Meet Leigh Medeiros! Leigh is a published author and screenwriter who’s been supporting creative people in various capacities for 30 years. Her book The 1-minute Writer is a fun handbook designed to help you flex your writing muscles and create your best work. And amazingly she’s recently co-produced a climate-related Pitchfest for TV and film with Young Entertainment Activists in L.A. and founded the Linden Place Writers Residency in Bristol, Rhode Island. In our chat, we talk about creativity and the importance of being a cheerleader for our fellow creatives. We also cover the fascinating topic of combining environmental & climate change messaging in the art we create, including the scripts we write as a form of activism for our planet. Leigh’s curiosity and positivity make me smile and I’m sure you’ll be smiling too! Find out more about Leigh on her website: https://www.leighmedeiros.com Connect with Leigh on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leigh_medeiros
[00:00:00] Cris: Hi, and welcome to Blissful Spinster. This week's guest is creativity, coach and writer Leigh Medeiros Lee lives in Rhode Island and is a published author. Her book. The one-minute writer is a fun handbook designed to help you flex your writing muscles and create your best work. She's a fellow screenwriter.
[00:00:14] Having reached both the semifinal and final rounds of the academy, nickel fellowships, screenwriting competition, which is pretty spectacular. If you ask me and some of her most interesting work comes as a creativity coach and cheerleader for fellow. Something I'm a fan of recently she's become an advocate for combining environmental and climate change messaging in the art we create, including the scripts we write as a form of activism for our planet, which is super cool.
[00:00:38] It was so fun to reconnect and catch up with Leigh. And we had a great conversation about creativity and the importance of being a cheerleader for our fellow. Creatives, which is something I really believe in. So however you found this podcast. Thank you for tuning in and please enjoy this week's episode.
[00:00:52] Lee. I'm so happy you agreed to do this and beyond my Blissful Spinster podcast.
[00:00:58] Leigh: I am [00:01:00] extremely excited slash nervous. not because we aren't gonna have a great chat, but I have such a terrible memory that when people ask just basic direct questions, I'm like, so I'm gonna do my best to be an interesting person for the listeners, but I can't make any
[00:01:19] Cris: promises.
[00:01:20] I'm gonna tell you. You've always been interesting thank you, my friend, you're just always so into so many things. And one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you and just have a chat was because I think you have a really healthy relationship with creativity and wanting to spread that out to everyone around you and the people that you come in contact with you.
[00:01:37] I'm just wondering what, what were your beginnings in that world? What do you think? Were you always like that as a kid? What, what was going on? Yeah,
[00:01:43] Leigh: it's interesting because there's so many different threads I can pull around creativity. Oh, I do have an early memory. And I wanna say I was five years old, but I'm not exactly sure.
[00:01:56] And what I remember is I was writing with a blue crayon. [00:02:00] So I was writing with a blue crayon age and I had a poem come through and I remember looking at the paper and thinking. I didn't write this. Like I knew it was better than what I was capable of writing, meaning that it felt like I didn't have words for it or a consciousness around it, but it felt like I was just transcribing something.
[00:02:24] And so. That was really interesting. I think for me, I don't necessarily connect that to like, and then that made me think I'm gonna be an artist. I don't have that, but that is one of the few things I remember as an early memory of thinking, I didn't write this and this is pretty good. And so I think that was cool for me to have this understanding of creativity as a collaborative thing, with something invisible.
[00:02:47] And then when. You know, in my earlier years, like elementary school into high school, I mostly did dance. Although I did do like advanced, like AP art class in high school portfolio class, and I was [00:03:00] going to art school. And so I did absolutely have that. Through line of creativity. And then in terms of supporting other artists, I got out of school and I did work for organizations.
[00:03:11] So I worked as a, like a gallery assistant. I worked in a nonprofit doing like arts administrative support and then just for a hot second for like a year. And I was a middle school art teacher, which was amazing. And. So all consuming and stressful that that was I think 97. And I thought to myself, I could do this my whole life.
