Samuel Hunter, Playwright: It's really dangerous to start thinking that the humanities are disposable or that they're a frivolity.

It is a rare and beautiful gift that we are living things that can tell stories.

Marcia Franklin, Host: Coming up…a special 'createid; conversation with award-winning playwright Samuel D. Hunter about his work -- and his very unique experience at the Academy Awards.

Stay with us.

Announcer: Major funding for 'createid' is provided by the Idaho Public Television Endowment, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Franklin: Hello and welcome.

I'm Marcia Franklin in front of the Boise Contemporary Theater in Boise, Idaho.

The theater company helped launch the career of one of America's award-winning playwrights, Samuel D. Hunter, who had some of his first works performed here.

Hunter would go on to receive an Obie award and a MacArthur fellowship, among other accolades.

And his play, "The Whale," was adapted into a major motion picture starring Brendan Fraser, who won an Academy Award.

Hunter, who grew up in Moscow, Idaho, now lives in New York City.

But he returns to his home state often, and we caught up with him when he was here to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Idaho Humanities Council.

We talked about the enormous crush of publicity around "The Whale," his play writing philosophies, what it was like to attend the Oscars, and the timeless importance of the humanities.

Franklin: Well, welcome back to Idaho.

It's great to have you here.

Hunter: It's great to be back.

I've spent a lot of time in this theater over the years, so it's really nice to be here.

It's been a few years since I've been back.

Franklin: Well, let's talk about -- we are in the Boise Contemporary Theater.

Hunter: Mm hmm.

Franklin: ….and talk about the relevance and the importance of BCT to your life as a playwright.

Hunter: I mean, it was one of the first professional theaters that did my work.

The first play I had here was a play called "Norway" that was in, I want to say 2011.

And then out of that, Matt Clark, the artistic director at the time, commissioned me to write a new play.

And I wrote a play called "A Permanent Image" that was here either the following year or the year after, I forget.

Um, and that play has since been done, actually not in New York, but around the country, several productions.

I've been kind of surprised.

Franklin: So BCT is really, um, an important part of the beginning of your career.

Hunter: Oh yeah, definitely.

I mean, it was really kind of the first time that I had a really close relationship with an artistic director.

Franklin: Well, you and I have talked several times over the years, and each time it has been after an amazing achievement.

The first time we spoke, you had just won an Obie award… Hunter: Right.

Franklin: …which is the off- Broadway equivalent of a Tony.

The second time that we spoke, you had just been named a recipient of the MacArthur grant – fellowship.

And now we're sitting talking on the heels of one of your plays being adapted into a major motion picture with an Academy Award-winning lead actor.

So, what a life!

(Laughter) Hunter: Yeah, it's been…I feel very fortunate.

I mean, the last year has been really head-spinning.

Um, I mean, you know, Darren Aronofsky, who directed the movie, saw the play a really long time ago.

He saw it in 2012.

So it's been a long time coming, and we've been talking about it for a really long time.

But I think uh, seven, eight years in, I was just, like, "Oh, this is never going to happen."

And, uh, um, but now here we are, you know.

It's pretty, pretty incredible.

You know, when Darren first contacted me, I was only a playwright.

I didn't even own screenwriting software.

I bought, uh, Final Draft, which is like the industry standard for screenwriting, I bought that application to write that movie for Darren.

I mean, uh, it's kind of a miracle for me as a writer in that I wrote a screenplay that was very faithful to, uh, the original play that I wrote, and Darren, you know, brought me on set the entire time to work with the actors throughout the entire three months of rehearsal and shooting.

Um, and he, he shot it pretty much word for word.

Um, and that's just very uncommon in the film world.

I mean, one of the reasons I love playwriting is because it really – or at least the kind of playwriting that I do – is very writer-centric.

It's um, nobody changes the words unless I give them permission to.

