One of the most common pieces of writing advice is "write what you know," but how many of us truly know what it's like, say, to be chased by heavily-armed intergalactic space whales? Most of us regular-types shy away from extreme violence in our everyday lives, which makes writing action-packed movies tricky, if we are strictly sticking with what we "know."
Writing a biographical film may sound really easy. After all, everything is there for you. However, real life is chaotic and messy, not to mention contradictory and confusing. A biographical screenplay should be none of these things. So, how do turn a life into a story?
Ethan Hawke directed Blaze from a screenplay written by both himself and Foley’s former wife, Sybil Rosen. I talked with both Hawke and Rosen to find out what the writing process was like. Hawke claims it was a near miracle the film happened at all.