[00:03:30] Like I really could give myself over to teaching, but I will never make anything because I just can't imagine having the time to do that or I can continue to do. My creative pursuits, which is what I chose to do. And then interestingly it circled back around to supporting other people. Yeah. So there's all different threads in there, but the through line for the last 17 years has been supporting writers, mostly screen writers, and more recently memoir and non-fiction creative.
[00:03:54] Non-fiction writers. But I had my own art gallery. I had for a short time of business with my husband, where I was dying [00:04:00] linens and he was doing rustic wood crafted things. And there's just, of course I worked in doing short films and producing. There's just all different things. Creativity is the through line, but all of the different arts practices are scattered about
[00:04:14] It's so cool.
[00:04:14] Cris: Cuz I think what you touched. and I think I had a little bit of that too. Was I like my very first memory, one of my first memories in regards to coming into contact with film. So I'm the Youngsta six. I, I don't know if you remember that. And I grew up in Mexico and the whole family was in on a vacation Acapulco and the older kids cuz I'm the youngest by seven
[00:04:34] Leigh: years.
[00:04:35] Wow. You were planned. You were highly planned.
[00:04:38] Cris: I was very, I was highly. Unplanned. I was three and all of us were home. Like my oldest brother, you know, I've got very sparse memories of him being home, cuz he was actually, he'd been drafted in the early seventies, but he happened to be there at this trip to the beach and.
[00:04:54] They all wanted to go see planet of the apes. So this would've been 73. I think it came out a couple years earlier, but in [00:05:00] Mexico we they'd get the films a couple years after they came out in the us. So they hadn't been able to see it. And there was no babysitter cuz you know, we were on vacation. So they took me.
[00:05:09] And I remember seeing the beginning of the film like that they was starting and I fell asleep and I woke up if you know the film, when he comes on statue of Liberty, When Charlton Heston comes on the statue of Liberty and screams. No. Wow. And it's such, it's ingrained in my memory, this, like, it was a portrait of art being displayed for my little brain and I just was mesmerized by it.
[00:05:35] And I don't, that's the only thing I remember from that film. And I've seen it a couple times since I know the thing. Wow.
[00:05:41] Leigh: It's like an iconic moment.
[00:05:43] Cris: Yeah. That iconic moment. And then a couple years later, when I was eight, my sister took me to see close encounters to the third kind. And I came out of that going, I wanna make that awesome.
[00:05:53] Like I had figured out something like you, something told me that someone had made that and told a [00:06:00] story visually. And I had connected in it in such a way that I was like, I want to figure out how to do that. Awesome. But what I love is that what we're both talking about to me is you're having a conversation with something inside of you.
[00:06:12] Yeah. You were talking about, you didn't know if you had written it. Well, you did. It was just something in your subconscious that you were connecting with or something that was helping you write with the crayon. Yeah.
[00:06:22] Leigh: It's funny because I feel like it's outside of me sometimes. I think I'm collaborating with an external force.
[00:06:29] like sometimes I think creativity is its own unbodied consciousness or something. And I think that actually, probably a lot of people who listen to this would. Have heard Elizabeth Gilbert's Ted talk from back in the day. I don't know if you ever heard that, but sh she talks about, she gives an example of a poet and I'm not gonna remember the poet's name.
[00:06:48] And the poet would transcribe poems that came to her. The poet told this story of. Being outside. I don't know. I'm going to say working in the garden and quote, unquote, like feeling a [00:07:00] poem coming across the landscape at her and rushing by, and that she quote the idea that Elizabeth Gilbert conveys is that this woman grabbed the poem by the tail, ran into the house.
[00:07:11] And transcribed it, but transcribed it backwards. So the end of the poem came out first. And so it was this idea that if you don't, there was two ideas, one that there's this, these ideas that are floating around that we are, we can, that kind of tap us on the shoulder and that we work with them. But the other part of that is if you don't and you know, this being in film, it's gonna go to the next person.