You know, whereas in the screenwriting world, the normal thing is, like, you purchase a screenplay, "Thank you very much, and you can do whatever you want with the text," and the screenwriter is, like, normally not involved.

I mean, there are stories of screenwriters showing up to world premieres of their movies and being, like, "What is this movie?

I have nothing to do with how this movie was made."

So all this to say is the fact that Darren kind of centered the text is really, really amazing and uncommon.

Franklin: And let's talk about Brendan Fraser.

Hunter: Yeah.

Franklin: You first saw him at a reading kind of right at the start of COVID, right?

Hunter: It was like a week before shutdown, so we didn't know it was coming.

But yeah, Darren had the idea of casting Brendan, and he rented a little theater in the East Village and um, just to do a reading of the screenplay, almost as one would do a reading of a play.

And so we all got together.

Brendan did it.

Actually, Sadie Sink was there too, but this was before Sadie Sink was kind of the... Franklin: Amazing actress.

Hunter...yeah, international superstar that she is now.

Her face is on, like, billboards in Tokyo.

Um, but we did a reading of it and Brendan was incredible.

And it was the first time that I think Darren felt like he could make it.

Franklin: What was your sense watching this amazing actor saying your -- lines that you had written?

Hunter: From the very beginning, it was just so evident that Brendan had the pulse of this character.

Um, because I think there's a lot of ways that character can go south.

I mean, if there's any sense of, like, darkness or cynicism, then it really kind of, really doesn't work.

And it's a hard role in that sense because he, the character has every reason in the world to be cynical, uh, or angry.

And, and you have to float your way through that role, like, and kind of above everything in this kind of -- I don't want to say he's saintly because he's flawed, of course -- but um, he has to kind of ride over all the muck.

Otherwise you just get pulled down and it becomes just kind of unwatchable.

And from the very beginning, Brendan had that.

Franklin: What do you think is the attraction to this particular play of yours?

Because when we spoke in, I think it was 2012, it was just starting in Denver.

By the time I spoke to you in 2015 or so, you were already saying it was the most produced play of yours and that you were surprised by that.

You said, "I'm constantly surprised that this play of about a 600-pound man is the most produced play of mine."

What do you think it is about the story that has made it so?

Hunter: I think it's different things for different people.

You know, speaking of cynicism, I think we live in deeply cynical times, kind of increasingly so over the years.

And this is a character, and I think this is a play, that is a really outright rejection of cynicism.

Um, and I think that connects to people.

I think with this play, as with my other plays, I'm interested in people who are not on the winning end of American life, you know.

It's always been my writerly concern that I'm not interested in writing about happy people who get happier or successful people who become successful.

You know, the industry always says, like, "Oh, we need these adventure stories and hero narratives," and blah, blah, blah.

I think actually people don't always want that, because they don't always see that in their own life, you know.

I think there's this kind of Hollywood lie that suffering always leads to redemption, or suffering leads to, you know, effort leads to success.

Whereas in real life, that's just not the case.

Like, a lot of the time, suffering just sort of exists for a while and then it just falls into the void.

And, and that's, that's a part of modern life.

And I think people have an appetite for wanting to talk about that.

Franklin: Well, let's talk about suffering being part of life and sometimes negativity being part of life.

It's no secret that while Brendan Fraser was lauded for this role, um, and won the Academy Award for it, there were reviews of the film that were, I would say, excoriating in some respects.

Sam Hunter: Yeah.

Franklin: I wrote down that the reviewers didn't mince their words.

It's been called a "cruel spectacle," "inhumane," "misery porn," "a carnival sideshow," a harmful fantasy of fat squalor," and a "grotesque spectacle."

Hunter: Mm hmm.

Franklin: How as you, who wrote the original play, and although it's not autobiographical, it draws upon your life, and who wrote the movie version – how do you take that in?

How do you work with those kind of reviews?

Hunter: I mean, I kind of, I was expecting it.

I think, um, at a certain point, you have to kind of realize that this is nowadays the price of admission.

