By Ramona Zacharias.
Jonathan Herman
Andrea Berloff
It’s the mid-1980s in Compton, California. With all the social, political and economic odds associated with both their era and location stacked against them, friends and aspiring musicians Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Yella and MC Ren aren’t content to follow the path facing most of the youth in their neighborhood. Instead, they join forces to rise above their circumstances and tell an uncomfortable truth via brutally honest lyrics and groundbreaking hip hop music that ignited passion across the country. They were N.W.A. and 2015’s critically acclaimed film Straight Outta Compton tells their story.
Directed by F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job) and with a team of producers that included both Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, the two-and-a-half-hour film’s screenplay was penned by Andrea Berloff and Jonathan Herman – two writers who grew up in New England. Regardless of their own upbringing, Berloff and Herman were so adept at capturing the essence of N.W.A.’s emotional story, they garnered the film’s sole Oscar nod as they are nominated for Best Original Screenplay at this month’s Academy Awards. What accounted for their success at such a challenging project? We spoke this week about their commitment to research, refusal to shy away from prickly subject matter and ability to roll with whatever production threw at them…all while ensuring their own voices were not lost in the process.
Neil Brown Jr. as DJ Yella in Straight Outta Compton. Image by Jaimie Trueblood
How did you each become involved in the project originally?
Andrea: I was hired by New Line and Ice Cube back in 2010. New Line had picked up a package that included the life rights and a script that was more of an Eazy-E biopic. And then they obviously wanted to do an N.W.A. movie. So I pitched at that time and they hired me. I worked on it for three and a half years at New Line and Warner Bros. until they put it in turnaround. Then it sort of sat, not moving for a while, and eventually Universal picked it back up. That’s when Jonathan came on.
Jonathan: I had a relationship with Universal – I’d done a few projects there, some movies that didn’t really go anywhere. But this was an opportunity. I knew they really wanted to make it and they had a small window for a tax credit rebate. I had to write a draft really fast, but it was something I was definitely into. I was a fan of these guys and into hip hop music while in high school and growing up, so it seemed like a good fit to get involved.
How much of their story did you know going into this project?
Jonathan: I was definitely a fan. I knew little dribs and drabs of their story…there was no Internet back then, so you only knew what you got from a few magazines and MTV News. So I’d hear about them and their band from MTV and heard about their beats here and there. But I was a fan and I had their records…and a vague idea of what was going on. But I certainly learned a lot more in the process of developing this movie and all the research that was done by Andrea and myself. It goes really deep, obviously, especially when you have a timeline this long as well.
The real N.W.A.: Arabian Prince, MC Ren, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, DJ Yella, and Dr. Dre. Image by Eric Poppleton
Speaking of research, I would imagine this involved a tremendous amount. How did you go about tackling that and what were some of the most useful resources you had available to you?
Andrea: For me, Ice Cube was absolutely the most useful. I can’t even tell you how many hours-long interviews I had with him. This was really his vision from the beginning and he was the driving force. I worked with him for hours and hours and hours, to not only hear all of his stories but then at one point he also gave me a list of people who he wanted me to talk to. And he made those introductions for me. It was obviously all the guys from the band and DJs from that era and so on…the list of people that I talked to was endless. All in, that process took about ten months of interviewing. From that, I had about a thousand pages of transcripts and then I proceeded to craft something of a story out of that.
Jonathan: It’s interesting with Ice Cube, especially since in the last many years he’s much more of a movie guy than a music guy. He still performs but he’s a movie star and he’s a movie producer. I think he really understands film and he saw it in his head – like Andrea said, it was really his driving vision. But mostly because of his experience with film, it was easy for him to see it in his head – how the movie would look and the stories it would tell. We came in to realize that vision that he had. The “Cube Vision”!
Ice Cube. Image by Eva Rinaldi
The film has been praised for its honesty and its authenticity. There are several scenes that are uncomfortable to watch, even as an objective viewer, let alone as one of the real-life characters being portrayed. How important was it to convey that reality, regardless of how uncomfortable (and unflattering) some of those scenes might have been?
Andrea: I think it was super important. I wouldn’t say that it was important to go for the discomfort, but it was important to go for the truth of that discomfort, if that makes sense. Everybody was very clear from the beginning. They really wanted to make sure that there were abusive African American police officers too, because it wasn’t just white police officers who were being abusive. And that’s an uncomfortable truth, right? That was something that was important to them from the beginning.
I know for me personally, from Day One when I started writing, I certainly was not comfortable throwing the N-word around. That was a really uncomfortable word for us as white people. But that was something I had to get over in the writing, in order to tell the truth of the story. So I don’t think it’s a bad thing that people feel uncomfortable. That’s the only way that we did get to the truth of the situation and were able to confront some ugly realities.
Jonathan: I think we were asked once “Is America really ready and do audiences want to be confronted with these uncomfortable truths? Is it really appropriate?” and we said yes, of course. It needs to happen more and more – maybe the more we’re exposed to it, the more it will become part of our normal conversation. We can’t shy away from stuff just because it’s icky or makes us feel uncomfortable. You have to become inured to it, really face this truth head on, and figure out our place in it.