[00:07:32] And how many times have you been like, I've got a great idea. I gotta write it down. And then the next thing, you know, it's guess what new TV show or film is coming out. And you're like, oh, I thought of that two years ago. Not that exact thing, but you know what I mean? No,
[00:07:44] Cris: I know that exact thing. The thing to me though, and somebody said this to me earlier, early on.
[00:07:50] Yeah, 50 people can have the same idea or a hundred, but only you are writing it from your viewpoint. Yeah. And I think we forget that mm-hmm often, right? So like [00:08:00] the script, the script or the movie I'm trying to get made a long girl is very personal. It's like 70, 75% of it is. Conversations that I've had throughout my life or thoughts or whatever, to get to where I am, which is very, very happy in my fifties with my cats and single, and I don't need a relationship.
[00:08:18] And thank you very much for asking, but like we're not allowed that as women. Yeah. Even today. I mean, I, I think it's getting a little better with younger millennials, maybe, and gen Z. They're starting to see that regardless of what gender or identity or wherever you ascribe, you can be in a relationship or single and it's okay to be whatever you want to be.
[00:08:37] And I love that, but I still think the media is feeding whether it's books, whether it's movies, whether whatever it is, it's still feeding. That myth, that, that our happiness is women is outside of ourselves. We don't get it until somebody picks us to be in a relationship. Yes. And it turns toxic. It turns there's women out there who will stay with a relationship [00:09:00] that's abusive because it's scary to be single than to be in a relationship for them.
[00:09:05] And I just think that's horrible. Right. Right. Like we shouldn't be, we should be allowing ourselves to be whoever we wanna. regardless of what that is. However, we define ourselves.
[00:09:15] Leigh: It's so interesting to me because I it's almost like this weird human evolution where in order to be safe, you needed to be with people.
[00:09:24] So whether that was your literal tribe or, and then of course there's procreation of the species, right? So it's like, For maybe a long time a BI this is, I'm just talking off the top of my head. Hopefully this is not controversial, but just this idea that there is a biological urge to be paired in some way with other humans.
[00:09:43] And then along with technology and all of the ways that we've evolved as a species that is no longer necessary. And it's almost like this dying mindset that we're seeing the tail end of this idea. You're not safe or even people who are evolved [00:10:00] will say, but you secretly want a relationship under that, right?
[00:10:03] Yeah. You're like you, you can say you're okay, but I don't believe you. You really are lonely. You know, all of that stuff under there. There's, it's like a person's own baggage gets translated to that. And it is a journey, right. Because I'm sure you had to go through your own yeah. Process of discovery to get to a point where it's wait a minute.
[00:10:21] I'm not EV it's not. And I don't know. I'm not, I'm gonna put words in your. But I'm sure for some people in your position, it's not that I'm actively rejecting. It's more that I'm actively accepting myself and who I am and where I am, and I'm not making this other person. Who's not even in my realm, just a person.
[00:10:37] That's an invisible idea. I'm not making them a central focus to my life. It is.
[00:10:41] Cris: And to bring it back to what got us on this is I just read a book called the spinster diaries and interviewed the author. And she's a TV writer and someone could have said, weren't you scared? Cuz maybe it looks like your story.
[00:10:52] And. Her story is nothing like my story, but we need both of those. We need that representation [00:11:00] so that young women can see that it's okay. Like there's nothing wrong with you if you don't want a relationship, whether that's right now or whether that's ever it's okay. But what you were saying with evolution.
[00:11:11] Yes. I will not dispute that. There's an evolutionary need to pro. But not anymore. And yes, there was safety in numbers when the big saber tooth tiger came, it was probably good to have a group of people fighting it. Yeah. All of that stuff. But there's also this added element of what we know of is modern day marriage and all of that stuff is a Relic of the patriarchy.