That if you're going to put something into the world that's on kind of a large platform, that it becomes incredibly vulnerable.

Um, and uh, we also live in an era where people read two sentences about something and then they form an opinion, and they put that opinion online immediately.

And no matter what, they're going to be incentivized to not change that opinion, because then their tweet or whatever is going to be inaccurate.

Um, and it's also just -- it's difficult for me because, you know, I wrote this play -- like you said, it wasn't autobiographical, but, like, it stems from a lot of things that I dealt with growing up.

I was a gay kid in the town where Charlie lives.

I dealt with obesity a lot up until I was in my early thirties.

Um, and for me, it manifested in, like, I ate because I was depressed.

Um, and so I tried to take these things that I felt so much shame about, like about being a gay kid in Idaho and being overweight, and fashion it into something positive.

Um, and, and I felt like I did that, and the play existed for 10 years without people talking about it that way.

And so then on the other end of it, to be shamed all over again, is this, I don't know, it would be funny if it wasn't not funny.

Um… Franklin: You understand some of the concerns, though, I'm sure.

Hunter: Oh, of course.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Franklin: People feel like it's fat-shaming and that it was gratuitous.

And then there is a very real concern that Mr. Fraser wore a fat, a "fat suit…" Hunter: Yeah.

Franklin: …prosthetics, and that it should have been an actor who looked more like the part who got the part.

Hunter: Mm-hmm.

Franklin: How do you respond, first of all, to the fat-shaming or fat-phobic part of it, of the criticism?

Hunter: I mean, I just don't think it holds water.

I mean, look, I, you know, I didn't cast this movie.

I didn't make the costume.

I just told a story about this person.

Um, I mean, if people are upset because it's not about a 600 (pound) person who is completely happy and fulfilled, I mean, I'm not saying that those people don't exist.

Of course they exist.

I'm not writing about that person.

You know there've been people who've come up to countless times to tell me that, you know, they have dealt with this kind of obesity or family members have, um, and that they don't understand the criticisms because they did not see obesity, the kind of obesity that they dealt with or family dealt member dealt with as like -- it wasn't fun.

It wasn't positive.

It was tragic for them.

When there's very, very few narratives about a specific kind of person...you know, like, there's very few stories about people like Charlie.

And so I think everybody wants that story to service everything else.

Do you know what I mean?

To service every aspect of that experience.

Whereas, like, if you're looking for a story about, like, a straight white man, there's this buffet of options.

You know what I mean?

There's tons of different types of stories about straight white men.

Um, and so, like, when a person sees "The Whale" and it's not portraying the kind of person that they want to see, then that's somehow the fault of the movie.

And that, that is an idea I can't really get behind.

Franklin: And about the prosthetics… Hunter: It's been done many different ways.

There was actually, um, there's been many productions where, uh, they haven't employed any kind of costuming.

I mean, I think in the early productions, there was a suggestion of his body, if not like a literal representation of his body.

Franklin: What's your sense?

Was it okay to have the prosthetics?

Hunter: I mean.

You know, I think the difference between it… Franklin: It also won an Academy Award, by the way, the costuming.

Hunter: Exactly.

No, it's beautiful; it belongs in the Tate Modern.

It's a beautiful -- you know, it's a work of art.

Um, I think that it's a little different on stage than on film.

I think film by its definition is going for much more realism, uh, and very specific, you know, specific realism.

Whereas in the stage, like, we don't have that expectation.

Franklin: Let's talk about the Academy Awards itself.

You were guests of Brendan Fraser, and he gave this very moving acceptance speech in which he called you "our lighthouse."

And then the camera shows you sitting there.

Could you take me through that moment, if you remember it?

(Laughs.)

Hunter: I don't really remember it.

I mean, it was very surreal.

I just remember being so overjoyed.

Um, yeah, it was a really crazy night.

