Interview conducted by Josh Horowitz
August 7, 2003
[To read a two-part interview with GREENLIGHT producer Jeff Balis, click on Part I and Part II.]
In my never-ending quest to get to the bottom of PROJECT GREENLIGHT and THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS, it seemed time to bring in the writer. Plucked out of obscurity (and life as a grad student at Ohio State University), Erica Beeney won the writing portion of the GREENLIGHT contest. Often portrayed as harried, ignored, and downtrodden, I found Erica to be in much lighter spirits as the release of her first film draws near.
Josh Horowitz: Thanks for chatting. I’ve been talking to Jeff Balis the last few weeks for this.
Erica Beeney: Oh, you were talking to Jeff, were you? I don’t know if that’s a good idea.
JH: We’ll get to that later. So is it true that you don’t see the PROJECT GREENLIGHT episodes in advance? You’re watching them along with us on Sunday nights for the first time?
EB: Yeah, exactly. It’s pretty weird. I get my information from the preview of the next week’s episode and that’s the only way I know what to expect.
JH: Do you prepare your friends and family for what might be in the next episode?
EB: Luckily, my family is kind of insane enough so nothing would shock them so I don’t really have to prepare them that much.
JH: So is this the tamer Erica we’re seeing on the series and not the real wild and crazy gal?
EB: Yeah. I’m pleasantly surprised at how little of my ferocious foul mouth has ended up on the air because my grandma watches it.
JH: So you’re on the set of Miramax production of your first film and Jennifer Lopez sidles up to you for a pep talk. At what point do you say, “this can’t be happening”?
EB: It is totally surreal but in some ways all of life is surreal. So often you find yourself asking, what’s going on? How did I get here? There’s definitely a part of you that is like, wow, ok, now I’m going to have a conversation with Jennifer Lopez.
JH: Did she give you any words of wisdom that didn’t make it into the show?
EB: She was definitely talking about success and stuff like that. She was really nice about it. But it was also kind of like, yeah right, I’ll be certain to keep this in mind when I’m making a hundred million dollars a year and I have my own clothing line, restaurant, and airline. A lot of it was really down to earth stuff like you have to work hard but if you work too hard, one day you look up and realize other parts of your life have suffered.
JH: THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS is all done. It’s locked and loaded and ready for release. Can you give me a guarantee that it’s going to be more entertaining than GIGLI?
EB: (laughs) I actually haven’t seen GIGLI yet so I don’t know but I‘ve heard about the “gobble gobble” scene and I don’t know if we have anything quite as memorable.
JH: Maybe that’s for the best.
EB: (laughs) Exactly.
JH: So what’s your reaction to your own film now that you’ve seen the final cut?
EB: I think that it’s probably pretty standard compared to most screenwriters from what I understand. I’m very proud of it and I think a lot of it is great. It’s also not exactly the movie I had in mind. You realize what a blueprint a screenplay is and how much room there is within it for things to be the same and also different.
JH: What’s not in the finished film that you miss from your screenplay?
EB: I think that [directors] Kyle [Rankin] and Efram [Potelle] have a broader sensibility than I do and I think in some ways that’s probably good because I certainly didn’t set out to write a movie that would appeal to a broad audience. I just wrote something pretty weird and specific. Through the translation it definitely got broader so I think that has good things and bad things about it.
JH: Balis talked a lot to me about the comedic direction the film took and how that surprised him. Was it the same for you?
EB: Not really. It was really gratifying that a lot of the humor translated pretty well. I imagined that the humor would be there but that it wouldn’t be quite as broad. It’s definitely gotten pushed to one end of the spectrum and I imagined it being a bit more in the middle.
JH: In most cases writers don’t have a distinct role on the set, if any role. Did you ever get your bearings and feel you knew your place on the set?
EB: Never did. Never got my bearings. I think that’s the experience a lot of screenwriters have. The mistake I made which I couldn’t have known is that at the beginning it’s a good idea to make more clear what exactly your role is going to be. I was always trying to figure it out moment to moment.
JH: Do you think Kyle and Efram were so focused on their own vision that they put you to the side? Or did they just not know how to integrate your vision into the film? What do you think the disconnect was?
EB: I think that to a certain extent they had a different vision for it. There were definitely a lot of movies I referenced that they were not familiar with. So in retrospect I can see how there was difference in vision earlier on than maybe I thought. When they started shooting it started to come to life where it was like, oh yeah, that is a different take on this or that thing.
JH: It’s hard to look a gift horse in the mouth. But is there any sense of regret that maybe these guys weren’t the right fit for translating your vision into a film?
EB: Not really because hindsight is 20/20. You can never tell. The genius and the trouble with filmmaking is it is such a collaborative process. You sort of never know what someone may or may not bring to it. There were things we didn’t see eye to eye on but there were things that they totally brought to life and did more with than I imagined.
JH: Were you wary at all of the GREENLIGHT process? You must have watched the first show. Did you try to consciously avoid any of Pete Jone’s mistakes?
EB: I only watched about five minutes of the first season, which was probably why I did this. (laughs) I would not trade the experience for the world and I knew that you don’t get anything for free and so having the opportunity, I though, yeah from time to time I might make an ass of myself and that’s just going to be what’s going to happen.
JH: In the end, do you think GREENLIGHT has captured what really happened and what it felt like to make this film?
EB: I think so. I think they’ve done a pretty admirable job. They’ve balanced the two things they needed to do. Number one, everyone wants drama. It’s a show and so real people and experiences become characters with arcs and plots have to be made. And they have to balance that with not manufacturing things wholesale, I think they did a pretty good job of that.
JH: This is a sensitive area but when I talked to Jeff Balis last week, I mentioned the connection I saw between you two. (Erica laughs) He was a sympathetic ear for you. Now I asked him point blank if he had fallen in love with you and he denied it. (Erica laughs again) Erica, is there anything going on with you and Jeff Balis?
EB: I think he’s just a great person and I agree that I felt like having him there was really helpful. We do have a love child and he’s half-black…no, but he’s just a really good friend. I was happy to work with him.
JH: So what now? Have you gone Hollywood? Are you in the guesthouse at J. Lo’s pad?
EB: I just got a lot of collagen injected so I’m really looking forward to the swelling going down. I had my ears done. Most people get their lips but I got my ears done. I’m trying to make a go of the writing think and make that my career. Obviously, the show affords me more opportunities than would normally be the case. I’m writing a pilot for a one-hour drama series and just figuring out what the next thing is. I hope they’ll let me write some more stuff.
JH: And more collagen and perhaps botox…
EB: And foot binding. (laughs) We’ve focused so much on the lips and face, I think feet are next!
PROJECT GREENLIGHT airs Sunday nights at 9:30pm on HBO. THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS opens in New York and Los Angeles on August 22nd.
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