[00:11:31] Yes. And it's, it was a business. Contract, yep. Between a man and a woman's parents and you are traded in for whatever who has generally been in charge of writing what we consume and what we read white men, most of history yep. From hundreds and hundreds of years ago. So what we know of love and marriage, even as the idea changed and all of that is the viewpoint of that.
[00:11:55] So men and women are learning. Women from white [00:12:00] men, right?
[00:12:00] Leigh: Hetero heteronormative, patriarchal framework.
[00:12:04] Cris: Yeah. And you were talked about my journey. I did go through, so in my teens and in my twenties, I don't think I really paid a, I was just really lasered, focused on trying to get. To the position I'm in now trying to make a film.
[00:12:17] But I think my journey was meant to be what it is now. I wasn't necessarily ready to take that on even as bold and as whatever I was to ask people. And, but in my mid thirties to mid forties, I started going, is there, is it me? Is it something R is everyone right? Is what I'm watching and what I'm and what people are telling me and friends and whatever.
[00:12:39] Is there something wrong with me? Should I, so I gave it a try. Like I was like, yeah, I dated, I did. I had one nightstand. I had whatever it is. And I realized one morning, I think like I had this, wait a minute. This is all being told to me by people who don't understand. Me, we being gaslit just by society and we need to dismantle [00:13:00] that.
[00:13:00] Yes, it was interesting. Cause it's in 2018, a mutual friend of ours, bill Pruitt guy came into his office at some point, cuz we were working on a show. He was show running and he said something and I go, no I'm done. I'm just done with it. I don't, I wanna be single I'm you know, that's it. And he goes, yeah, that's a movie.
[00:13:16] I go, what he. A bunch of friends trying to get somebody who's decided they wanna be single, you know, like that process. And I go, that's a pretty funny idea. And then I sat on it for, he kept going, just write it. And I'm like, no, no, no. I gotta think about this cuz that's how I, my process is I think about something and really work things out in my head and then I just do cards and then I write, I do not do outlines.
[00:13:38] I do not do like that is just not me. Like I wanna be surprised,
[00:13:42] Leigh: but cards is a form of. It
[00:13:43] Cris: is, but I'm talking, there's the really deep dive outlining that I see people doing and that's awesome and brilliant for them. To me, I'd be like losing the spontaneity of what my characters give me on the page as I'm writing.
[00:13:57] But what I wanted was to figure out a [00:14:00] story that challenged that idea. That we are talking about and that turned it on its head and took, and I was like, the perfect thing is to take the romcom and turn it on its head and figure out a way to make an audience cheer for the woman to be single, because we've never seen that.
[00:14:16] And that's what
[00:14:16] I've
[00:14:16] Leigh: written. Yes. Here for it. How much are you sharing with your podcast audience about the like, are you gonna give us the logline? What can you tell us? Well, I, I can do that. I, how much can we talk about it? I've done that on Twitter. girl, the logline that's gone around the world
[00:14:35] Cris: thing is I was told very early on in my career in the nineties with a screenwriter.
[00:14:39] He. Never be afraid to show your work because it's never gonna get made if, unless you show it.
[00:14:43] Leigh: Wow. Like talking about it on Twitter basically.
[00:14:45] Cris: Well, there was no Twitter in the nineties, but yeah, it was the only way you're gonna get something made or get seen. And again, your voice is your voice. So yes, a story may be similar to something else like we were talking about in the beginning, but it's never gonna be what you [00:15:00] wrote and if you've got your biggest fan, your first fan has to be.
[00:15:04] In your work. And that's another thing that I've learned on my journey and I'm much more like it's been three years or so that I'm trying to get this film made and the meetings and the finance stuff and all of that stuff. And I'm getting better and better at these meetings and learning and just more secure.
