been my normal role, by the way. So he said, "I don't really want that done. Let us have a conversation about it." And he was well aware, I think more than me, the Writers Guild was about the A through H kind of thing which producers can do, which is reorganizing some things, editing some things, that kind of stuff. And I agreed to that because, first of all, I liked the script very much and it wasn't something where I felt we had to do a page one rewrite, and I've been there before.

And so that I felt that it was pretty well-executed and that whatever we did was hopefully to enhance it and that it wouldn't require me standing on my head to do gigantic rewriting. So we proceeded that way. He was sort of sweet in his own way. He was kind and all, but it became something I really started to take seriously, him asking me to produce it. And I did what I felt I could do to produce it, which was be his eyes and ears and give him my own thoughts on things when they're making the movie, and I did my job best I could. Go every day, meet with all the departments when I could give some advice or thoughts.

It was a learning process too. I mean, the real producer was Ceán Chaffin, who knows how to produce a movie. I don't know how to make a call sheet from anything (laughs). But David and I, when we started working in earnest, would start FaceTime at probably 5:30, 6:00 every morning for five days a week. And David is meticulous, methodical, and we would go word for word for word through the script. What made sense, what didn't. And try to understand what was the best way to tell the thing and reorganize some things, rebuild some things a little bit. But also, if you don't mind me just diverging for a second.

Oh no, please do.

ROTH: The movie's not about the credit dispute. And I know that's taken on a life of its own and we assumed it would. Who should get credit and who shouldn't. I serve a third task, I guess we could say that — there's no question to me that Orson Welles deserved credit, and no question that Mankiewicz obviously should have credit. And I mean, to that extent, I have a copy, obviously, of the original script sitting 10 feet from me here, which included everything from, on page one, Rosebud, and page 323 Rosebud. And every single idea of telling the story — which was very unique to cinema and I can't remember too many examples before, the only one I remember slightly afterwards until we got to a more modern era was probably The Bad and the Beautiful, was this various points of view of somebody. It was an odd way to do things, but it was in keeping with what David and I both believed which was that you can't do somebody's whole life in two hours, you can only leave the impression of a life. Which is a line in the movie.

David Fincher Mank
Image via Netflix

And so my feelings are, from having worked with, I think, some not living anymore, but the greatest directors that have graced my life from wonderful Marty [Scorsese] who is as good as they get. I worked with Steven [Spielberg] and I've even worked with [Kurosawa]. I think directors, whether they're writers or not, part of their job to me is to edit the screenplay in a way. Rebuild, restructure, turn it into — I mean, I wish I wasn't, but I'm a believer in “A Film By” as an accurate description. That if a film walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck, it's the director. I think there is an auteur quality to it, whether that’s bad or good, and this is no different. And I think that was the relationship. [Mank] turned in a very long screenplay that obviously needed to be edited. Orson Welles, I think, looked at what he felt was the most impactful things, figured out ways to visualize and dramatize. And I think that's a director's job to a certain extent.

I think we talked about this a little bit in the screenplay, something that I think is one of the reasons David brought me on was I'm very familiar with what it feels like to be a screenwriter. What hurts, what makes you happy? And I'm also very knowledgeable about Hollywood, and also film. So I was able to somehow give some contributions to that within the piece where I think David’s father just hadn't had that experience as a screenwriter, per se.

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I was going to ask, as you say you've worked with Spielberg, you've worked with Mann, you've worked with Zemeckis. Is there an ideal working relationship in your mind between the writer and the director? Is there one right way to do it that you think should be done or does it just kind of differ based on personalities?

ROTH: I guess what I'm saying is I don't think they differ with the great directors. I mean, I think it's a little more conflict with people who maybe are challenged in certain ways about what their abilities are, but for all those directors you've mentioned, and the ones I could list for you... I mean, I've had some personality differences with some, and certainly many creative differences.

I always give one story about a director. Stuart Rosenberg and I were doing a film. And I had a scene that I thought was magnificent, right? And I kept it in. And we kept arguing about it, arguing about it. And like after a week or so of arguing, he says, "You can leave it in the script, but I'm not going to shoot it." And so that was a hard lesson, let's put it that way. And it maybe wasn't the most generous thing, but it certainly was his point of view that this was not something that he felt was good for his journey.

