Eric Bogosian on writing?"subUrbia"

Eric Bogosian’s subUrbia started its life as a play, but it came to a wider audience via Richard Linklater’s film version, which starred such up-and-comers as Steve Zahn, Parker Posey and Giovanni Ribisi. 

It is, in many ways, the quintessential low-budget concept brought to life. It’s essentially one location, with a small cast, and with the action taking place over one long night. However, its theatrical roots provided it with deeper characterizations and richer subtext than you’d usually find in this coming-of-age genre.

What point were you at in your career before you started the stage version of subUrbia?

ERIC: Talk Radio (the play and the film) as well as the solo show Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll had garnered much greater interest in my work. Most importantly, excellent young actors were attracted to my script.

Do you begin with story, character or theme? 

ERIC: I begin with character and theme. The theme dances around in my head, almost like an editing device as I put my characters in motion with a story. But before anything, I think of the people who will populate my stage. 

In the case of subUrbia, I began with five student actors in workshop playing the characters. I had them simply hanging out and discussing a variety of topics. There was no plot to speak of in the first set of pages.

Do you outline the whole story before you start writing a script?

ERIC: No. I use outlines when writing a screenplay. But when I write a play or novel, it is very important to let the interaction of the characters lead me through the story. I'll have some sort of idea of an initial conflict, a starting point, but I won't necessarily know where it's going.

How did you create the characters?

ERIC: The characters are there within me. They are the archetypes I "need" to conceptualize my inner world. In the case of subUrbia the cast of characters derived almost directly from the cast of characters who, in my mind, represent my friends from my high school days.

In some cases, the characters are transpositions of myself. There are parts of myself in Jeff, Pony, Sooze and Nazeer.

How much backstory do you create for each character? Do you write it down?

ERIC: I'm not interested in backstory beyond its importance to what's onstage. In subUrbia, backstory becomes part of what we're watching. It was important to the play that we hear autobiographical stories from Sooze, Tim, Nazeer and Bee-Bee explaining who they are. Their own sense of history powers their story forward.

How important is having a theme before you start to write?

ERIC: I always begin with a theme. It usually morphs as I'm writing but in the long run, the theme must have importance for me in the present, as I'm writing. I need the theme to do my writing, but I don't mind if the audience doesn't see the theme or misunderstands what the theme is. 

In the case of subUrbia I don't think many people "got" the theme as I originally conceived it. (And what is that? you might ask. My answer is: Too complicated to explain, that's why I write plays. If I wrote themes, I would be a scholar and write theses.)

How did the play change (if at all) during the first rehearsal process or production? 

ERIC: I depend on the cast to help me edit. I adjust overall structure, cut speeches, edit text. Not only did I edit for the first production, I continued to edit for the second production in Washington, DC.

When it came time to adapt it into a screenplay, were you writing to a specific, pre-determined budget?

ERIC: I'm sure there was a set budget, but I didn't know what it was. Rick Linklater acted as producer with his company. All I knew was that we would hew closely to the play and that I could "open" up to other locales if I so wished. And I did.

What did you do to the script that, in your mind at least, turned it from a live performance script into a movie script?

ERIC: The script hewed very closely to the play. But in the movie, we see characters when they are not with the group at the convenience store. Most importantly we see them go for the ride in the limo.

Do you know why you made certain choices when opening up the play into a film script? For example, you said showing the limo ride was important. Why did you choose to start the film with Jeff in his pup tent in his garage? Why did you choose to not shoot anything at the Four Seasons?

ERIC: It's all about rhythm and texture. It's not about making things more explicit. And in the one place where we did do that (when Bee-Bee steals the prescription drugs) I think it's a bit of a dead spot. 

But the tent in the garage is a kind of teaser. And certainly the limo ride serves to lighten up the center of the movie. As the story progresses into deeper and darker waters, the limo ride is comic relief in a way. For those reasons, we don't need the Four Seasons scene. That scene is after the climax, which thematically and subtextually is Tim and Jeff yelling at each other in the parking lot.

In making the adaptation, were there any moments that you hated to lose? 

ERIC: No. I look at movies very differently than stage. If a moment is a moment that works on film, I keep it. But film demands that the story continue to unfold. That being the case, I snipped away at some of the longer more static speeches in the play and I don't regret it.

How involved in the production were you? Did you do any re-writes while shooting? 