Though a story about that night is, um, so I, afterward at the um, I think it's called the Governor's Ball, it's like the after-party, I was there and I was with Brendan, and then we were celebrating.

And I was with my husband, and we went up to the dessert table and um, he wanted to get some sweets.

And they were, like, to me, they were, like, "Do you want anything?"

And I was like, "Oh, no, I have a really bad nut allergy.

I'm okay."

And they were, like, "You're in luck.

Nothing has nuts."

And I was like, "Great."

So I ate a brownie and went to the ER.

So I spent that night, uh, in the, uh, Cedars Sinai Emergency Room until about three in the morning.

Franklin: Oh, my goodness.

Hunter: So, because I was in anaphylactic shock.

So that's how I exited the Oscars, was in anaphylactic shock.

Franklin: Samuel, I'm so sorry.

Hunter: It's fine.

It's like, it's become one of my better stories.

(Laughs.)

Franklin: You better put it into a play.

(Laughter) Well, uh, going back to the emotion of this story, and you said you've had people come up to you, but I was in, um, Sun Valley not long ago when this screened, and there was a woman in the seats just like this during the question-and-answer period.

And she started talking and she dissolved into tears, sobbing.

She'd seen the movie before, and she had come to tell you specifically how much it meant to her.

That must've been a wonderful experience for you, a validation, considering some of the other reviews that have happened.

Hunter: Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think, I mean this is the kind of story that's going to bifurcate.

Really, this is kind of movie that's going to bifurcate people, really.

I don't think; not a lot of people had a neutral reaction to this movie.

But those were the reactions over the months of, like, traveling around to film festivals doing Q and As.

I mean, what I said is, like, when people said, "What was the best part of the experience of the whole movie?

my response is usually, "Hugging strangers."

Because, like, people who I have no relationship to, um, but feel a connection because of something in the story, either directly or indirectly about the character, uh, and just wanting to express that to me.

And I think I've always said that, like, my greatest hope for anything that I write is that there's utility for people.

That it's not just a, um, diversion.

That it's not just, "Oh, I saw a story and it killed 90 minutes."

You know what I mean?

That there's like, that it can apply to them somehow, that it can enlighten some part of their life, you know.

Um, so, yeah.

And I mean that was an incredibly moving conversation, you know, and I've had a lot of them over the past several months.

Franklin: Yeah, I have to say, personally, um, I saw this movie after Mr. Fraser won the Academy Award.

I had read reviews of it.

I went into it expecting, "Mmm, I don't know."

Hunter: Yeah.

Franklin: And, um, I was crying by the end of the movie.

It is a story, yes, about a man who is morbidly obese, but it is also a story at its heart, I think, about a familial relationship… Hunter: Yes.

Franklin: …between a father and a daughter.

A lot of attention is paid to the obesity, but that relationship between the two, and them trying to rectify it, uh, is at the core, isn't it?

Hunter: Yeah.

No, I mean, you know, when I first started writing this play, I didn't even include the idea that he was obese, um, or dealing with obesity.

Uh, it really came later.

And as I was writing the play, I never thought, like, "Okay, I'm writing the definitive story about obesity in America."

I mean, I've never written a play that's, that's, you know, an "issue play."

You know what I mean?

I've never written a play that's sort of, like, "Let's look at the Fentanyl crisis," or "Let's look at climate change," or "Let's look..." Like, it's always been, like, my favorite plays are ones where there is no authorial voice, where there's no one perspective telling the audience what to think or how to think.

The best plays are so good at holding two seemingly -- or even more than two -- seemingly contradictory ideas at the same time.

And recognize that both can be true.

Uh, which is something that we're increasingly bad at nowadays, is, like, recognizing complexity and nuance, and the fact that sometimes things that are in opposition to one another are actually just two sides of the same coin.

Franklin: People are always really interested in the process of writing.

Hunter: Yeah.

Franklin: What is that process for you?

Are you a morning person?

Are you a night person?

