When a Charlie Kaufman script is in the works people get flustered - illegal copies make their way into the public eye, A-list celebrities start to finagle meetings, and the movie-going public walks with a jovial spring in their step - most of us, that is. The hullabaloo is founded. Kaufman has continually brought us, unique fantastical cerebral journeys that require full left-brain functioning: BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, ADAPTATION and HUMAN NATURE. Think 'Flight of the Bumble Bee' in script form...

How hot is this guy? Well, Jim Carrey, who starred Charlie's Oscar© Nominated piece, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, says receiving a completed Kaufman script is "like Moses coming down from the mountain with the tablets." Best Actress nominee Kate Winslet says, “What Charlie Kaufman does, which is incredibly brilliant, it to actually create these very simple stories, but tells them in a very unorthodox way.” There’s his secret to success right there.

Granted - Kaufman is a scripting genius. He manages twirling subplots, creations of these wildly quirky lovable realistic-ish characters and introductions to worlds that wonderfully stretch reality to the corners of our mind's abilities, and makes it all somehow seem congruent. And, of course, the work is extra shiny, thanks to incredibly creative talents that ultimately bring his Willy Wonka-meets-Freud stories to film by creating matching tangible quantum innerspheres... Most importantly the scripts are just plain old fun and entertaining to watch! Charlie's a rare talent, and, lucky for us, Hollywood knows it.

Emily: What excites you in writing for film?

Charlie: What excites me is different for me at different times. Something that deals with human struggle. Relationships between people; I like unusual conceits, I guess. It's a collaborative medium. There's fifty people that bring enormous amounts to the finished movie.

Emily: Should people analyze your movies like they do?

Charlie: I don't want to tell people what they should do. I try to put enough in there that there's things to think about. I try to write something that's complicated. That has different levels within it - I think people can do what they want to do once they watch the movie. I intend it to be what it is. I write for myself: what I understand.

Emily: How do you write? One character's point of view, then chop it up?

Charlie: No, I don't. I figure out characters, then I figure out a story, then I try to figure out dynamics between people and that takes most of my time. And in this case there was a lot of technical structure and logic issues that had to be worked out in my mind. Then I start to write scenes between people- then I discover something in the scene. "Oh, this happened." So, then that changes the story a little bit, or that changes the character a little bit and I make the little adjustments - so it's sort of like that kind of process; a back and forth process.

Emily: Folks go crazy when they hear you're working on a new script. In fact they tend to "leak" out before they're completed. How do you feel about that?

Charlie: Well, I think it's unethical. I mean, first of all, it gets out before it should because somebody is stealing it out of the studio or out of an agency, and is making copies and posting online. So it's probably illegal, but more importantly, it's a careless thing to do. I still have to work on it - it's not a finished script! And when people start writing reviews I'm working on it privately... To me it's exactly the same as going into my computer and taking something I'm working on and writing a review of it. I have to turn it in! I think it's a crappy thing to do, but I live with it.

Emily: Do you have any ambitions to direct?

Charlie: Yeah, I think I want to direct.

Emily: Would you be more influenced by Spike Jonze, or Michel Gondry or…?

Charlie: As in my writing, I don't want to be influenced by anyone. Obviously everyone I know influences me, but I have no interest in modeling what I do after another's work. I learned a lot from Spike, I learned a lot from Michel; hopefully, it will come in handy.

Emily: How much did you continue to be involved in the production?

Charlie: I was very involved in post-production. In the editing and sound design and, in this case, with the composer [Jon Brion]. I am not as involved in production. There's not that much for me to do on the set. I see the dailies everyday, and I talk to Michel [Gondry], and I talk to producers, go to the set when there's a potential problem- if there's a scene and maybe we don't know that it's going to work, I want to be there for any rewrites.


But even if I'm there, I'm not directing it. He's busy dealing with the actors. I mean I can take him aside and talk to him. But I saw the dailies, I saw what they were doing- we had endless conversations about what he was going to do, what he wanted to do, and I felt we were on the same page with that. I guess it's a combination of trust and seeing what the results are.


Emily: How did you feel about the way CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND turned out?

Charlie: I'm not happy with that movie. I wasn't involved in the making of it, and the director wasn't interested in things that I was interested in when I was writing the script. I think he had a different plan. I wasn't involved in it.

Emily: How come sometimes you're in control and other times you have to sit back like other Hollywood writers and say, "I sold the script - it's theirs now?"

Charlie: I didn't really sell it to them [in the case of CoDM]. I wrote a script that was an assignment. He came in and decided to become the director. It wasn't written for Clooney. It was a complete ten years, maybe ten years down the road- with a bunch of different directors attached at different times. Different stars- it was kind of like "the movie that couldn't get made," (Yet) I don't have any contractual control with Michel and Spike.

Emily: They respect you and ask you to be involved?

Charlie: They respect me and I think they're sensible- you know? I'm the person who wrote it, and they like the script: they want to know what the person that wrote it thinks. I think it's a smart thing for the director to want the writer around.

Emily: What do you think is the most successful fulfillment of one of your films?

Charlie: I have to say, and it's because I have been truly involved with the other four movies, they're all equally successful. Because they're my movies. I don't care if they fail at the box-office or even critically- they're movies I was involved in and something I was an equal collaborator with everyone else.

Emily: So what advice do you give to aspiring writers?

Charlie: I don't really have any advice. I think the only practical advice I've ever given anybody is they need an agent -- which is something that I didn't know for ten years, and it made a big difference in my professional life. In terms of what to tell a screenwriter, it depends on what the screenwriter wants to do. If they want to write a big action movie my advice is going to be useless. Seriously! My advice to myself is: I try to look at what I'm doing and see if it seems true to me. If it seems true, I continue. If not, I try to throw it out and see what is true at that moment in the script. And I continue like that.

Emily: Is there anything you use for writer's block?

Charlie: There's a vitamin... [laughter] no! I tell you what- you can only use this once- with writer's block I always sort of think you should write where you are. You know, what your focus is. What your anxiety is at the moment, and try and focus that into your work. That was the issue with ADAPTATION, because I wrote what I was struggling with into the script. But, like I said, you can only use that once. I can't use that again. But that's a good thing to do when you're blocked. To sort of sit back and think about your life at that point what's really important to you- and if it's really important to you then write something interesting about it. I'm not very disciplined though.

Emily: So, if we've seen ADAPTATION do we know everything about you?

Charlie: No. If you've seen ADAPTATION you know nothing about me! No, you know a couple things about me. [Sly smile]

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND is officially nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, as well as Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Kate Winslet.) It was also nominated for four Golden Globes including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay, and recently Charlie took home a BAFA (British Academy award) for Best Screenplay. ETERNAL SUNSHINE is currently available on DVD.

Emily Blunt runs BluntReview.com – a uniquely blunt entertainment site with over two million monthly readers. She’s also syndicated in five countries via Planet Syndication U.K. Get blunt!