“I grew up with therapist parents, both of them psychiatrists. We were just talking about psychology and why people did the things they did and people’s inner lives,” Joshua Zetumer recalls. “They were like parodies in a beautiful way – parodies of shrink parents – where the dogs were medicated and the word hostile was bandied about the dinner table.”
This psychological foundation, combined with his experience in punk music, would unexpectedly prepare him for a career in screenwriting, despite his ADHD initially seeming like an insurmountable obstacle. “Writing for me always seemed like it was going to be just too difficult because of just the sheer level of focus that you have to have,” he explains. “But one of the things about ADHD is that you get hyper-focused. You can really just laser in and totally lose yourself.”
Zetumer’s early inspirations came from the auteur filmmakers of the 1970s and the independent cinema wave of the 1990s. “I was falling in love with the films of the Coen brothers, early Steven Soderbergh, and then also watching Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation and these movies from the seventies that really had a point of view and felt like the product of one brain.”
Joshua Zetumer. Photo by Mandee Johnson Photography
Hollywood’s shift toward IP-driven content would reshape his career path. On taking the RoboCop remake, Zetumer is refreshingly honest. “It was very much a real conversation with my agents and managers being like, we’ve got to get something on the board.”
He points to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy as the era’s aspirational model, though he acknowledges its rarity. “Everybody for ten years was just going, Chris did it, we can do it. But actually it’s impossible because only Chris Nolan can be Chris Nolan.”
Writing Say Nothing
That said, the rise of prestige television has opened new creative possibilities, as demonstrated by Say Nothing. The limited series spans four tumultuous decades during The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The format allows for ambitious storytelling choices, including 215 speaking parts. “If you look at Episode seven, we created this actress who would step into the picture for two scenes and totally destabilize Dolours and really mess with her sense of self. And then you were never going to see that actress again.”
“When you write a script, you’re not always going to be there on set,” Zetumer explains about the challenges of television writing. “You’re going to get to Episode Eight, and now you’re the showrunner, and you’re editing Episode Three while they’re filming a scene that you wrote.”
His approach to research and authenticity is equally meticulous. As an American writing Belfast dialogue, he describes feeling like “you’re outside the house. You’re like standing on the porch, knocking on the window, being like, will you please let me in? And then if they let you in, you don’t want to then drag mud all over the carpet.”
“The best thing you can do is just go out and talk to people,” he insists. “Don’t try to watch movies. That’s the other thing you really should avoid is imitating something you’ve seen in another film.”
His research process for Say Nothing involved extensive YouTube viewing of Belfast residents, leading to an amusing side effect. “I watched so much on YouTube that Google thought I was in Belfast for a couple months. And it would make restaurant recommendations for what was down the street in Belfast.”
Zetumer’s approach to research has evolved significantly across projects. His work on Patriots Day required quick, focused investigation under tight time constraints. “I really did that job very fast. I was hired for a certain number of weeks,” he explains. “I had some consultants that I knew within the FBI and they really opened some doors narratively for me with where the story should go.”
In contrast, Say Nothing demanded a much deeper immersion. “With Say Nothing, it was a year’s long process of research. It was intense. It was very much like reading every book I could about The Troubles,” he reveals.
This stark difference in research depth wasn’t just about timeline – it reflected the different demands of each project. While Patriots Day needed immediate, focused expertise from law enforcement consultants, Say Nothing required a more comprehensive cultural understanding that could only come from prolonged study.
The Power of Theme and Structure
Zetumer stands as a strong advocate for thematic writing in an industry that sometimes dismisses it. “Themes are often laughed at. There’s loads of writers who hate theme and think themes are for college classes,” he notes. “But in the case of Say Nothing, the history was so vast. The episodes were always easier to write when they were about one thing.”
On structure, he takes an unconventional stance. “I believe in a four act structure. I don’t tell that to executives because they just roll their eyes. But I think that Act 2 is often too long and there needs to be some big change at the midpoint that sort of takes the story in a new direction.”
For Zetumer, every project, whether personal or commercial, requires finding that core emotional truth. “When it comes to writing something like this, it was really just about the characters… Where is Dolour at the beginning of the episode? Where is Dolour at the end of the episode?”
This emphasis on theme and structure extends beyond his current work into past projects, including ones that never made it to screen. Perhaps the most striking example is his adaptation of Marvel’s Gambit, a project that attempted to merge superhero spectacle with intimate storytelling.
“It was a superhero movie in the most loose and irreverent way, but it was actually really just about love and relationships and self-destructive people,” he explains. “It was a swing, right? It was a swing at trying to put all of our personal lives into a giant property.” Fans got to finally see part of this idea in Deadpool and Wolverine.
This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full audio interview here.