Hunter: I think I've settled into, uh, more of a kind of a, like, workman-like approach to it, where it's not, like, like I don't sit around waiting for inspiration.

I don't believe in inspiration.

I think it's just, like, you put in the work, you sit down and you put in the work.

Um, and recognize that you might write 50 pages that you then need to completely throw away, which I did recently.

I wrote the first 50 pages of this play for Steppenwolf, and realized that, like, the core relationship was incorrect.

Uh, and so had to, like, throw out pretty much everything I had written.

And, um, something I frequently do when I feel like I'm in that place where I get a little stuck is I go for a jog and just kind of think it through.

And so you need to kind of hold onto your intention as a writer, but be flexible enough to be like, "Okay, maybe this scene is not in any way what I thought it was in the beginning," you know.

Franklin: You and I have talked over the years about the fact that so many, if not what, 95% of your plays... Hunter: I think every one of them, except for "Clarkston," which is just right over the border, so… Franklin: …is set in Idaho.

And I know you've told me before that having that frees you up to, to work on more interior aspects of the story, having that in the background.

And that you've come to realize over time that perhaps each one of these is a chapter in your understanding of Idaho.

Are you getting to the point where you, where you understand the oeuvre and you understand what, what's driving you to put Idaho in so many...?

Hunter: I think it's, it's changed over the years.

You know, I think maybe the first time we talked, probably over 10 years ago now, I probably would've said something like, "Oh, it's like where I'm from, and not a lot of plays are set there, and, you know, it doesn't occupy our stages and screens."

And I still believe that.

But then it kind of changed into something a little different where it did become kind of those -- it's about a body of work.

It's about chapters in the same book.

It's about plays that speak to one another and dovetail off one another.

Um, because, like, all my favorite playwrights, like, their plays are in conversation with one another.

You know, you can read all of Chekhov's plays and just, like, make all of these thematic and character connections that are just so rich.

Um, and I think maybe kind of the third wave of the Idaho thing for me now is, like, it's, it's been almost about, like, building this separate map of Idaho that's, like, parallel to, but not directly corresponding to the Idaho where I grew up, if that makes sense, you know.

Franklin: Do you think you'll know when it's time to set a play in another...?

Hunter: I mean, as soon as I have an idea for a play that, you know, that feels like it doesn't want to live here, then, then I'll do it.

But I mean, I just, you know, my writerly concerns continue to, like, really just kind of fit here.

I just still feel I have a deep connection to Idaho, you know, um, and I am just continually interested in, like, continuing the conversation that the plays are having.

Franklin: Would you ever move back here?

Hunter: (Sighs.)

I don't know.

I mean, at this point, it's like my kid's enrolled in school in New York.

You know, we have a mortgage.

I don't know.

I don't know.

For the moment, we feel pretty settled in New York.

Franklin: One of the biggest changes in your life has been having a child.

Hunter: Yeah.

Franklin: And has that changed the way you write?

Hunter: Yeah.

Yeah, it really has.

I mean, you know, I think it still remains to be seen, because, because of the pandemic, I did very little playwriting over the last few years, probably the least amount of playwriting that I've done in 20 years.

Um, so I've only written two plays since having a kid.

But both of them, uh, are very influenced by the fact that I'm like a caregiver to a five-year-old now.

The first play that I wrote out of it was called "The Case for the Existence of God."

Um… Franklin: Set in Twin Falls?

Hunter: Set in Twin Falls.

And it's two dads.

It's a story about you know, platonic male love and friendship, and… Franklin: Adoption.

Hunter: And adoption.

And my husband and I adopted our kid.

Um, but; it's not autobiographical, but it draws very heavily from um, my experience now of being a dad.

And I mean, you know, speaking of "The Whale," I got a chance to write that screenplay as a father.

You know, when I wrote that play in 2012, I was, I was not a father.

I guess I wrote it in 2009.

I wasn't even married by then.

I was with my partner, husband now, um, but not married yet.