[00:15:21] And I think you need to go through that. All films take a few years to get
[00:15:24] Leigh: made. Man, the comp the competence piece is. So important in the industry. Yeah. Right. So many people thrive in the industry. Yeah. And you, and we
[00:15:33] Cris: did start with it. So I don't want people thinking that I was, I've always been like, you know, no, I had a plan.
[00:15:39] I had a, I've gone to a pitch class that was given by Emily Best from seed spark. That's super helped. I've been to, you know, cause I'm terrified of speaking in front of people. Oh,
[00:15:49] Leigh: but amen to that.
[00:15:51] Cris: yeah. So when I started doing my short. I made, I was like, okay, I need to deep dive in this, go to all of the festivals.
[00:15:59] It goes and do all [00:16:00] the Q and a, and then I made a promise to myself. I was like, if somebody asks a question, that's meant for everyone, you know, cuz usually in short films, it's all the directors that are up on the stage and there's a lull. Even for two seconds, you answer it,
[00:16:12] Leigh: jump in, you, jump in and you answer it.
[00:16:13] Jump in. Amazing.
[00:16:14] Cris: And I started doing that and I just got myself more comfortable. And then you get more comfortable on the one on ones. And I mean, I had a meeting. You said, how open am I to all of this stuff is we're trying to get development funds out of, of venture capitalist group and the meetings I've had with the heads of that group.
[00:16:32] I've got them to love me and to love the project. Now it's like, what's gonna get them to that last 5% commit the funds to give us the funds, cuz he's already committed to helping us get the film funded, but it's, it's getting him to actually click over some of those funds at this level. You do need some money to then approach the actors with.
[00:16:52] So I want some name actors. I, part of my mission with this is to make a $5 million film. That's my first film to show [00:17:00] that a female writer director can do that because that's not done very often. Yeah. However, it's done with men quite a bit. And I
[00:17:06] Leigh: would say just going back to something that you said earlier, the thing that I find upsetting and is.
[00:17:11] Also part of that patriarchal mindset when people have said to you, oh, are you scared? Because you heard about one other TV show with a similar concept. It's like, oh, all of the different male oriented, traditionally hetero male oriented things. There's 9,000 variations. And I guarantee nobody ever says.
[00:17:31] To them. Oh, are you scared that you wrote a, a movie about two boxers and there's other boxing movies? Are you scared that this is like a movie about some racetrack or like it's oh geez. Two movies, two movies about a woman who is happy alone. I'm not sure. it's really, if it's like, people have to undo that mindset that.
[00:17:49] There's this, oh, this one character who could be seen one time and there's no other versions of what that could mean. And the thing
[00:17:56] Cris: is, is like, look around you. How different are you from your friends? [00:18:00]That's how different all these stories are. And they sh they all deserve a place. Yeah, they do. They all deserve to be heard on that same line I'm on right.
[00:18:07] Or Twitter like you are, and we'll see things and people tweeting and whatever. And someone will tweet. We're looking for a script coordinator or a writer's PA in their. and I'll send that tweet to a couple of my friends who are young women of color, who that's, what they wanna do is they wanna write TV and be in a room.
[00:18:22] And they've maybe just been a production secretary on something or been, and I'll get this response back. Yeah. But I don't have, it says, I need experience. I go, you need to send this in because there's a hundred mediocre guys sending it, who. It's the same or less credits than you an experience, and you don't know what they're looking for and they might see you and go, oh, that's perfect.
[00:18:44] That's
[00:18:44] Leigh: right. And actually, that's exactly what I was talking about when I said confidence goes so far in the industry because what I was thinking about was mostly. Men who will just more easily embrace the fake it till you make it mentality more easily, be [00:19:00] conditioned and attuned to just like plowing forward with like, yes, sure.
[00:19:04] I've only written one script, but I'm gonna send it out and I'm gonna like confidently go forward. Whereas, and I suffer from this too. I will rewrite and rewrite and tweak and rewr and just make something quote unquote, perfect and take forever. And it's really like the lack of confidence in my abilities.
