By Michelle Houle.

Salvador Paskowitz

Salvador Paskowitz grew up on a beach in California. The son of surfing legend Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, Salvador was raised in a 12-foot camper, which was shared by his two parents, seven brothers, and one sister.

Surfwise, the 2007 documentary, featured Salvador’s family and upbringing. The NY Times described the Paskowitz family as the “first family of surfing”.

“My father was a Stanford [educated] doctor. Raised all of us traveling the world in a camper. We would go to remote cities where no other doctor wanted to go,” said Paskowitz.

Paskowitz and J. Mills Goodloe wrote The Age of Adaline, which opens on April 24. The film, starring Blake Lively and Harrison Ford, explores a woman who miraculously stays the same age for eight decades.

Creative Screenwriting talked to Paskowitz about The Age of Adaline, his screenwriting heroes, and writing strong female characters. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Dorian Paskowitz and eight of his nine children: David, Jonathan, Abraham, Izzy, Moses, Adam, Salvador and Navah, from Surfwise

Where did the idea for The Age of Adaline come from?

It was just a notion that we had. I just thought a woman that could live forever. Wouldn’t that be interesting? Because, unlike the Highlander, I think it’s especially urgent with a woman. Maybe urgent isn’t the right word. There’s just a lot of weight when it comes to that subject when it relates to a woman.

And how at first, it would seem like such tremendous gift. Wow! I can be 29 forever. This is awesome. And then, that’s what builds to this irony that no, it’s not a gift. It’s a terrible curse. Because, basically that’s the rub. You can’t ever know love. What defines love is kind of this ticking clock. If there’s no ticking clock, there’s no love.

I want to talk about women. I feel like writers really have to have a call to arms to fight against the kind of radicalism that’s happening in our world. Women are really minimalized and talked down to and infantilized. Men want one thing out of their movies. But I think women want different things.

You can ask, “What do they want?” Women don’t want to be talked down to in their films. They want strong characters that can think for themselves. I think in this day and age it’s dangerous to just paint women as pedestrians or passengers in film. And I think it’s changing. And Adaline is one of those films.

I’m going to keep making films like that. The first film that I wrote was about a hedge fund manager. She was a very strong person.

It’s our obligation as, as writers. I mean, it’s our obligation to use art. You have to warn that global warming is actually a real thing and that women’s rights are a real thing. Those messages are important.

Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod in Highlander (1983)

What is your writing schedule like day to day?

Oh my gosh. That is a great question for me. I have a young baby that I am very hands on with. I find freedom from 11pm to 3am. I know it’s not healthy to write so late. But it seems like the world is asleep. And it just works. It just seems like everyone is asleep except you. Past one o’clock really weeds out the boys from the men. Everyone is asleep except you. So you’re really alone in the world.

I’ve always been such a by-your-gut writer. I leave it to my gut. I leave it to my heart to do all the heavy lifting for me. I just kind of like dictate, usually just before I fall asleep at night. You know what’s interesting about letting your heart write for you? Is that it does all the tracking. I find that I do good work when I just listen.

What I do is I get a rough outline. I’m working on something now called The Shore that I will be directing. First I do a very rough skeleton. Three act skeleton. We meet boy. We meet girl. And then they meet each other. From this event, they do this and then they come back together. We’re done. Then, we find a little more. I start slugging scenes in based on what my heart tells me. And based on the inspiration that comes. Like all of a sudden, I’ll be walking and scene 15 will suddenly just start coming into being.

I just have to say, that as a writer, I don’t think anyone, I think you can definitely attest to this, I don’t think anyone works harder than writers.

I don’t want to make it sound like the 9 to 5 isn’t hard. That the grind isn’t hard. We’re always at work. Always thinking. They say that the brain metabolizes so much energy and requires so much energy and we’re constantly in our brain. It’s like being in prison forever, for life.

So you feel such gratitude when you see directors that clearly have worked as hard as you have on the script, on the making of the film.

The Age of Adaline

I saw Adaline a couple of months ago. They were still finishing it out. There was still like special effects that had to be slugged in. But, my god, it’s like they took every scene. Every scene was like a postcard.

I feel like that old adage that a movie can only be as good as the script. It’s almost like Adaline, the movie, bucks that trend. The script was strong but the movie is stellar.

If I could wish one thing on my fellow writers it’s that feeling where you’re sitting down by yourself  in a screening room. You can’t sit because you’re so excited. And here’s your little musings and it comes to life in such a fantastical way. I wish that on all writers.

The director puts his flavor and touch to it. That’s the whole purpose. That’s why I like collaboration. You want collaboration.

If I can comment on my experience, it’s kind of like I was raised from outside of society’s boundaries. I didn’t have any conventional school. I basically taught myself like Lincoln. Every sibling in my family were a bunch of Lincolns. We taught ourselves everything. But the one thing that a writer really needs chops for, to sharpen his teeth for, is his ability to pitch in a room.

It’s his ability to be a good salesman. And when I started screenwriting, I didn’t realize that would be such a huge part of it. But you have to be ready to stand up, set your feet on the ground, and sell your work. Because so much of this business is that pitch. It’s that on your feet writing.

