J. Michael Straczynski interview

For the Writers Guild of America West, Shira Gotshalk talks to J.Michael Straczynski about his new film, The Changeling.

How collaborative was the work with Clint Eastwood after you turned in your final draft?

Clint was given the first draft that I wrote after a year of researching 6,000 pages of documentation. I wrote the first draft in 11 days.

Eleven days?

Well, it is pro-rated over time. One year to think about it and 11 days to write it -- it kind of breaks down as a much more reasonable schedule. I tend not to sit down and write until I have written it in my head so that I have every scene, every line, in my head so that there is this white heat when you run to the keyboard, and you have to get it all out and that process took 11 days. I have a really good typist.

It went to my agent who gave it to Ron Howard, who bought it almost immediately. When he couldn’t direct it because of Frost/Nixon, he gave it to Clint. Clint read the first draft, liked it, and that is what they shot. That is the remarkable thing about it; there were no final drafts, there were no other drafts. Clint shot the first draft, as written. They changed one word, which he then latter omitted.

The Changeling trailer


The Changeling will be released in the UK on 28 November.