[00:19:21] Part of it is wanting things beyond the obvious, which is, of course you want things to be as best as you can make them. But there is an extra layer beyond that. It's that this is not a finished product. A script is not a finished product. You want it to be good. You want it to, you want yes. Your voice to come across.
[00:19:36] You want do well with it, but the mistake in making that it has to be perfect. It's it does not have to be perfect. This is not a novel. This is something that. Going to be collaborative. It's a blueprint. It is inevitably going to change no matter how quote unquote perfect. You make it. And as a woman, I think if we're talking about the traditional again, this traditional binary of men and women, and of course there's a gender spectrum.
[00:19:57] So I wanna recognize that, but in the traditional binary, [00:20:00] it's just been for a long time. Very easy for men. To have the confidence to go forward when the work is mediocre and to have even some success at that, not even, but definitely some success at that. And then there's many gifted women who I would put you and maybe me in the category of that, where it's like feeling nervous about speaking up, feeling nervous about taking certain types of meetings.
[00:20:20] I'm not feeling ready, not feeling like, you know, what do we have to offer all of the turmoil that you go through and that's separate from. Quote, unquote product that's separate from the script, all of that emotional stuff around it. It's like that is such a process to work through. And I'm definitely, I'm a hundred percent in that process of continuing to work through it.
[00:20:39] I am not a person who could go pitch around town and do all of that stuff. Ironically, cuz I'm organizing a pitch Fest right now. but supporting other writers, but yeah, it's really, like you said, it's, it's like, like you said, you've been doing this for a couple years now. Alone girl, going, dating some meetings and getting better.
[00:20:56] Do you have that part of you? That's like, I could have done this back [00:21:00] then. If I know now, if I know if I knew, then what I know now, is there a part of you that's like, oh, I wish you could go back and talk to that person or do you really feel like no, there was a lot of skills that I didn't have.
[00:21:13] Cris: And so I, I started writing really early on, like right after seeing that close encounters, like I was writing short stories when I was in elementary school. Clearly remember a teacher reading one to the class and I wasn't the greatest students. I graduated from high school with more DS than you wanna know.
[00:21:26] And I got into one college and I found out later it was because of my essay because it certainly wasn't because of my transcript. And it's because I wrote a short story. I didn't write an essay that I was told by the admissions officer. I don't know if this is true, but this is what he said. He said about 80 to 85%.
[00:21:42] The essays they get for college admission is this is why I did so badly, or this is why it's like this excuse for their transcript. Wow. And I wrote a short story about where cuz at the time I was a, I thought I'd go into journalism even though I'd always wanted to do film, but it was the camera and [00:22:00] photography was the closest thing I could get to that.
[00:22:01] And I'd ended up being the. Photo journal, the photo editor for the newspaper and the yearbook. By the time I graduated high school, my best friend's father at the time was the head of the AP bureau down there. So I knew him, but also got to know all these photo journalists who were taking pictures in Panama and Nick Nicaragua during all those conflicts.
[00:22:22] And, and you hear all those stories and then you see Salvador and like the movie and you're like, Ooh, I want that life. But I also saw it as an artist's journey. If you do that. You get stories to write, but I ended up the journalism professor. Couldn't remember my name in college, so I ended up switching to theater.
[00:22:40] And so I have two degrees in
[00:22:41] Leigh: theater, meaning oh, multiple times. This person just could not remember who you were.
[00:22:45] Cris: Oh yeah. Multiple times. My advisor couldn't remember my name and this is a school with eight. This was a New Hampshire. It's a tiny school called new England college, 800 students, the town it's in a thousand.
[00:22:55] So we double the sides of the town when the school was in session. So that admission, how did you
[00:22:59] Leigh: [00:23:00] translate that when they, what did that mean to you when they couldn't remember your name? What did that, what did you make that mean for you?
[00:23:05] Cris: That he didn't really care about the students he was teaching.