And it’s hard too, because I feel like there’s an inverse proportionality where the better the writer you are, that harder it is to articulate. Some of the best writers I think might have an issue. But you got to get through it. Nothing prepares you for it except practice.

The Age of Adaline

How do you prepare before you go into a pitch?

Here’s my secret. I tell myself, I hypnotize myself with these words, “It’s not about me.”

And once it’s not about me, it’s just about the art. It’s about the material. I’m just another piece of the collaboration. The spotlight is on the work.  I can get excited about it. I can have some distance. I can have some objectivity.

Because it’s really not about me. And that’s why the material has to be super good too. And you have to love your material because if you don’t, then it does become about you and then you’re really in trouble.

What is your rewriting process?

I never forget the words from Quentin Tarantino that said, “All writing is re-writing.” I’m not kidding when I tell you that The Shore, the first directorial script has had at least a hundred drafts.

I’m just watching it and editing it as I go. If I had one super power that helps me. If I had the ability to read something and it feels brand new every time.

How do you overcome writer’s block?

Writer’s block is exactly the same as a construction guy who has to build and it starts raining. To me, I’m not one of those guys that stay right through writer’s block. I’m one of the guys who say, “It’s raining. We gotta put down our tools and the rain will pass.” The rain will pass. The light will return. That’s just specific to me. It might not work for everybody.

I like to not force it. Just let it kind of exist. Let it exist. Let poverty exist. Let estrangement with family members exist. Because it just gives you more ink for your pen.

The Age of Adaline

What did you learn from writing The Age of Adaline on how to approach your next screenplay? How would you approach it differently?

I think you bring your own flavor to a movie, regardless of the subject. You bring your own history to a film. And I feel like Adaline has a lot of the same interests that I had before. Astronomy, the Dynamic Universe theory. I love Star Wars. I love science. I love science fiction. I love physics, astrophysics.

Ron Shelton once wrote, “You have to write what you know.” And he said, for instance, I could never write a science fiction movie. That’s what he said. This guy wrote Bull Durham, a lot of those sports kind of movies. But I totally disagree. I think his science fiction movie would be bitchin’.

I know it would be. He pulls all of that kind of sports and western and archetypes. I know that would be really cool to see in science fiction.

I feel strongly you don’t have to write what you know. So long as the music is coming out of your horn, in your way.

How do you think your own unconventional upbringing influenced how you approach storytelling?

To me, growing up, movies were like my church. I would spend literally months on end on some far flung beach in Mexico. And then, I would get an opportunity to go and see a movie. So they were absolutely sacrosanct to me.

When I write a movie I still get chills, even now when I slug in dialogue. And I really consider what I’m doing, probably more carefully than most. Only because I have such a reverence for film. And I mean movies specifically. Not plays or other forms of storytelling. Movies to me were so rare and so wonderful.

Growing up the way I did, talk about writing what you know. The Shore is basically an autobiographical exercise with a fantastic backdrop. I wanted to bring my specific experience of growing up, of being raised in such a beach wilderness, to the world.

And I do it in all my movies. Even the Exxon manager from New York City. When you are that kind of person, you speak in parables. You talk with a certain poetry. Any character like that would have seen the world and would have known the world. And that’s what I try to induce.

I was reading about Surf Crazed Comics. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Sure. I had a love of comics. I had a love of surfing. I tried to merge them together. To a select few it was childish and cool and wonderful. And it was hard because at the time, a lot of surfers weren’t comic book readers. And a lot of comic book readers weren’t surfers. Which isn’t true today. So at some point, I will have to pick up and do Surf Crazed again.

Not only was it a standalone comic book but excerpts, parts of the book were actually published in Surfing magazine. So a lot of people got to read portions of it. That was super cool.

Surf Crazed

Comics and film are both visual mediums. What do you think are the similarities and differences when you approach comics as opposed to writing a screenplay?

I started off with a pencil and paper in a camper on a beach. That was my first creative endeavor. I talked my way into the Art Student League in New York when I was young. And I became an oil on canvas guy. And then I went to graphic arts and veered in t-shirt design for Billabong and Hurley. And then I did comic books. I’ve approached every creative endeavor. I’m taking strokes from each. And I think that it distributes back and forth. I think that all good directors can pick up a pencil and paper and sketch something. Look at James Cameron in Titanic. And I think that’s true of comic books. I think in comic books every panel is kind of like a compression. A jpeg compression of a scene. Every panel is a jpeg of a scene. So you want to make sure that that there is a beginning and an end. So, that’s kind of like director’s training, if I say. All directors should try their hands in comic books.

Is there anything else we haven’t talked about that you want people to know?

My heroes. I would be nowhere without the work of Steven Spielberg and Frank Darabont. I feel like these people understand what it means to be slaves to the story. We’re slaves. We have to do what the story tells us to do.

I think that’s how people make good directors because they’re always thinking, “Of course, I want to lessen the fat. Of course, we’re thinking of performance.” They’re thinking about design. But the first and foremost guide is the story. And they’re thinking, “Okay. What does this scene mean to the story? How does this really impact the story?”

I know that Darabont got into a huge fight with the studio about the ending. He said, “Look, this is where the story takes us, this is where we have to be brave enough to go.”

I think that’s why they’re uniquely ingrained with that power to make good movies. They’re slaves to the story. We have to just do what the story tells us.