Screenwriter Boaz Yakin has helped create films such as The Rookie, Prince of Persia, and Safe, along with franchise hits like Now You See Me and Max. These movies allowed him to pursue passion projects as a screenwriter. In his latest film, Boarding School, he’s developed a horror-inspired hero’s journey for adolescents.
“Those are writing jobs where you’re like one of twenty writers on any one of those movies. Maybe you contributed enough to have a screen credit, but [I’ve] been more personally [involved with] Fresh, A Price Above Rubies, and Death in Love,” said the screenwriter. “These are movies I wrote and directed that came from me.”
The writer-director would prefer to only make independent films, but the balance between projects allows him to get the smaller films on the big screen. “In order to pay the bills—in order to pay for these movies—I’ve had to make more commercial movies and write things like that and put money back into these things.”
Boaz Yakin
Avoid A Backup Plan
As a kid, Boaz Yakin grew up watching his parents teach, occasionally work as pantomimes, and direct plays in the theater. When he was just a teenager, his father asked the iconic actress Stella Adler (Shadow of the Thin Man, Suspense) if Boaz could attend her script interpretation course, which wasn’t meant for students.
After studying with Adler for two years, it was clear Yakin would follow a career in theater and film, one-way or another. “I could not have imagined myself as a doctor or a lawyer,” he said in hindsight. As his interests took him to diverse genres, he’s been able to get various film projects off the ground.
But, on the other edge of that sword, studios don’t really know where to place him, which can also lead to rejection. “To this day, it’s hard to get writing jobs because they’re going to give that job to the person who did something in that genre and made some money more recently.”
In movies like Fresh and his most recent film, Boarding School, it seems like young characters intrigue the writer-director. “Kids play a very important role in [my work],” said Yakin. “But, they’re not quite children. They’re more sophisticated than kids…and kids these days are exposed to a lot.”
Luke Prael & Sterling Jerins
Creating Layered Characters
As a director, Yakin makes sure to talk to young actors on their level to make sure they understand enough about the character to deliver the best performance. “I think there are a lot of layers in this movie and a lot of subtext that kids didn’t get, nor would I want them to be able to get. They have to understand enough to convey the emotion of the scene and the character, but they don’t have to understand all the crazy shit that’s actually going on underneath the scene.”
“I guess we tend to focus on a part of our lives which was very striking to us. That age between 11-years-old and 13, where you’re not a child anymore but you’re not even a teenager yet… You’re a bit powerless, but you’re just starting to get a sense of what the world is like… I think that’s a fascinating moment in life,” he added.
Personally, in his own life, he finds this age to be the most memorable and he has the deepest connection with this version of himself. “I always find that I feel like a kid or an old man and not much in between,” he joked. “I feel like the world has this open quality and I think that’s why I keep going back to that age.”
Exploring Feelings Through Character
In Boarding School, a young boy (Luke Prael) becomes fascinated with the persona of his dead grandmother and is sent to an isolated boarding school for misfits. “The character—and the feeling of the character—is something that I wanted to explore for a long time.”
“This idea of dealing with your sexuality, your sense of ethnicity, and owning all of these things that you feel make you weak, but by embracing them, they make you stronger. Emotionally and thematically,” he continued, “that was the original inspiration for this.”
Some audiences will likely see Prael’s character in a dress and picture something along the likes of Psycho, but the film is certainly its own creation. “I love all genres, but there’s a type of film that has dreamlike elements in it. It’s not exactly a horror movie, but I was inspired by Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955), David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Pedro Almodóvar’s Bad Education (2004), Roman Polanski’s The Tenant (1976) and Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1966).”
Yakin found his voice outside of Polanski and Hitchcock by not allowing the feminine persona to represent a “lack of control” in the character. Instead, he wanted to tell a hero’s journey within a horror movie. Unlike superhero movies, the boy didn’t find his father’s sword. The boy found his dead grandmother’s dress. “By embracing the ferocity of his feminine side, he’s able to overcome and be heroic.”
Casting Unusual Genre Films
In terms of casting, Yakin didn’t write the roles with anyone in mind, but he has worked with Will Patton before when he directed Remember the Titans. “In the reality of this world, the chances that you’re going to get the actor you wrote it for are probably one in a thousand.”
Since they had worked together before, Yakin decided to sit down with Patton and break down the unusual character, Dr. Sherman. Originally, the part was somewhat written for a British character, but Yakin and Patton decided to change the part and shift the character to be a reflection of the protagonist’s psychology.
“Suddenly, it hit me that we should basically give [Dr. Sherman] a Brooklyn accent and have him be an evil Henry Miller,” he joked. This way, the character could be both comical and literary in nature. “To me, that contrast of menacing and scary, but also slightly buffoonish. Will really embraced that and I don’t think anyone could have done it more interesting than he did it.”
While working on a screenplay like Boarding School, Yakin knew he was going to be the person to direct it on a low budget, from a personal place. This makes it somewhat different than taking a pass on a script like Now You See Me. “When you’re writing that kind of thing, you’re writing it trying to engage executives and it has to be something they think they can make money with.”
Studio Versus Indie Screenplays
For Now You See Me, his friend Edward Ricourt (Jessica Jones, Wayward Pines) brought him in on the job. “Very little personal expression goes into a studio film. It doesn’t mean you don’t do your best and try to do good writing, but…because it’s creative work, people want to hear how passionate you are about things,” said Yakin.
“Even if you’re coming in to write the dog that turns into a superhero when you take the meeting, you have to be like, ‘Oh I have a dog that I loved so much and I’ve always wanted a dog to be a superhero. It’s so important to me.’ As opposed to saying, ‘Look, I need to pay some bills. I’ll do a great job for you. Bada bing.’”
The writer-director believes the emotional and intellectual approach is much different when writing a studio film versus an independent film. The ideas, themes, and expressions are simply different, occasionally representing more creativity within the limitations. In some ways, personal films come from the writer’s perspective, while studio films are created for the general audience’s perspective.
“Because you’re working with a lower budget, it also frees you up to explore themes and ideas which you don’t get to do in bigger movies. Boarding School is a seriously kinky movie about twelve-year-olds. It’s very rare for an American movie to approach pre-teen sexuality ideas the way this movie does,” said Yakin.
The creative also said that if the movie even had a modest budget, they would not have been able to explore such difficult themes. Despite the restrictions, the screenwriter felt like it’s closer to what film used to represent. As someone who resented the demise of film, he’s appreciative that more films can be made for less money these days thanks to digital filmmaking.
The director is able to make independent movies for about one-third of what it used to cost to make an Indie film. “You’re really able to try things out that you weren’t able to before,” he added. In addition to Boarding School, Yakin is also working on a globetrotting indie project called Aviva, which deals with gender, dance, and unusual relationships.
This article has been condensed. Listen to the full audio interview HERE.
