[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - The best response you can have to a payoff in a thriller is someone goes, "Oh, right, I forgot, of course..." [multiple voices chattering] [Narrator] On Story offers a look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

All of our content is recorded live at Austin Film Festival and at our year-round events.

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[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is "On Story."

A look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

This week's "On Story," "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" screenwriter, Dave Callaham.

- The key to action sequences is the one thing you have to have is you have to go in knowing what the emotional journey of the action scene is.

In "Shang-Chi," for example, that bus sequence that people seem to really like, what's important about that scene is it is Shang-Chi being unmasked and he fights and that's very cool.

But it's not just a fight where you're watching a fight, you're watching Akwafina's character Katy realize in real time that this person who is my best friend, who I thought I knew, I don't know at all.

[paper crumples] [typing] [Narrator] In this episode, screenwriter Dave Callaham discusses his work on "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings."

"Wonder Woman 1984," and "Jean-Claude Van Johnson."

As well as the role of personal experience and self exploration while developing and navigating big budget blockbusters.

[typewriter ding] - Obviously you've worked on a lot of blockbusters.

Were blockbuster films something that was a family sort of event for you or something that was just extremely meaningful in your life that propelled you to this spot?

- I wasn't that into film when I was young.

I was raised in a household where we didn't have cable TV.

My parents didn't have much of an interest in movies or Western culture.

So because of the way I was raised, the way that I got into movies was I would go to my friend's houses and they were into movies.

And I was raised in the 80s, so the movies they were into were Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.

All the first [bleep] that I saw was 80s action movies, which is, you know, really the advent of the modern blockbuster in a lot of ways and so I grew up on that stuff.

I loved it.

Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, who I later got to work with, which was awesome.

So that type of large scale filmmaking has always been the most interesting type of movie for me to go see.

- Do you have a favorite 80s action film?

- "Bloodsport" is probably my favorite.

I think "Predator" might actually be the best of them.

When I look back at those movies, like, I love "Bloodsport."

It's ridiculous in a lot of spots.

It holds up pretty well.

When I look at "Predator," I think of like the storytelling and the structure of that movie, the acting, all works for what they're being asked to do.

And the predator looks really, really good still.

- Were there any particular heroes in your life either real or fictional that you were also trying to create stories for?

- When I was growing up not watching movies, what I was watching was professional wrestling.

This remains the case now because it's the core of what large-scale professional wrestling is supposed to be built around.

These giant superhero characters.

But in the 80s especially, the first time I saw "The Ultimate Warrior," and I was a very undersized Chinese kid with a bowl cut.

I was like, "What the [bleep] is that?

That is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life."

That was sort of my first introduction to like a superhero figure.

A giant heroic figure.

- Yeah, I mean, pro wrestling has made a lot of fantastic actors and filmmakers too.

Dave Batista, obviously part of the MCU.

- Yeah, what's that one guy's name?

[laughing] The big guy, The Rock.

[laughing] [typewriter ding] - Personally, one of my favorite movies actually.

What was it like to be a part of that project?

And at the time adapt a video game that, for a lot of people, the medium of video games was not necessarily looked at as a narrative of or storytelling or a sort of space.

- "Doom" was the first studio project I got hired to write.

The first meeting I ever took in Hollywood was with Lorenzo de Bon Ventura.

Who several weeks prior had been the worldwide president of production at Warner Brothers, and had just recently transitioned into producing.

He was asked which titles he wanted to bring with him.

"Doom" was one of them.

He took me out to dinner.

I was sweating, and I was stuttering a lot.

I was so nervous.

He's a very like prolific figure.

And he said, "Would you be interested in "Doom?"

And I said, "Yes, absolutely.

I'm familiar with the game."

And he said, "Great.

I'm gonna give you a date and a time, and you're gonna come to Warners and you're gonna pitch your take."

And I had no idea what any of that meant.

I was like, "Okay, what does that mean?"

And he said, "Just show up and tell us what you think the movie could be."

So I showed up with no sense of what a pitch was.

No sense of what a meeting was essentially.

I mean, it sounds ridiculous now.

I had my notes written on a napkin, [audience laughing] because I was unprofessional.

And I pitched a room that had 20 people in it.

And that I later found out included, basically everybody at Warner Brothers.

- Come here.

Come here!

This is what?

- Oh, God.

- Have you found anything like this on your archeological digs?

- No.

- Is there any way this thing came from the outside, from the surface?

- The planet is completely dead.

- It came from somewhere, lady.

- Portman, shut up.

- The atmosphere on the surface can't support life.

- Maybe it doesn't air.

It could have come from another planet or something.

- Well, like an alien?

