INTERVIEWS

Banshee: Brutal Good Fun

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Not content with being a bestselling author and screenwriter, Jonathan Tropper is also co-creator of the hit television show Banshee.

Banshee features Anthony Starr as Lucas Hood, an ex-convict who assumes the identity of the town of Banshee’s new Sheriff.

Creative Screenwriting spoke with Jonathan about collaborating with your actors, imperfect characters, and saying goodbye to a show.

Antony Starr as Lucas Hood in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax. Image by Gregory Shummon

Antony Starr as Lucas Hood in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax. Image by Gregory Shummon

What led you into screenwriting?

Jonathan Tropper

Jonathan Tropper

I started out as a novelist. I wrote a bunch of books, and a handful of those were optioned by movie studios. At that time, I started meeting with producers, some of whom encouraged me to get involved with screenwriting.

Through my books-to-film agent, I landed a screenwriting agent, and wrote a spec script. I always felt like I had an ear and an eye for screenwriting. That first spec script got me a job, which led me into the screenwriting business.

It’s rare for an author to be able to adapt their novel into screenplay. Can you elaborate?

It used to be that my books got optioned for other writers to adapt, but by they time they optioned my fifth book, This is Where I Leave You—which was my most popular—I had already written one or two screenplays, so I was in a position to say that I wanted to be the screenwriter attached. That was the first adaptation of mine that got made and it was a confluence of a lot of things happening at the right time.

Tina Fey as Wendy and Jason Bateman as Judd in This Is Where I Leave You

Tina Fey as Wendy and Jason Bateman as Judd in This Is Where I Leave You

The adaptation of This is Where I Leave You left out some of the book’s darker chapters. How difficult is it to write your own adaptation?

It’s hard. You would love to make a six-hour movie that conveys everything that you put into the book, but at this point, our entertainment is not quite there.

When you sell something to a studio, they are expecting a good 90-minute movie and you have to find the more streamlined, satisfying story within those moments. For me, I didn’t take them out because they were darker, but I took certain elements out because they were not necessary for the major plot of the story.

Do you find that you need a different mindset writing novels, when compared to writing film and television?

Yes. It’s completely different. Novel writing is total immersion. You can explore everything and you can write pages and pages on a single thought or a single moment. You can really decide to slow down or speed up your pacing at will, without having to worry about the framework of it all.

In screenwriting, you have to fill between 90 and 110 pages, and you have to build up to your climax at the right time. There’s something…I don’t want to say formulaic, but there’s certainly something more structured about writing a movie because it has to all play it so quickly. It breeds a different economy of words and the process of conveying ideas through dialogue and image, as opposed to exposition.

They’re two very different disciplines.

When I’m writing prose, I need a lot of time and I can sink into it. I can spend days on an idea or a particular moment, but when I’m writing a screenplay, things tend to move along a lot quicker. That isn’t to say that you don’t spend time editing, but the idea of screenwriting is to get in late and get out early.

Each has their own pros and cons. When writing a book, I’m the lord and master—the only guy in charge. It’s my universe. When working on a screenplay, you have a lot of masters to please to get it to a point where everyone is willing to take it forward.

Antony Starr as Lucas Hood and Ryan Shane as Deva Hopewell in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax

Antony Starr as Lucas Hood and Ryan Shane as Deva Hopewell in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax

How did the idea for Banshee come about?

It was an idea that I’ve had, in some form or another, since high school, when I read The Count of Monte Cristo. I had this idea of a guy with a long prison sentence, who reinvents himself as a cop.

Over time, the idea changed. For most of my life he was a hero, rather than an antihero, where he used his criminal skills to solve crime. As I became more sophisticated and the TV-landscape began to change, the idea became much different. As a character, he became a criminal who posed as a cop to further his own agenda, and it was something that evolved over a long period of time.

What’s it like evolving a character over four seasons?

We sit down and decide what each character’s journey over the season is going to be. Then you move into plot and recalibrate everyone’s journey to make sure you can give each character their own journey and their own individual arc over the course of the season.

What kind of research has been involved within the series?

Not that much, as we had the luxury of making it somewhat of a fantastical world in a fictional town. We established a tone from the first episode where we could play fast and loose and pull off some stuff that you wouldn’t in the real world. We set a tone where the story wasn’t quite grounded, so we could play with that.

We had writers who had done a lot of procedural work and we had police consultants, but beyond that, we kind of made it up.

Eliza Dushku as Veronica Dawson in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax

Eliza Dushku as Veronica Dawson in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax

Aside from Monte Cristo, are there other literary or cinematic influences involved within the series?

There’s a ton! Everything from David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence to Quentin Tarantino, from the Coen Brothers to all the B-action movies of the 90s, like those straight-to-video movies with Dolph Lundgren or Jean-Claude Van Damme. It’s all in there.