ERIC: I did not rewrite during shooting, but if memory serves me, I did some writing after shooting and discussed editing with Rick.

How did you work with Richard Linklater? 

ERIC: Rick gave me my head, so to speak. He wanted the screenplay to be as close to what I wanted as it could be. We created a script that we liked, that met the needs for length. I did all the cutting of the original. 

We ironed out some thematic/action aspects in the last moments, especially when Tim is telling off Jeff in the parking lot, throwing food at the store. It had taken the entire run of the play and another production of the play for me to understand what was really happening there. 

Beyond that, we reached a conundrum at the very end, tried different endings, actually shot them and finally decided to stick with what we had. 

Can you talk about a couple of those endings and why they didn't work for you? You said you didn't do any re-writing during the shooting, but you did some writing after the shooting. What was it and how did that work?

ERIC: These two questions are part of the same question. What we were trying to find was the last words of the screenplay/film. There was some question whether the focus should be brought back to Jeff's (Giovanni's) life and specifically his future. So I wrote a scene which took place outside the hospital where Bee-bee had been taken. 

This scene took place between Sooze and Jeff and if memory serves, was about "Okay, so what happens now?" Although Rick filmed it, it never resonated with either of us and we stuck to the ending as it is. Which is also the ending as it is in the play, i.e. very abrupt.

What did you learn from working on that script that you still use today? 

ERIC: It's good to have a sense of how the director is going to shoot the film, what sort of style. In this case, Rick used a lot of two-shots and it was constructive to know that in terms of scene rhythm.

Do you think there's really such a thing as an "independent" movie?

ERIC: I don't know what "independent" means to other people. Having written and acted for film and television studios, I do feel that the corporate presence overloads the writing task at hand with "too many cooks." 

My two features (subUrbia and Talk Radio, directed by Oliver Stone) and one TV series (High Incident with Steven Spielberg) were all "independent" of the studio in that the directors acted as producers. As such they were "independent" and as such, they gave me my independence. 

Given our track record, I'm for more independence, especially for seasoned directors like Stone and Linklater. Once a director has established himself or herself, I think a studio should let him do his thing. When that happens, and it does (Gus Van Sant, Robert Altman, Tim Burton), the result is "independent" cinema.

What made you want to become a writer? 

ERIC: I write because I need the larger canvas. Although I consider good actors to be authors in their own right, I can't be waiting for the phone call, I need to be busy. And so I write. 

What's your writing process? 

ERIC: If I am making new pages, I write for a couple of hours a day, usually in the morning. If I am editing or polishing, I may go longer. I procrastinate, but I also write every day. And one way or another, I am working all day from about ten a.m. to six.

Do you show drafts to people during the process? 

ERIC: I work almost solely with the director in the case of plays or films. In the case of "work for hire," I am forced to show pages along the way. For the most part though, I write for myself.

Do you ever put a script away for a while after finishing a draft? What's the benefit of doing that? 

ERIC: I always "throw it in the drawer" because when it is too fresh, I am too biased toward thinking it's a great work. After a couple of months I will find it and look at it again. Sometimes it seems smaller than it was, deflated. I will then sometimes cannibalize it for other projects.

What's the best advice about writing that you've ever received? 

ERIC: Keep writing.

Any words of advice to a writer working on a low-budget script? 

ERIC: Look at plays, understand subtext as a motivating force. A low-budget drama (as opposed to a genre film like a horror movie) lives and dies on subtext. Subtext is the changing nature of the characters' relationships. Very few writers have done this successfully in our time. 

And yet, if you want to stay low-budget, you must stay in a cheap location and you must rely on the dynamics of relationship. In fact, once you learn how to write this way, you can bring this knowledge to any film. 

I recommend viewing The Blue Angel, The Apartment and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Are you pleased with the way the film of subUrbia came out? 

ERIC: Absolutely. For me, to see a play of mine on film is to in a way capture something of the experience of being at the play. 

Steve Zahn was with the production from the very beginning and I thought it was important to have as many people as possible see that performance. I wish I could have done the same for the rest of the original cast. But because we did go with a different cast, we got to capture Giovanni's amazing turn as well as the rest of the gang.  

I love this film, I love all the actors who have been part of the subUrbia experience. Now I just wish it would come out on DVD!

Thanks for taking the time to provide such substantial answers.

ERIC: It's been a guilty pleasure.