by Scott Essman
By her own admission, Diablo Cody’s screenwriting experience has been wholly unique. After the renowned success of her spec script Juno, for which she won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, her succeeding specs sold and were made into films: Jennifer’s Body and Young Adult, plus a TV show that she created, The United States of Tara which ran for 36 episodes. Now, Cody has taken the next step, directing her own feature-length script, the character-driven drama Paradise, starring Julianne Hough as a Midwestern girl named Lamb recovering from a tragedy who takes an extensive vacation in Las Vegas to literally and figuratively get out of her own skin.
“For me, ever since Juno,” Cody said, “I had thought that it would be interesting to write a character who has been completely sheltered from pop culture. People see me as a writer who is enamored of those things. I thought it would be interesting to do the opposite—someone who lived a sheltered life.”
Julianne Hough as Lamb and Russell Brand as William in Paradise
Not only has Lamb (Julianne Hough’s character in Paradise) lived a sequestered existence, she is slowly mending after an aircraft crash which claimed a significant other. “The other thing I was interested in exploring is how do you reinvent yourself after a trauma?” Cody asked herself. “We are surrounded by people who have been wounded, even if it’s not as obvious as a person like Lamb. How do we do it?”
As written, Lamb is a pure innocent, a childlike character who embarks on a series of exclusively adult pursuits in Las Vegas. “It’s miraculous that we could hold on to a semblance of the life we had as a child,” Cody said, “the pure essence of one’s self when you are like five years old. She [Lamb] wasn’t raised to be outgoing—she was raised to be very obedient. She is left to wonder, “Who am I?”
Plunking her lead character down in Las Vegas was purposeful so as to represent the polar opposite from Lamb’s previous life experiences. “Las Vegas is a really over-stimulating environment,” Cody stated. “I thought that was something funny about having her meet someone like Loray [played by Octavia Spencer]. You are a privileged pretty blond girl who has a couple of scars. People all over the world have been through worse.”
In addition to meeting characters played by Spencer and Russell Brand, Lamb has an unforgettably bizarre encounter with a prostitute mid-film—in one of Paradise’s most resonant scenes. “I wrote and re-wrote that scene,” Cody revealed. “I couldn’t nail it—or maybe I enjoyed spending time with that character. You are always looking for that scene. It’s the hardest one to crack because you want it so badly.”
Another tough aspect of the script for this screenwriter was the final resolution. “Endings are tricky,” Cody explained. “Sometimes I don’t know what’s going to happen. Some say, ‘You would never start telling a story if you didn’t know how it’s going to end.’ It’s been the opposite for me.”
Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody
Of note, Cody’s agreeable first experience with Jason Reitman on Juno helped stave off her first trip to the director’s chair. “I loved Thank You For Smoking; I trusted him completely,” she remembered. “He didn’t ask me to do anything to disrupt the script—suggestions that he made improved the movie. It’s a good situation and a rare one. That’s why I wasn’t in a huge hurry to direct. I had such positive experiences working with directors.”
Equally important was Cody’s belief that she could handle her own material once she progressed into becoming a director. “There wouldn’t have been a point in waiting longer,” she said, though she confessed, “ I am interested in what someone else’s Paradise would have looked like. I have certain weaknesses as a director.”
Interestingly, due to the overwhelming success of Juno, Cody could have easily stepped into the director’s role right away. “After you win an Oscar, there is a short period of time where you are allowed to do anything you want,” she conveyed. “People are trying to capitalize off the heat of your Oscar. During that time, people asked me to direct projects.”
Instead, Cody offered her next spec, Jennifer’s Body, to the round of interested parties. “Most of the original screenplays that make it to the screen are specs,” she said. “Everything I have gotten made is a spec. That is how Jennifer’s Body came about. Fox said, ‘We want to make your next movie.’ It happens.”
Writer/director Diablo Cody on the set of Paradise
With Paradise as her fully-authored project beginning to end, Cody has lofty expectations for her first directorial effort. “I hope that people think that it’s a bold statement about spirituality,” she said. “There are not a lot of movies that grapple with those questions. It is not an anti-religion movie at all. At the end, Lamb does come back to her faith, just in a different way. I want people to feel uplifted. This, to me, is a very sweet movie.”
Paradise is available on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download November 12th!”