- Look at that thing.

- I look back at it now, and I think that what happened there was because I didn't have any sense of what I was doing or who the people involved were, which again is on me.

I should have.

I had very little fear.

I just walked in and was like, "Here you go."

And I got hired in the room, which is also the only time that's ever happened to me in my life.

And I think it's just a continuing factor of just being so green and so full of energy and so excited to do it.

And so I got the job, and then I wrote "Doom."

[laughs] And then, then the rosy stuff stopped because I learned that you were going to work really hard and you're gonna do billions of rewrites.

And I got fired and rehired and fired and rehired.

And I was involved in a lot of different parts of the movie, but not as many of them as I thought I would be initially.

I got to experience like all the ups and downs of a large-scale studio screenwriting, which was great.

And then the movie didn't perform in the way that we all hoped it would.

And luckily I survived that and so did Dwayne.

- Being of Chinese American descent, what did that experience and that heritage allow you to bring to the forefront of your storytelling when you started in the industry, but also trying to figure out how to make your path?

- I mean, I'll just be blunt about it.

There has not been a particularly wonderful representation of Asians on screen in most Western media.

So I've been writing professionally for 19 years.

I'd say the first 17, my entire job was just to pretend I wasn't an Asian guy.

I would get hired and immediately my job became okay, how do I put myself in the shoes of a beautiful white man named Chris?

I watch enough movies that I am very adept at fantasizing about being a hero, and about what it must be like to have doors open for you and to have just the privilege of being that type of personality on screen.

But I don't have any sort of life experience like that whatsoever.

And because I wasn't seeing it on screen as a kid, I couldn't even fathom what an Asian guy would look like as a hero.

And then "Shang-Chi" comes along and, you know, it was a very emotional process for me.

It was so hectic and frantic in terms of storytelling that I wasn't that plugged in in that moment into the cultural elements other than pitching what I wanted to see.

And then when I sat down to write the movie, like, one weekend I just had a total freak out.

I had a real emotional moment where -- because the stuff I was writing the first week was all of the stuff in San Francisco where you're seeing Sean at the time and Katy.

Sean turns out to be Shang-Chi if you haven't seen the movie.

And that is an experience I've lived.

I grew up in the Bay Area.

I, as you can see, I think, a Chinese American.

And I just sort of sat back, and I got very emotional.

I was like, "This is the first time in 19 years anyone's ever asked me to tell any version of my story."

Not my story, but just even to put a Chinese face on screen.

[typewriter ding] - I'm also fascinated by the sort of mythology of, or specifically Chinese mythology, pardon me.

And what from that space you were able to bring into "Shang Chi" outside of what was already imbued within the preexisting comics and IP.

- The preexisting comics were not real helpful.

If anyone out here is not familiar with them, and I don't know why you would be.

"Shang-Chi" was created in the late 70s to capitalize on essentially the Bruce Lee boom.

"Shang-Chi" was created by two white men who I don't believe had any sort of malicious intent or stereotypes that they were intending to put out.

It was just the late '70s.

And so in the first run of publication, "Shang-Chi is the son of Fu Manchu -- the literal character Fu Manchu that Marvel had borrowed.

Who looked exactly like you all think he looked and behaved like you think he behaved and talked like you think he talked, and that was bad.

But Shang-Chi himself wasn't much better.

I grew up loving mythology.

I think for some reason it's a thing that a lot of kids really gravitate towards.

I think it's just such classic storytelling art.

I was into Greek mythology because it was I think usually the most accessible mythology when you're in school.

You get that dolorous book of Greek mythology, and it's got the cool pictures.

And, you know, I got into that when I was in college.

I got into Norse mythology.

I don't have a lot of background in Chinese mythology or Eastern mythology.

I dove into it when I got hired.

I knew some stuff.

I'm very interested in mystical creatures though.

Cryptids but also, you know, unicorns, all of the stuff.

And so some of the stuff you might see in the third act of Shang-Chi was stuff that I had pretty deep knowledge of, but the storytelling principles of Shang-Chi are really just based off of identifying ... identifying things that the entire Asian diaspora might recognize as somewhat close to home.

And then just working out of that -- father-children's stories.

- Mythical creatures, do you have a particular set of mythical creatures that are like, those are my dudes, or, I'm curious?

- In the third act, they drive into a mystical Chinese village, and there's all sorts of rad [bleep] wandering around.

And there's these weird horses that are sort of scaly, and sort of, they're known as the Chinese unicorn, Japan has their own version.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ - That's a weird horse.

- I'm just drawn to that stuff because it feels so big.

And because it answers questions that we all have.

