Gary Ross Interview with the Writers Guild of America(West)

Brienne · Apr 4, 2012

Gary Ross, the director of our beloved Hunger Games movie, gave an interview to the Writers Guild of America(West). They asked him some pretty in-depth questions about the adaptation process going from the book to a movie script. Before we get into the questions, I just wanted to highlight a quote from the interview:

“You have to be patient enough to let the movie talk to you and to listen to it, to not try to freeze dry whatever your first version was or try to defend it.”

This is an interesting quote from Gary Ross, comparing a movie to freeze dried food. Below are some additional highlights of the interview:

Suzanne Collins mentioned that your script really nailed the emotional arc, particularly between Katniss and Peeta in a way that had not been captured in any previous drafts. How did you zero in on this emotional center?

I wrote a draft of my own which was very faithful to the book. Subsequent to that, Suzanne read it, liked it a lot, gave me some notes and came out to visit me in California. We started talking to one another even though we weren’t working together on it yet, and that conversation was so electric and spontaneous that within about an hour we were working together.

To me the story was the arc of someone who trusts no one and who ultimately learns to trust. [Katniss] has made herself as invulnerable as possible, kind of steeled herself off from the world, but she’s someone who learns to trust, develops a sense of empathy, and learns to care.

The great irony of the story is that that makes her stronger rather than weaker. That was a very interesting idea to me. I saw the whole mistrust of Peeta as a really interesting aspect of the book. Here was somebody who has such a guileless, open, unending love for her that she mistrusts it. This is also something that’s resonant outside The Hunger Games that’s very interesting.

To outline or not outline is an oft-debated subject among screenwriters. You consider the outlining process the place where discovery happens, but I’m curious if you’ve ever found yourself discovering stuff later.

Yeah, I discover stuff at every phase of the process. I now consider the shooting and editing of the movie a further extension of the writing. You’re never done writing. You’re never done discovering the movie. You have to be patient enough to let the movie talk to you and to listen to it, to not try to freeze dry whatever your first version was or try to defend it. It’s a living thing, and it’s going to keep changing and talking to you and you have to listen.

Having said that, I believe the first step has to be an outline. You wouldn’t build a house without blueprints. It doesn’t mean that it’s a less creative part of the process. It can be a more creative part of the process and, to my mind, the most creative part of the process is where the bigger decisions are made. By the end of the movie, you’re down to the color timing. You’re affecting it minutely.

At the beginning of a movie there are so many large conceptual ideas in play about how to approach the material. That can be a very exciting time if you don’t get tense and think, Oooh, what’s my outline? What’s my story? Like it’s some kind of dry clinical document. If you let it have life, and you are open to the same sort of discovery that many people assume happens in the screenplay, that can be a wonderful and exciting time.

Read the entire interview on the WGA's website.

Gary Ross Interview with the Writers Guild of America(West)

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Gary Ross Interview with the Writers Guild of America(West)

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