Have any of your thoughts about writing changed over the past four seasons?

When doing a long-form series, you have to be willing to abandon your preconceived notions about characters and plots. Because once actors inhabit those roles, they are going to interpret them differently.

So you can continue to write for the character in your head, which will never play out right on screen, or you can learn to write for character as he or she now exists in flesh or blood, thanks to the actor.

It’s all about being collaborative and willing to let other people breathe life into your creations and then working with what those people have brought to it.

Maria Bellow as Edie Stall in A History of Violence © 2005 New Line Cinema

Maria Bellow as Edie Stall in A History of Violence © 2005 New Line Cinema

How does a writer’s room tackle backstory?

Any good writer’s room is going to fully develop the backstory of every character. Even if a lot of that stuff doesn’t show up on screen, you have to know everything about the character to write them and the actor needs to know everything in order to play them.

When you go in to pitch a show or to do press on a show, you need to know everything about that character in order to speak intelligently about them, where they come from, and who they are. It’s vital.

You may not get to show it all on screen because you only have ten or twelve episodes, but having it is going to inform every decision you make about the character.

Where do stories most often start for you? Do they begin with a single idea, a character, situation, or something else?

They generally start with a character and I build a situation around them. Once in a while, a situation will occur to me, but I never go very deep into the situation without anchoring it with a character.

Can you elaborate a little on your writing rituals?

I treat it like a job. I need to be at my desk before 9am and I need to be there the day. When working at your own schedule, there is a tendency to blow off the afternoon, but to be productive, with people waiting on your scripts, you have to at least put in a full day, if not more.

It can be dangerous to sleep in late or break early for lunch.

I don’t have many rituals, but I do treat it like a desk job.

Frankie Faison as Sugar Bates in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax

Frankie Faison as Sugar Bates in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax

What do you find to be one of the more difficult steps in the writing process?

Sticking with it or plowing through those parts that slow you down. You get to those parts where you feel stuck and that’s most likely when you will close your computer or go off and do other things. Then, you dread getting back to it.

Having the willpower to charge forward when something is slowing me down is something that I still struggle with.

What makes a good story?

Imperfect people doing imperfect things with their lives and then bearing the consequences. When a character has to struggle with their imperfections, this makes a compelling book, television show, or movie.

It’s people struggling to be the best version of themselves.

Matt Servitto as Debuty Brock Lotus in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax

Matt Servitto as Debuty Brock Lotus in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax

You’ve got a lot of projects listed as In Development at the moment. Are there any details you’d like to share about an upcoming project?

I have a new show that will be going on Cinemax called Warrior, which is set in 1870s Chinatown, San Francisco. I’m doing that with Justin Lin (Fast and Furious, Star Trek Beyond) and the Bruce Lee Estate.

It’s going to be epic period piece, while, at the same time, being an exciting action show. The pilot has been written and we’re starting to figure out production. I’m very excited to see that come to life.

With so much going on, how do you balance your time between books, television and film?

Kind of poorly! I’m just sort of swimming in it and whatever is hottest, that’s where your attention goes. Wherever the fires are, that’s where you have got to be.

I don’t have a great system. At the moment, I’m very late with a book and I’d like to get that finished. I wish I were a little better about structure and how I approached the work.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about the final season of Banshee?

I take a lot of pride in it. It was a somewhat controversial season because we changed up the tone a little bit, but we felt that after three seasons of high-octane action, we didn’t want to try and keep topping ourselves. So we went for something much more character driven and moodier.

For better or worse, that’s how we wanted to say goodbye to the show and we said goodbye in a very satisfying manner.

It’s a short season—only eight episodes—but it’s fun to watch it. We really flipped viewers’ perceptions. When you come into season four, nothing is what you expected and everything has changed since the end of season three.

Chris Coy as Calvin Bunker in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax

Chris Coy as Calvin Bunker in Banshee © 2016 Cinemax

What kind of tone are you predicting for Warrior?

Similar to Banshee. It’s going to be dark and a little brutal, but at the same time, it’s got to be fun and entertaining or else it’s not worth doing. Brutal good fun.

Banshee Season 4 is available now on DVD and Blu-ray by Cinemax. Check it out on Amazon!

 

Featured image: Ivana Milicevic as Carrie Hopewell in Banshee. Image by Gregory Shummon

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Brock Swinson

Contributing Writer

Freelance writer and author Brock Swinson hosts the podcast and YouTube series, Creative Principles, which features audio interviews from screenwriters, actors, and directors. Swinson has curated the combined advice from 200+ interviews for his debut non-fiction book 'Ink by the Barrel' which provides advice for those seeking a career as a prolific writer.

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