[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.

To view previous episodes, visit OnStory.tv.

[Narrator] On Story is brought to you in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a Texas family providing innovative funding since 1979.

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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, "Gone Girl" writer, Gillian Flynn.

- You got a lot of people who turned us down.

And what they said, basically, was men don't read books by women, and women don't read books about women that they can't aspire to be.

They like stories about women overcoming things with the happy ending and my book [laughs] is the opposite of that.

[paper crumpling] [typing] [typewriter ding] [Narrator] In this episode, best-selling author and screenwriter Gillian Flynn talks about writing in different mediums and adapting "Gone Girl", "Sharp Objects" and "Widows" for the screen.

[typewriter ding] - Your first book was "Sharp Objects", right?

- That's right.

- And so, how did that fit in?

Because you were still at Entertainment Weekly, right?

- Yeah.

It fit in tightly, is how it fit in, it fit in around the edges of my regular job, because I was traveling a lot.

When I started writing it, I was still a staff writer.

So, I was still covering productions of movies.

I literally wrote some of it in New Zealand when I was covering "The Hobbits", [laughs] all of "The Lord of the Rings".

And I wrote it after spending a day with the guys from "Jackass" while I was covering that.

So, I was a little boozy [chuckles] when I wrote that piece.

I have a distinct memory of getting the idea that the main character, Camille, carves words into her skin.

I remember going back to my hotel room and I was wearing shorts.

And I always doodle when I'm on the phone, I can't sit still.

So, I was kind of telling him what I thought the story was, and what I covered that day.

And there was nothing to write on.

I had a pen and there was nothing to write on.

I started writing on my legs, and just writing different words that he or I were saying and it was my form of doodling.

And, by the end of the conversation, I looked down and I had these crazy words all over my skin.

[Adora] You all right in there?

- Where are my clothes?

[Adora] Which one fits better?

- Well, none of these are gonna work.

[Adora] Just try one.

[Amma] What's wrong?

[Adora] Your sister's being stubborn.

- Can you have her go wait in the car?

- Why?

- I have no idea why.

[Camille] Amma, just go wait in the car.

- Can you have her go wait in the car?

Amma, can you just wait in the car?

[Adora] Camille, just let me see you.

I have got to get home for heaven's sake.

[Camille] You happy?

[Adora] Go wait in the car.

Go.

- I think it took about two years to get it finally where I thought it could go out and having been a working writer for years at that point, I at least had a name or a product to show people so it helped me get in the door, I'm sure, being a writer.

But we got a lot of people who turned us down.

And what they said, basically, was men don't read books by women and women don't read books about women that they can't aspire to be.

That it was too dark, and women don't like stories about women problems.

They like stories about women overcoming things and ending up with a happy ending, and my book [laughs] is the opposite of that.

[typewriter ding] - You knock your first book out of the park.

And then, you come in and do a movie with David Fincher.

So, that's knocking it out of the park again.

- Yeah.

I'm really forever grateful to him because I would not have the screenwriting career unless he had said that, that he really was willing to let me do it, cause it would have actually been so much easier for him to have someone that he had worked with before, or who was a screenwriter before.

- You didn't change the spine of the story at all, but you did clearly have some things that weren't in there, some adjustments you made to things that happened.

- The problem with adapting that particular book, as it is a deliberately a piece of clockwork, there's no such thing as pulling out a single thread because everything kind of affects another thing.

It's pretty much there for a reason, plot-wise.

And so, it was hard to-- we would think we would have it like, "We'll just remove this scene."

And it's like, "Oh no, we need this scene because it sets up later on."

I was like, "Do you pull out all of Amy's fake diary entries?"

It's not fun without those.

I remember, for instance, poor Desi, poor endangered Neil Patrick Harris.

when they go-- When Ben Affleck's character, Nick, goes to meet him, he has a very odd mother who's floating around the house and we cut her.

That was like, "Okay, we'll get three pages out of there."

So, it really was of that sort.

- In all of your work, not just your film and television, but in your books, you practice this slow burn and it's, obviously, the traditional way to take us to a climax, but, obviously, that climax is never the climax and then there's another climax.

And so, you have a very non-traditional story structure.

Can you talk about knowing that's going to work?

- Right.

Well, you, I don't know that you know that it's going to work until you write it.

I never-- I never write anything where I know how it's going to end, and with "Gone Girl", deciding on doing a twist right in the middle of the book was not, did not feel entirely right.

I definitely wasn't sure about it.

So, I had originally written it where it was the first half was all from Nick's point of view.

And then you find out and then they start alternating points of view.

I remember my publisher, who I love, saying, or my editor, saying, "Just want you to know.

