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The Screenwriting Life with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna

178 | The Holdovers Writer David Hemingson On Finding Humanity In Our Characters

The Screenwriting Life with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna

Meg LeFauve & Lorien McKenna

Tv & Film

4.81K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2024

⏱️ 73 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Despite this being his first produced feature, David Hemingson's script for THE HOLDOVERS is one of the most celebrated of the year, nominated for over 40 industry prizes (including the Oscar), having won many of them. He's a self-proclaimed "journeyman" writer having bounced between children's animated, network comedy, and hourlong procedurals for over two decades. Even given his decades of experience, his approach to working with Alexander Payne was still one of humility, openness, and discovery. Today, David, Lorien, and Jeff, discuss how Hemingson's "unsellable" pilot about an all boys prep school became a new American classic. JOIN OUR PATREON: www.patreon.com/thescreenwritinglife

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey everyone welcome back to the screenwriting life. I'm

0:04.4

Lorian McKenna and Meg isn't able to join us today but we are thrilled to be

0:08.7

able to get to talk with David Hemmingson and he wrote The Holdovers.

0:13.0

One of the year's most acclaimed movies with David Scripps having already won over a dozen industry and critics awards

0:19.0

and is nominated for nearly 40 prizes overall, including a BAFD nomination and a national board of

0:25.5

review wins so congratulations for that and welcome to the show.

0:29.2

You have nearly three decades worth of TV writing experience from animation to network comedy, hour-long procedurals, and now a feature film.

0:38.0

I know, it's crazy.

0:40.0

I'm always, it's always so fun for me when I introduce people and then I'm like and go and it's like hi.

0:47.0

I'm journeyman writer David Hemmingson nice to meet you.

0:52.0

So before we get into our chat, we're going to do Adventures in Screenwriting,

0:55.8

where we're going to talk about our week, so I'll go first.

0:59.4

This week, I, well, this last weekend actually, I was, well this last weekend actually I was working on a script and I had pages

1:06.2

due and I had a story problem that I couldn't solve. I got a note that was pretty big and I couldn't

1:12.0

figure out how to solve it and for a second I was like oh I'm going to spin out about this and then I thought wait what if I don't what if I do something that I like doing and so I read a book that has nothing to do with screenwriting

1:25.9

or anything I might adapt.

1:27.1

It was just pure silly fun.

1:29.5

And so I read for an hour and then I paused and then I realized that as I was reading the

1:36.5

story issue was sort of churning in my head in a way so that I was getting a little further

1:40.4

each time and after a couple of hours back and forth of this I I was able to

1:46.8

tackle the problem deliver the script and I felt really good about it I didn't have that usual push send and then spin out.

1:56.1

Oh my God, what am I going to get the fee? I actually said out loud to my husband, I'm a really good writer.

...

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