[00:23:08] Leigh: Great. So it was about him? Not about you. Yeah, it was about him. It wasn't about me. That's what I was trying to figure out. Good. I'm glad you translated it that way. yeah. I didn't know if you were going in the direction of, so I decided then I shouldn't be a journalist because nobody can remember
[00:23:21] Cris: me. No, no, no, no, no.
[00:23:22] What happened was so I came in to college really and. Born extroverted. I'm pretty sure. Or some sort of extrovert. I was pretty gregarious as a little kid, but through, because I went to school in Mexico and no disrespect because everybody's going through their own stuff and kids can be mean not because of you, you know?
[00:23:42] And, and this, I came to a little later, like if you had talked to me in one of my early twenties, I would've been like, everyone was a jerk to me and I got bullied and yes, I did. Turned me into the wallflower. Like I, my defensive mechanism became make yourself invisible and hide behind that [00:24:00] camera that you're taking pictures of everyone.
[00:24:01] But the truth is when you look back at those times, they're difficult for you, but also something's going on in everyone else's lives. That's driving that. And we're all absolutely going through things. And we all have raging hormones and we all have, we've all got questions and our parents are doing stuff that we don't understand or so whatever's going on is driving a lot of that.
[00:24:23] And I'm not saying that we should excuse bullying or anything. I'm just saying, this is how that chip got released and you need to release those things or you don't grow. Right. And it. To be honest made me who I am today. That's right. That whole journey. Yeah. And what you are talking about, I was just bold for whatever reason from when I was my mom used to say, I raised myself, she said I was born and I was so independent that I raised myself.
[00:24:48] And so I, I always knew I was gonna live in California and LA and make movies, but I was studying theater and technical theater because I figured it would make me a better writer.
[00:24:57] Leigh: So this is after journalism. Yeah. Once
[00:24:59] Cris: I got in, [00:25:00] cuz the theater professor pulled me aside and he was like, you're getting all these A's.
[00:25:03] Test, but you don't talk in class. What is your background? I said, well, I did all of these plays in high school. Cause I was either in the dark room or I was, I was doing the technical stuff for plays because a play is the closest thing you can get to a future film. Right. And in Mexico, I couldn't find scripts for movies, but I could find all of Shakespeare, which I read by the time I graduated high school, regardless of whether I was learning it in class or not.
[00:25:25] But he was. What are you doing? Studying journalism then. And then I went home and he knew my name and he asked, he directly asked me a question in class, which I got to tamp down a student called Vinny , who was a fifth year senior. If he's out there, I love you Vinny. But he, he asked it was a Neil Simon play.
[00:25:41] We were reading Brighton beach memoirs, and Glen Stewart. Who's a fantastic professor and helped shape the person I am today. And if he's listening to this, thank you very much. If somebody sends this to. That'd be great, but hint, hint, hint, hint. No. So he turned and asked me how I would, as a scene designer, [00:26:00] decorate.
[00:26:00] I can't remember the character's name, but the son that Matthew Brodrick played on, I can't remember somebody played him famous on Broadway, but, uh, I, before I could answer in a show of mansplaining mind you it's 1989. So this was my first semester of undergrad Vinnie jumps in. Well, he would have posters and a signed ball and all of this stuff for the Brooklyn Dodgers, or it was the Yankees.
[00:26:22] I can't, it was one of the New York teams. And I go and Glen goes really first off. I thank you very much. But I asked Chris and he goes, what do you think? And I go, that's totally wrong. They don't have money for that stuff. He'd have newspaper clippings and maybe a Penant. He found that's dirty. That fell on the ground.
[00:26:38] I go, I don't think he would have anything that looks like it would cost money and Glen that's exactly right. Brilliant.
[00:26:45] Leigh: Really understanding character to then understand props. And
[00:26:48] Cris: that's actually why I decided. To study the technical and design side of theater, not. So I was a create English, creative writing major and a theater.