All this existential stuff that most of humankind at some point in their lives wonders.

Most of these myths come from a place of trying to explain those things, and trying to put context into our world, but in a way that is really romantic to think about.

When I was working on "Godzilla."

I mean, "Godzilla" has an incredible mythology.

I don't think people tend to think of "Godzilla" as a mythology.

I think especially because the movies over time have had such disparate, you know, sort of eras.

But, you know, there there's so much stuff behind Godzilla, behind all the Kaiju.

Mythology is exciting to me.

I love the romantic notion that there is more to the world that we can't see.

And then if you just walked around the right corner at the right time, you'd see something weird.

[typewriter ding] - Moving forward a little bit, "Jean-Claude Van Johnson."

- So, I historically only write movies, which I don't know why that is.

Probably just I became comfortable with that storytelling technique.

Writing TV's a very different game.

I got a call from -- I had an agent at UTA because I don't write TV.

Basically they had assigned a guy whose job was to call me once a year, and be like, "Do you wanna do TV?"

And I'd go, "No."

And he'd hang up.

And he called me and he said, "I know this is a pass, but Ridley Scott's company wants to make a TV show with Jean-Claude van Damme."

The way it was pitched to me was basically like "24" staring Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Just totally serious, just essentially a TV extension of the kind of stuff he was doing for the last 15 years anyway, sort of the VOD kind of very cool, very Jean-Claude action stuff.

But it didn't sound like it was gonna stretch his talents very far.

And to be honest, I'm a huge Jean-Claude Van Damme fan.

And I didn't think I would watch that.

And so they asked me what I would do instead.

I was like, "I would write a comedy for him."

I would try to get as weird as I can, and introduce people to all this interesting other stuff I think he's capable of.

If you ever saw that movie "JCVD," you know, we borrowed quite a bit from that because there you're seeing him operate at a completely different level.

[suspenseful music] - Psst.

[smack] [suspenseful music] - What about us?

You promised we start a family of our own.

The family we never had.

[suspenseful music] Hank, we already have.

[suspenseful music] - Jean-Claude Van Damme.

[suspenseful music] - Yeah.

- How do you find yourself not just depicting those scenes, but thinking about those scenes as you develop your narrative and script?

- I mean, action's really tricky.

The real truth is the key to action sequences is you just have to -- the one thing you have to have is you have to go in knowing what the emotional journey of the action scene is.

In "Shang-Chi," for example, that bus sequence that people seem to really like, which I like too.

It's really cool action.

But what's important about that scene is it is Shang-Chi being unmasked.

Now he's not wearing a mask literally, but he's been hiding behind this fake identity and code switching into an American lifestyle.

And he is threatened in a way that he cannot tolerate, and the proverbial mask comes off and he becomes Shang-Chi in that moment.

And he fights, and that's very cool.

But it's not just a fight where you're watching a fight, you're watching Akwafina's character, Katy, realize in real time that this person who is my best friend who I thought I knew, I don't know at all.

And that's what the story of that fight sequence is.

- You have the wrong guy.

Does he look like he can fight?

Come on, bro.

[energetic music] - Are you okay?

[energetic music] - Every fight sequence has to be built around some sort of personal journey.

So that's always first.

You're always trying to figure out what is happening for the characters.

What are the beats inside of this where they doubt themselves, they pick themselves back up, they learn something.

Then you build around that.

[typewriter ding] - It feels like part of the film is about grappling with this dual identity certainly, but also in a case for "Shang-Chi," really just trying to find who am I, and sort of, what am I about here?

How did you find the balance or the difficulty of balancing that while you're putting together the script?

- That's a pretty constant evolution as you're writing, you know?

Like you have the big idea in your head that Dustin and I always knew it was gonna be a story about this guy who didn't want to follow in his father's footsteps.

So he runs away and he starts a new life.

But when you do that, it's always going to be in the back of your head.

That's where I came from.

Is there a part of me that is destined to go back to it?

You know what I mean?

I don't know.

I can't speak for everyone here, but as I get older now that I'm an adult I think, I look at my father who, up until I was 22 or whatever, was just sort of somewhat of a super heroic figure to me.

Just a grown man who did all this stuff.

And he told me how to be.

And, you know, he was my dad.

He was not like a real person if that makes sense.

And then once I to know him as a person, I started seeing things in him that I was recognizing in my own development.

And it [bleep] with you a little bit because you go, "Oh, did I ever have a choice with some of this stuff?

Was this always going to be, are we really just the products or are we more?"

And so, Shang-Chi is grappling with that just in a much more magnified way.

And you're always playing with what's the right amount of this stuff to put in.