I think the script provides you a boat, the sail of a kind. And I know that's kind of a corny, unsophisticated description, but then the director's going to take it where he thinks it should go and how it should go. And I found that with every one of the directors I've worked with to varying degrees — and sometimes I'm not happy, and sometimes I'm wrong — but in the long run, I think you try to facilitate not only the written word, but also I think what the director will then be able to do to visualize and try, as we say, to dramatize and everything else.

Well, of course the heart of the film is Mank, and he's a screenwriter who worked almost anonymously for a lot of his career. And the film really pulls back the curtain on just kind of that Hollywood process, and it's really moving to kind of see him driven when he’s focused on this one piece of material. But as the film’s delving into old Hollywood, I'm curious as a screenwriter yourself, how you would say maybe the role of a screenwriter has evolved throughout your career, just working and writing in Hollywood?

ROTH: Well, first of all, I love my fellow writers. I'm one of the governors of the Writers Branch, and I adore screenwriters. But I adore probably all writers. Screenwriting is... I think you can be very artful at it. I'm not sure it's an art. I think it's a great craft, and we could debate that. I think it's a bastardized form of being a novelist and a playwright, and you don't have to fill up the page, and there's a lot of dots and dashes, but on the other hand, you're creating a document that is completely essential to — whether you do it yourself and direct it or you write for somebody else, it creates this collaborative effort on a film. And it's nice to have the screenplay written and then you could self-publish it, I guess, but I'm not sure the value of it except for as a piece of your own work, because if it sits on a shelf, then I'm not sure where it's going, you know? And it's obviously a real struggle to get things done. Obviously I've had struggles like anybody else. So I revere the screenwriter knowing the limitations.

I think in the early days they disrespected themselves and were disrespected because most of the people who were the best came out here and were, like Mank was, kind of slumming. And they loved this incredible money — Scott Fitzgerald's the greatest example of that, probably. And they loved what the rewards of it were, but like Mankiewicz, he had in him something that he wanted to do of value his whole life, which probably all writers do I hope. They want to say something that actually is meaningful and they can leave as a legacy in some way.

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Image via Netflix

And this is what he came to want to have, maybe realize something that he could leave that really represented himself. And I think we all want that. I think there was a change from the disrespect to... In that first generation the most kind of sought after were playwrights. And then the next generation was probably a little more into books, East of Eden and Giant, that year of books. And then you came into, jumping eras obviously, into where the movies became such personal experiences like the '70s where screenwriting and writing/directing became hand-in-hand. And I think the screenwriters became, to some extent, some of them rock stars: Bob Towne and Larry Gelbart. They became at the heart of the culture. And I think some of that changed with television, but I think there's a varying degree now of some of the great writers like Tony Kushner, who came from the theater, or Aaron Sorkin, who actually originally came from theater, or the Jez Butterworth's and the Peter Morgan's who can jump from form to form.

And so for me just personally, I'm a frustrated novelist because I've never written a novel. So I try to fill my screenplays and make them as literate as possible. And so, I never thought of myself as a rock star.

I know some who would beg to differ. Your work is very distinguishable.

ROTH: Oh, thank you. Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting. It’s a whole other conversation when you have a body of work. Elvis Mitchell, the critic, he said that he thought my work was all about loneliness and I had never thought about it. I think it is. And I think it's reflected in its own way in Mankiewicz, with the alcoholism. But being a writer's lonely, but mine has to always try to find sort of a way home, I guess. And if you look at my movies, I think you'll find it's probably true.

That’s a great observation. For all of his gregarious nature, there is a sadness to Mank throughout the film, just under the surface there.

ROTH: Yeah. Well, I think there's a melancholy. I think there's an interesting quality about the movie that there's almost an oddly goodness to it it, and there's also a sort of aspirational that reflects the melancholy in a way of maybe Death of a Salesman to a certain extent. Certainly, the speech about Don Quixote, about people wanting to sort of tilt at windmills, and certainly many writers do. Trying to find some alchemy about what makes a story work, and what are the things that will remain with people. It just seems like he wanted that very badly. The thing that inhibited him the most was himself. Like all of us.

As you guys were getting the project ready, what would you say was kind of the biggest hurdle in turning the screenplay into a fully fledged film in terms of kind of getting it up on its feet?

