You are listening to the Next Best Picture podcast, and this is Daniel Howard's interview,

with the screenwriter for the holdovers, David Hemingson.

Sir, I don't understand.

That's glaringly apparent.

I can't fail this class.

Oh, don't tell yourself short, Mr. Coates.

I truly believe that you can.

Every year at Barton Academy, students, faculty, and staff depart the campus for a two-week winter break.

But there are always an unfortunate few who have nowhere to go for the holidays.

They're known as the holdovers.

Mr. Hundham.

Hello, Mary.

I had you got stuck with babysitting duty this year. How'd you manage that? You know, it used to be a student, right? Yeah, that's why he knows how to inflict maximum pain on him. I thought all the Nazis were hiding in Argentina. Stifle it, Tully. You just earned yourself a detention, sir. Being here with you is already one big big action. Son of a bitch, that's another detention. Do you think I want to be babysitting you? No, I was praying. Your mother would pick up the phone, or your father would arrive in a helicopter or a flying saucer. My father's dead. Well, David, I can't begin to tell you how much I love the holdovers. Easily one of my favorites of the year, just such an incredible movie. And so I'm thrilled to talk with you today, so thank you for the time. No, thank you. I'm ecstatic that you dug it. I'm really, really, really happy that you liked it. That means a tremendous amount to me. Thank you. Absolutely. Well, so you created and written on numerous incredible shows over the years, but if I'm not mistaken,

this is your first produced feature. Is that right?

Yep, totally right.

So how did you come to this project?

I had been in kind of overall deals for many years, and when I got out of an overall deal over at

ABC, I sort of had this burst of creativity and that I sort of had

things that I wanted to write about that I hadn't written about you know specifically deeply

personal things and I ended up writing a pilot called Stonehaven which was sort of the story of me

and kind of like my family my mom was a nurse my dad was a merchant seaman and a teacher and the story of

how I was sort of swept up and gathered up by my uncle who was this incredible World War II

...