So, you've written a book where you have two main characters who really aren't that likable, and you find out, it's a who done it where you find out who done it in the middle.

[Amy] I am so much happier now that I'm dead.

[dramatic music] Technically missing.

Soon to be presumed dead.

Gone.

And my lazy lying cheating oblivious husband will go to prison for my murder.

- And it has an ending that is not about justice.

There's not just deserves at the end.

[dramatic music] - You can stop pretending now.

- I'm not pretending.

You were perfect.

The Nick I saw on TV, that's the Nick I fell in love with.

- You do know I was just telling you what you wanted to hear, right?

- That's how well you know me.

You know me in your marrow.

- As far as the slow burn goes, I just like a slow burn cause I like to get to know my characters and get to know the place.

And I do know that it's an impatient world, and people have many options and there's that risk that they will just turn to something else if there's not a big ka-bang immediately.

But, for me, I don't write for hire, I write cause I love it.

[typewriter ding] - So, "Gone Girl" comes out, does gangbusters.

Then, you move on to "Sharp Objects".

And what in-- how did that process come about?

One of the things that I loved about you taking that into the eight episodes is that it was a way to really thoughtfully absorb what's happening to this woman, where you felt like she doesn't even know what she's coming back to here.

And she's trying to analyze her own life and desperately needs to do that.

And you've thrown her into the pit of hell, in a way.

[chuckles] But we get to really experience that, which I feel like was a really great way to tell that story, better than just a two-hour film.

- It was one that, in order to not feel exploitative, because it does go to very, very dark places.

It needed that time so that you could understand Camille, the main character, Amy's character, and feel for her and understand that pain that she was in all the time, that emotional pain, and to understand her as a character, and understand the place.

That way, you get to know where she grew up, which obviously contributed along with her mother to who she is.

[dreamy music] ♪ ♪ [girl] You sure mama won't notice we're gone?

- Better hope not!

[dreamy music] [Gillian] I've always, in everything I write, almost, go back to one of the main characters, or all of the main characters' childhoods.

If it's not a full flashback, it's certainly memories throughout because I really believe that if you understand where someone came from, it's very hard to judge them.

The more you know about why someone is the way they are, the more you can, at least, empathize.

And so, I can write very dark characters and I'm always known as the dark female character [chuckles] writer, but to me, it's important so that it doesn't feel cheap or you've done for shock value, if you understand why that person is the way they are, they feel like a real person.

So, I was glad to have that space to be able to fully explore who this person is.

- How was that process for you in looking at your material, again, your native material, now turning into something that's going to go onto a network that has their own agenda of content.

- We had a great team, about six writers and they were so faithful to the book that, at one point, I was like, "Hey guys, it's becoming a movie.

It has to become something else.

You don't need to feel just cause I'm here, like, let's cut some stuff.

Let's get in there cut what's not working, and let's make this a proper TV series."

And so, we spent time dividing it up and what's going to be the theme of each episode, what's gonna be, where are we going, tonally?

It was really important for me.

The episode I felt most strongly about was episode seven.

So, the penultimate episode and because, to me, that was when everything about Camille clicked and the scene with her and the young guy finally together, he's in deep mourning, she has been in mourning for most of her life for her sister.

And when she undresses and he starts looking at the words and he's so gentle with her, and she says, "You're reading me", in Amy Adams' wonderful voice.

- Is it everywhere?

[Camille sniffles] [Camille sniffles] - Wait.

Drain.

[Camille sighs] Cherry.

Sick.

Gone.

- You're reading me.

- Wrong.

Falling.

Wicked.

[Camille sobs] - It wasn't supposed to feel sexy in any way.

It wasn't supposed to be titillating.

It was supposed to be this sigh of relief of a woman who had find someone who understands her and it's not, for once, judging her and that sensation.

So, to me, that was really important to write that particular episode.

- Do you ever feel this way about your source material that now that you're in a different medium you have a chance to be, you have a chance to look back at what you wrote, and maybe change it, alter it in some way?

- Adapting books is a really tricky thing, or adapting anything.

I think some audience members go in automatically with their arms crossed a little bit to, like, "You messed around with my book."

And I want it to be the same that's in my head, and I always say, "It's already in your head.

Why would you want to have it be exactly the same?"

And I always tell people that they should think about them as complimentary bookends.

So, there is a tricky moment of, you have certain things where, you know, you know a certain scene is really beloved by readers, so, "Do I include that?

Do I not include that?"

It doesn't necessarily work for the movie but the audience will want to see it.

And I can think of one example, actually, which is with "Gone Girl".

There's a speech that has been called now the cool girl speech.

[Amy] Nick liked the girl I was pretending to be.