ROTH: This was a unique situation, as unique as Citizen Kane was because Mank didn't have to bear any notes. He only had to make Orson Welles happy. And so this had that similarity only in that Netflix so believes in David that David has, not carte blanche but David has a great, great freedom, which was very great. He obviously appreciated it. They were gracious. Gratitude to them for giving that kind of creative freedom. So I think the challenges were, when you see the movie, that I think he succeeded to somehow make a '30s movie with the same kind of tropes and sort of a little bit bigger-than-life humor, and also sparkling kind of dialogue. Really interesting ideas being discussed in that kind of movie.

And he has a whole scene that I find spectacular, I call it the drawing room scene where they're all discussing communism and fascism, but if you notice nobody really moves, it's not like a normal kind of cocktail party where people get up and are moving and then you do sort of little segments of it. He has everybody sitting and these ideas for literally 11 minutes. I think it's kind of startling. I think that was where all the work went into, aside from all the work he puts in meticulously with every craft, was also that the words all rang true, were articulated with some degree of intelligence, and also were accurate where they had to be factual. And also we did the best we could to try to make them funny.

It's super funny. It's a really funny movie.

ROTH: Yeah. I wouldn't say it's my strongest suit, there are those who are certainly equal or better than I am at that, making sort of sardonic comments about things. But we really tried our best, so I think we imitated the tone that is probably accurate too.

You're right. It has that crackle of a 1930s film. There's something modern about it, but in the feel of it. And maybe that's why it's so re-watchable, is it kind of feels like a warm blanket a bit, like you're watching an old movie, but the themes are very modern.

ROTH: No, I agree as well. They are very modern, particularly the politics. It was such a precursor to fake news and all that stuff. I knew very little about that. So when I read about it, I was kind of startled a little bit. Making these fake documentaries with actors, it was just pure propaganda, and that most people were gullible enough to believe it.

I know David had worked with his father on the script for a decade prior to trying to go out to sell it. Was that tough to kind of meld the politics aspect of it with the Hollywood aspect?

ROTH: No, I think that was there. It was just a matter of emphasis. I would say with the advantage of hindsight, being able to then say how important this was to our century. About our era. And we didn't know what the outcome was going to be when we wrote this, with the Trump election, and we thought that maybe some of these things like socialism would become big influences one way or another. But how that's utilized by the mass media, and particularly some of the right-wing stuff. And then there's also the substance of the Writers Guild and credit and all that. So I think it's a very sophisticated movie. I mean, I think David said this, and we love anybody who's watched the movie and recognizes the great work it is, but many of David's movies take four or five years before people can get the sophistication of them and that they become more lasting. I mean, Fight Club was certainly not on everybody's radar right away.

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No, not at all. And even something as lauded as The Social Network, I don't know that people appreciated that movie would become one of the defining films of the century so far.

ROTH: Oh, there's no question. And obviously one of the sadnesses for me personally for him is that he wasn't rewarded [with an Oscar], not that those rewards mean anything.

Oh, I know. I'm still mad about it.

ROTH: Yeah. He just deserved it so much. I mean, that's not to denigrate the other people but it’s just a wonderful movie. And did define so many things of our time and was so prescient. Pretty amazing. To talk about David, he's just such an amazing individual and he doesn't really have much in the way of education. Isn't particularly a big reader or anything, yet he has savant-like quality, and knowledge of not only psychology, but in his own way, literature and history and also personality. And then of course his film skills are ridiculous, about everything from lenses and lighting through costume and everything else. I mean, he's a master. He's just a master.

He's one of my favorite filmmakers full stop.

ROTH: One of the biggest pains in the asses for me. Trust me. (laughs) We fight like crazy. I mean, maybe it's more me than him, I don't know, but we get each other throats. And we love the contest, to try to get whatever's the best.

That's funny. I did want to ask about Killers of the Flower Moon. I know you probably can't say much, but that's a movie I'm highly anticipating.

ROTH: I can say enough about it. I mean, first of all, they're both so unique, the experiences. Marty is the most generous, most encouraging, most inspirational that I can... I mean, equally [with David], but it's a very different way than David because he will let you completely try to reinvent the wheel if you want. And David likes to be a little more in control in that sense. Marty, in the long run will have control, obviously he'll make the decisions, but if you want to do the whole movie backwards, he'll say, "That's an interesting idea."