O’Shea Jackson Jr. as Ice Cube in Straight Outta Compton. Image by Jaimie Trueblood
If anything, it’s perhaps even more important – some of what’s being depicted in these scenes from the 1980s can be considered just as relevant today.
Jonathan: Yes. It was one of those “lightning in a bottle” things that happened with the movie. We obviously couldn’t control that, but the stars aligned in a strange way and it became a story about now as much as a story about then.
Let’s talk about the music biopic genre in general. What kind of animal is it, and was it intimidating to look at the project in that light?
Andrea: Sure, but I think that the goal was to not set out to make a musical biopic. The goal was to set out to create an event movie that had a lot of amazing music in it. Obviously I was aware of all of the great musical biopics that came before, but I didn’t sit down and study structure or study how they did it at all. Because that was 100% something I wanted to avoid. So in terms of trying to create the structure for what the movie should be, I wanted it to be much more like an epic saga. Rather than worry about “how do you hit this song and then that song and then five pages later, another song”…you know? It’s a different beast altogether I think.
Jonathan: The movie fell into the structure of what a lot of people might consider the “biopic” – I think that’s just the nature of the beast. There’s highs and lows, there’s rags to riches…there are real peak moments and rock bottom moments. But even though it had all of those moments, I always thought of it as a regular feature film – even like a fictional narrative film. I wanted to treat it like that and to write scenes that were actually interesting. Cool, rhythmic scenes that weren’t just like a documentary – they didn’t have to be 100% accurate to the letter. I wanted it to play like a cool movie and for it to have the same feel that a fictional story would have. It happened to be with real-life people.
Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre in Straight Outta Compton. Image by Jaimie Trueblood
How did you manage all of the script changes and revisions? Did you have any preexisting formulas that you had to throw out the window as you were going along?
Jonathan: I think that the revision process for any project is going to be really difficult and intensive and immersive – and this one maybe had the extra baggage of being about real-life people who were often there in the room with you, wanting to give their input. But any script, any revision process on any project you’re dealing with, is always going to be difficult and requiring lots and lots of rewriting.
Andrea: Yeah, I was going to say something similar. I have a process for a first draft, but beyond that I don’t have any process! You kind of just take a deep breath and plunge on in to whatever it is you have to do.
Jonathan: It’s never the same experience twice with any producers you’re dealing with or the studio or the actual project. You kind of have to be ready for anything.
I understand that one of the initial versions was actually substantially longer. Were there any scenes in particular that were disappointing to see let go?
Andrea: The original versions were quite a bit longer. Especially in the early days, everybody wanted every little bit included. I think the first draft I turned in was 138 pages, which is way too long. But the movie right now is two and a half hours! Which is almost exactly what 138 pages would be. So even though the script came down, I still think it takes two and a half hours to tell the story. While we obviously cut some things out from early on, it wasn’t like we had to “fill in” – there was plenty of material to choose from. I think the movie is what it needed to be.
Jonathan: I agree. There were so many things – at the end of the day, Gary had to be the mad scientist who assembled the story and made the cuts necessary so that it flowed. You often don’t really know until you’re in the editing room what the rhythm of a movie’s going to be. So yeah, there’s certainly a lot of the story that didn’t get told and things that maybe could have been in there…but at the end of the day, what’s there is a very good encapsulation of their story.
F. Gary Gray on set of Straight Outta Compton. Image by Jaimie Trueblood
Tell me about working with F. Gary Gray.
Jonathan: I think this is the first movie that he’s done that really meant something to him on a deep level. Because it’s his story too. He grew up like these guys did in that neighborhood. So he was very passionate and knew what he wanted and knew how it should feel. It was a trial and error to get what he really wanted. He’s not a writer, I think he’s more of a visionary type – and so he needs people like Andrea and I to help him filter his vision and to really make decisions.
What were some of the key lessons you learned from this project that you will carry with you into future screenwriting endeavors?
Andrea: Good question! I think just as we were saying that every production process is different, you learn different lessons. But for me at least, I learned that when you have this many stakeholders and you have that many producers, that many real people that you’re working with…you have to be true to your vision. Because you’re not going to please absolutely everybody. There are just too many people to try to please. And so you have to remind yourself that “I have a voice, I have something to say, I know why I wanted to write this movie”. As much as we’re servicing them – which we absolutely were – having your own strong point of view is essentially why they hired you in the first place! So you’ve got to try to hold onto that in the midst of all the craziness.
Jonathan: I learned how to take really deep breaths and calm down and let things go. Because it can be a very high-pressure situation. There were a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and as Andrea said, you’ve got to stay true to your vision. As the writer, you’re often the first person to catch some hell if something’s not working out – even if you’re just doing what other people asked you to do. So that’s what I learned and I hope I will carry it into future projects. You’re never going to please everybody. A lot of egos are in the room and they’re going to rain down on you – you have to just take a deep breath and continue on.