Cool girl.

Men always use that, don't they?

As their defining compliment.

She's a cool girl.

Cool girl is hot.

Cool girl is game.

Cool girl is fun.

Cool girl never gets angry at her man.

She only smiles in a chagrined loving manner and then presents her mouth for [bleep].

She likes what he likes.

So, evidently, he's a vinyl hipster who loves fetish manga.

If he likes girls gone wild, she's a mall babe who talks football and endures buffalo wings at Hooters.

- I didn't include it originally in the scripts because I couldn't figure out where it possibly went.

We can't hear it until Amy, midpoint, is revealed as a villain because she's someone else before that.

So then, you're at the stage where you're racing with the plot and it was like, "Where do I possibly insert this while all these plot points have to happen now, and without slowing it down."

And then, finally came up with the idea of her saying it as she's very first escaping.

So, it was a very early monologue.

[typewriter ding] - I'm going to jump to "Widows", which you now have gone into adapting someone else's work.

So, that's a really interesting project to me because you took it the opposite way, from a British television show to a film.

So, you're essentially having to boil it down to the essence, as the adaptation.

So, can you talk about how that process worked with you and Steve McQueen in comparison to, for instance, "Gone Girl", where you were going from your own work?

- Well, I watched it once to see if it was something I was interested in doing, and I was, and I really wanted to work with Steve.

So, that certainly was a part of it too.

But the "Widows", the TV series by Lynda La Plante is amazing.

It's so good.

And so, I was immediately hooked.

And then, you ask the question, "Is this adaptable?

Can we turn it into a two-hour film?

And if so, what do we do with it that's different.

Now it's not the 80s, it's current.

Now it's not London, it's Chicago, here!"

[chuckles].

It's an adaptation.

What is there to be really done with it that it makes it worth redoing?

I've always said, "Just because something is great, doesn't mean you should remake it."

[chuckles] You need to remake it for a reason.

So, we wanted to make it current day, but without any current date gadgetry.

That was one of our main things, was that it felt like at its heart it was kind of a hard-boiled seventies show, actually, as far as the procedural cop stuff in the heist went.

At first, I crossed my arms at the idea of doing a heist film, I'm not a heist film person.

For whatever reason, they don't intrigue me that much.

But this one did.

Watching it, it really pulled me in because so much of it is about the characters.

And you could say something, it was about women who had lost their husbands and find a clue, and are able to pull off a heist and get the bad guys who were involved with their husbands' deaths.

To me, I thought there was a lot to say right now about power imbalance, about gender, about race, that idea of how stacked and unfair life can be.

- You said whenever I needed help, but your family has been involved in Harry's life for many years.

When I say help, I mean-- - I understand.

I'm not my father.

As you can see, the years have taken a toll on him and I do not want to go down that same road.

So, with much admiration and respect for your late husband and yourself, of course, I don't see what I can do.

What I've learned from men like my father and Harry is that you reap what you sow.

- Let's hope so.

- We wanted to see each of these women and their different circumstances.

We both really embrace the idea of we don't want any hacking into things.

We don't want any technology.

We don't want any finger imprint, or eye, you know.

We wanted old-fashioned clues and a clue on a match.

That's what a match is, obviously.

[tense music] ♪ ♪ - I do think it's interesting, and you seem to be attracted to telling us stories about people who are cruel to each other, they're cruel, particularly, to their family, that this, Camille and Adora are... eke, what an incredible relationship they have and, Nick and Amy.

Even as cruel as it gets, and yet he still is hanging out.

Do you enjoy that exploration of psychopathy, to some extent, or psychology of how people treat each other?

- I've always been a true crime addict.

Sometimes for good reasons, and sometimes not, because I do realize that when you're reading or watching something about a horrible murder, you are consuming someone else's tragedy.

That tragedy has been produced for viewing, or reading, and packaged.

And so, I have conflicting feelings about that, but it doesn't stop me.

I just try to watch the good stuff, I guess, and I think the reason people are so intrigued by true crime is it gives us this vocabulary to talk about darkness.

So, I think true crime, why, particularly a lot of women, are just, it is that idea of living in a society where it's accepted that a lot of women get raped every day, a lot of pregnant women are murdered by their partners, that we accept those statistics as if that's okay.

So, I think it gives us a way to talk about that.

And so, that's always translated into my work, that idea of close quarters cruelty, what's behind the door and what's really happening.

And again, going back to family and how you grew up and, certainly, "Dark Places", which is possibly my favorite book that I wrote, is a lot about childhood and things that happened in childhood and how they ripple, they can ripple forever through your life.

[typewriter ding] [Narrator] You've been watching A Conversation with Gillian Flynn 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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