And this one I did, I think this is my fifth year or six year on it. And there were some changes that came about that were interesting about who Leonardo was going to play in it. And I think in the long run, we all had our moments of trying to figure out how best to portray things because the story is so impactful. And I think we ended up with exactly the right material and that Marty made the right decisions. I just think he's going to make — and obviously I would say this — but I think of all my work, this one could be one of the great movies. I really mean that. I think it has all the ingredients, which I don't want to jinx it, but the story is so important.

And I know Marty's trying to make a movie that's probably the last Western that would be made like this. And yet, with this incredible social document underneath it, and the violence and the environment. I think it'll be like nothing we've ever seen in a way. So this one is, to me, one for the ages.

So are you guys approaching that one as a Western, as kind of this big solemn Western?

ROTH: I don't think it's approaching... Yes and no. I mean, people will be in suits and things because it's 1921. It's during the prohibition, but the ethos I think is very Western. I mean, you'll recognize a lot from Oklahoma. And also, I think Western justice, about how they said that you couldn't find 12 white men to convict someone of killing a native American. You have a better chance of having them convicted of kicking a dog. And that's kind of the feeling on that. And then also, you have these incredible people as part of the Osage family that a character comes and marries into, and who's a villain and who isn't. And then into that comes a kind of heroic guy — Tom White, his name was — who Jesse Plemons is playing, who was in the Texas Rangers, and you couldn't get more Western than that. But the whole thing feels like a Western to me, anyway. I think probably anybody else, trains and open spaces. And as I say, there's that whole Western sense of ethos, of kind of manifest destiny and yet where's the justice?

So Jesse is now kind of playing that lead role and Leo's a bit of a supporting character in that one?

ROTH: No, I wouldn't say he's the lead. I would say that he was the designated hero. But yeah, I think that's fairer because I think the parts are pretty equal and they were always equal to a certain extent, and Leo's part is very complicated and very interesting. It's a smart part for a smart actor to play. I mean, if Montgomery Clift was alive, I think he might think of playing him.

 

Scorsese's on a roll lately, after The Irishman and Silence.

ROTH: Yeah. Marty knows this like the back of his hand, he's been working on it for quite a while. He's been there now in Oklahoma since late February, and I think they start in like two weeks. But that's Marty. Marty is a wonderful, special human being. I would work with him come rain or shine.

Dune, obviously, is this massive sci-fi adaptation. What was that like to work with Denis on that one?

ROTH: It was wonderful. I'd done some work for Denis on Arrival where we became kind of a little bit of soulmates. And so when Dune came along, he asked me if I would approach it. And I did, and I wrote a big full overwritten Eric Roth draft that had certain things special to me. It needed to be cut down and sort of harnessed, and Denis did some of that, and they eventually brought in — I was busy — a writer named Jon Spaihts, who is a wonderful writer, who I think kept it grounded. And I think he... I don't want to say Lord of the Rings, but I think it's really pretty spectacular. He’s a visionary of his own kind, Denis.

Mank Behind the Scenes
MANK (2020) David FincherÕs MANK is a scathing social critique of 1930s Hollywood through the eyes of alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane for Orson Welles. Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz and Sean Persaud as Tommy. Cr. Gisele Schmidt/NETFLIX

And that one's kind of just adapting the first half of the book, right? Because Denis wants to do two movies.

ROTH: Yeah. Completely the first half. Yeah. I didn't know when we started. So I think I adapted a little more than the first half and started going into the second half of the book, but it ended up, when I've seen the film, it's pretty much the first half. Yeah.

Are you involved in the second part of that one at all?

ROTH: I was in writing a treatment to show the estate what we could do with the second half, but I got to tell you that I think I've done as much as I can do. I also have other things I want to do. I'm 76 years old, and these things obviously take a long time to do. And so I have a few others I'm excited about. And hopefully people love Dune so much that they do want to have a second part, and I'm sure Denis would do amazing version of that. But I think at my age, I need to try to find other forms. I just wrote a little thriller that was the greatest of fun for Lionsgate and Ben Stiller, and Oscar Isaac's going to be in it, called London. And it was just a delight to me and a real joy. And I think if it works, it's like Knives Out in its own way.

Oh, that sounds great.

ROTH: Yeah. So anyway, but I think now I'm sort of racing time. It's like Marshall McLuhan slept for every, I think eight hours, a half hour, which added up to four hours of sleep for him in the day, so that he could maximize his time doing work and enjoying his life. And so I'm not quite doing that, but I'm trying to do as many things as I can as best I can in the time that's left for me.

Mank is currently streaming on Netflix.

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