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AFF scene report: Writers/Directors panel
Longtime Austin Film Festival regular Shane Black joined Randall Wallace, John Lee Hancock, Phil Rosenthal and Alex Smith at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel to kick around the pleasures and perils of wearing two hats.
Asked how directing affected their writing, the panel largely agreed that it had made their written work better, leaner, more spare and direct.
But the group split on which job they would take if they could only pick one. “It would definitely be writing,” said Hancock (“The Alamo,” The Rookie”). “Directing is too hard.”
Shane (“Lethal Weapon”) Black disagreed.
“I like to write but it’s strain,” he said. “It’s murderous. “When it’s not working, I wouldn;t wish it on anybody.”
Black also said that at parties, directors are happy, have drinks in their hand and women on their arms while the writers stand in the corner whining about residuals.
Phil Rosenthal of “Everybody Loves Raymond:” “I know writing is the right answer — but it’s so friggin’ hard. I think directing is fun, more fun. I like the social. I’m not a misfit like these other guys.”
Wallace (“Braveheart,” “Secretariat”) had a knack for telling solemn, almost biblically grave stories that had surprise punch lines, such as the one where he was giving a phone interview to a Japanese journalist (with an English-speaking interpreter also on the line) while promoting “The Man in the Iron Mask.” Ask why he was so drawn to stories of love, honor and sacrifice, Wallace replied, “I guess the second-greatest thing in life is to have people who would die for you. But the greatest thing in life is to have people you would die for.”
On the other end of the line the journalist let out the rough equivalent of “Whoa!” and then said something, which the woman translated for Wallace:
“He says you’re a samurai and when you come to Japan he wants to get drunk for you.”
Fun fact: In another life Wallace wrote scripts for an attraction at Opryland in which barnyard animals were trained to play musical instruments.
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