And especially something like a Marvel movie where we were so interested in the story of identity.

[suspenseful music] - I'm not afraid of you.

[suspenseful music] - Yes, you are.

[thud] [suspenseful music] You've spent your entire life afraid, always running, always hiding.

[energetic music] - Earlier you mentioned actually, I think this is a bit of our private conversation, the influences or ideas you wanted to have in "Shang-Chi," as far as having that San Francisco fight scene, having that fight scene among the bamboo sticks earlier between Wang Wu and his wife.

Specifically that one that fight between the bamboo sticks, I couldn't help but think about "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

I'm just curious what sort of influences for those moments, and then those big set pieces were for you?

- We knew that we were going to be aiming to do the best action sequences that Marvel had ever made.

That was always part of the goal, just as a sense of pride because, you know, we knew we're making a Kung Fu movie.

And we were making a Kung Fu movie or a Marvel movie more specifically where our hero is not wearing a mask.

Every single sequence was designed to be physical, to be practical.

That one was definitely designed to be a "Crouching Tiger" sequence.

I mean, what we were trying to do is how do we find all of these great moments from this insanely vast history of Asian cinema that a lot of people maybe haven't seen.

And that we're going to be bringing to Western eyes potentially for the first time.

I wrote that scene, and described it as this is a dance.

It starts as a fight, and it turns into a dance.

And that word was always on the page.

And I'm really happy with the way it turned out, because I think that's really well reflected in the final sequence.

Other sequences like the bus fight represent more of, you know, there's a little bit of old boy in that bus fight.

There's a tracking like a side scroll tracking shot.

We were just trying to pull from everywhere.

- The ending of "Shang-Chi."

Again, spoilers.

The moment where Shang-Chi falls into the lake, and meets the dragon for the first time.

It's so wonderful.

[woman speaking in Chinese] [Dave] The first meeting I took at Marvel after they hired me, they said, "What do you wanna see in this movie?"

And I said, "A giant Chinese dragon."

I just, I think it would be awesome.

And then, you know, the initial reaction from Marvel is, "Okay, so he fights a dragon."

I'm like, "No!

Dragons are not evil in Eastern culture."

Like Chinese dragons are protector spirits.

They're water spirits.

And so then, that's when it started this process of being like, "Oh, now we're learning.

They're learning from me.

We're learning together."

We're doing research and trying to figure out how can we make that happen in a way that makes sense?

Because once we realized that our dragon was going to be pretty traditional, was going to be a water spirit, was going to be a feminine entity.

We knew that that was probably going to tie into some thematic around Shang-Chi's mother.

So we worked backwards to figure out how it could happen, but we always knew that the first time you saw that dragon was going to be a quiet, emotional, that takes your breath away with the emotional power moment and not a thing breaks through a wall like the bad guy thing.

- What was it like to create a film that was really important for this Asian American cinema and culture?

And what are you hoping that it sort of leads as a pathway to in the future?

- When I was growing up, you know, my favorite movie once I did eventually start watching movies was, "Big Trouble In Little China."

And I thought at the time that was because it was ...

I mean, it's [bleep] rad.

If you haven't seen "Big Trouble In Little China" there's, you know, magic, and there's all sorts of crazy [bleep] going on.

And Kurt Russell's hair is amazing.

[audience laughing] But what I realized as I got older is the reason I love that movie so much and that it spoke to me in a way I didn't understand as a kid is because the hero of that movie is an Asian guy because Dennis Dun's character Wang is the hero of that movie.

And Kurt Russell is playing his buffoon sidekick, and they've just flipped it and presented it in the way that they have because they have to.

But Marvel, I think from the position I am in seems to be the most successful franchise film making company of all time.

And so to realize that they were asking me to put Asian people forward on the largest scale possible in a way that was going to reach so much further than any other American film had ever done, I got really emotional about it.

I got very emotional in the car driving home.

I was actually supposed to be ...

I was just about to sign a contract to write a different movie that was also about an underrepresented group.

And I was really excited about it.

And I think I told my wife on the car ride home.

I just thought, "I know I told them I would do it, but why would I tell someone else's story, if someone's finally gonna let me tell my own.

How could I not?"

So it's been awesome.

It's been everything I hoped it would be.

Now that I've had a taste of that to write something that's actually important to me and says something.

I don't know that I'm gonna be wanting to do anything else.

[typewriter ding] [Narrator] You've been watching A Conversation with Dave Callaham on On Story.

On Story is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story project.

That also includes the On Story radio program, podcast, book series, and the On Story archive, accessible through the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.

To find out more about On Story and Austin Film Festival, visit onstory.tv or austinfilmfestival.com.

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