And, uh, so, like, rewriting that as a screenplay, being a dad, like, that really influenced the way that I reapproached the story.

Franklin: Yeah, I thought of it while I was watching it... Hunter: Yeah.

Franklin: Because the relationship is so much about a, you know, a father-daughter.

Hunter: Yeah.

Franklin: I wondered if that was even more resonant for you now.

Hunter: I don't know if I could have written the first draft of it while being a dad, because it would've felt too scary.

But I could, but I could rewrite it as a dad and kind of, like, reshape it, and re-look at it.

Franklin: So many people now are really emphasizing the need for the sciences, the need for the math, the need for STEM education.

And there are some young people who may not gravitate that way.

Hunter: Yeah.

Franklin: And feel as if, "Oh gosh, you know, is there, can I fit anywhere now?

Because my parents and others say, 'There's no jobs in the humanities and the arts.

You can't do that.'"

Talk about what this type of creativity and the humanities, the arts, do for us.

Hunter: I mean, I could get on a soapbox for a while about this, so I'll try to restrain myself.

But I, you know, look, STEM education is so important.

I am a father to a five-year-old.

Like, I want her to learn her numbers and read and, like, all that is incredibly important.

But I also think that it's really dangerous to start thinking that the humanities are disposable or that they're a frivolity.

I mean, if you think about it, like, it is a rare and beautiful gift that as -- that we are living things that can tell stories.

We're the only living things on this planet, we're the only species on this planet that can tell stories and have the capacity for metaphor and create fiction.

And arguably, that is the foundation of civilization itself, is our ability to tell stories and to understand our world through metaphor and create gods and goddesses and heaven and hell.

And that's what brings meaning to STEM.

That's what brings meaning to, to reading and writing and arithmetic and computer science and all of it.

And if we abandon that stuff, then I think that puts us in real danger as healthcare workers, as lawyers, as lawmakers, because it takes us further away from what makes us indelibly human.

And it, I think that will then result in us acting inhumanely and creating bad laws and being poor medical care workers.

I mean, like, we need people to make meaning of life, of our civilization.

Otherwise it's just like we're just a beehive, you know.

Um, so, but I understand; look, I don't want my kid to go into the arts either because I would be terrified if my kid goes into the arts because this civilization, this country especially is not set up to support artists at all.

I mean, we're one of the only first-world countries that doesn't have a national theater.

The list – I mean, Ethiopia has a national theater, Canada has a national theater.

Mexico has a national theater.

All of these countries have state funding for the arts that are very rich.

Uh, and, and the population thinks that it's OK for 1% of their paycheck or whatever it is, or probably even less than that, half a percent, to go toward the arts, because they think that enriches life.

We don't really believe that in this country.

And that's a little scary.

Um, so, you know, if my kid wants to go to the arts, I will support her wholeheartedly.

You know, I will, I will be quaking in my boots.

But I will support her wholeheartedly.

Um, but yeah, it's just, we can't, we can't lose sight of the value of the humanities, even if it's not easy to quantify in economic terms how it's benefiting society.

Franklin: Well, I want to thank you for your effort to elevate the humanities and to bring stories into people's lives through your work, and I wish you all continued success.

I'm sure the next time we talk, you'll, you'll have something exciting to talk about as well.

Hunter: Hopefully.

Franklin: Congratulations… Hunter: Thank you so much.

Franklin: ...on everything.

Hunter: Thank you.

Franklin: You've been listening to playwright Samuel D Hunter.

Our conversation was recorded at the Boise Contemporary Theater.

My thanks to the theater's staff, as well as to the Idaho Humanities Council for arranging the interview.

If you'd like to watch this conversation again, or any of the interviews I've recorded with Mr. Hunter since 2012, check out the 'createid' website.

For 'createid,' I'm Marcia Franklin.

[Music] Announcer: Major funding for 'createid' is provided by the Idaho Public Television Endowment, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.