[00:26:57] So I was a double major in undergrad. And then I have a master [00:27:00] of fine arts and theater technology. Wow.
[00:27:02] Leigh: What an underachiever .
[00:27:04] Cris: Yeah, but all of that was in the service of becoming a better screenwriter in my head and a better storyteller, because like you said, a script is a, is not a finished product, especially a movie script, a play or a script, a movie script, a screenplay.
[00:27:17] If I can say that a screenplay there are living. That is there for the purpose to collaborate. Yeah. And to make the finished product, which is either a play that is performed on stage or a movie that is projected a visual or a TV show. And it's a conversation between the screenwriter or the playwright and all the other artists, whether it's an actor, whether it's a scene designer, whether it's a cinematographer.
[00:27:40] Whether it's a PA, right? You are having a conversation with every single person that is touching your script. And somehow in my young brain, I realized if I understood all of those roles, I would know how to write a script that would communicate to all of them so that my vision. Would show up on screen [00:28:00] or on cuz I've written plays as well or on stage.
[00:28:02] And so that's why I went that
[00:28:04] Leigh: route. How old were you when you wrote your first screenplay?
[00:28:07] Cris: So I started writing shorter things in girl Scouts, like movie scenes, short scripts that were based on like Simon and Simon TV show that I used to watch. Oh yeah. I remember we
[00:28:16] Leigh: performed that. so you were literally writing a spec script for Simon and Simon.
[00:28:22] That's amazing.
[00:28:23] Cris: Yeah, I think I was 12 or 13. I was huge into. Moonlighting. And I would say that was probably the first script I St. I started trying to write. I think I have it somewhere in the garage. That's
[00:28:34] Leigh: that strikes me as unusual that you were really understanding that you could write an episode of TV, because I feel like so many people get started because they ha oh, I have an idea.
[00:28:44] And it's like their own idea of something which they think is the most brilliant thing that's ever been. And they want to write it down and make it into a movie, but it's really cool that you were like, oh, I wanna, I'm gonna take my favorite show and I'm gonna write an episode of
[00:28:57] Cris: it. Yeah. And it was interesting [00:29:00] cuz it was, it obviously stared me and my friends and it happened in Mexico and our parents had been kidnapped and I think the opening scene was Bruce Willis's character.
[00:29:09] I think his name was David. I can't remember listeners can jump in and eviscerate me for not remembering the character's name, but, but he came in. Turned the light on and there we were asleep in sleeping bags on the floor. In his office and we came to hire him to help find our parents or something. I love it, I think was the whole thing.
[00:29:27] And they had to go to like him and Maddie had to go to Mexico. And I think initially, like when I came to LA, I had a Northern exposure spec and I had an xFi spec, the xFi spec I worked through in grad school. I moved to LA. February 96 and I had the two scripts and then I wrote a spec, was that it was sliders.
[00:29:46] It was the Jerry O'Connell show cuz I was into sci-fi at the time. And then I wrote my first feature, which was called ripple. And then I started on a trilogy that I kind of worked on through the years. And then there was a moment where I [00:30:00] went up the reality unscripted world. That's when I met you. Yeah.
[00:30:03] And so my knee got hurt in 90. Eight on a hallmark Christmas movie. Oh God. And I was out for nine months.
[00:30:10] Leigh: Was it worth it, Chris? No. I'm just, I've been known to watch a hallmark movie. Well, no,
[00:30:14] Cris: the hallmark Christmas movies are a theme in my script, the character like me. And I'll admit this I'm obsessed with, 'em amazing.
[00:30:20] Mainly cause of the Christmas porn . Cause I didn't see snow until I was 19. Oh. Because I grew up in Mexico. Right. And there's all these pictures of my family having these white Christmases and I it's, I was missing a memory. I never had.
[00:30:35] Leigh: Oh, because they had moved from the states down to Mexico before
[00:30:38] Cris: you, they had moved from New Hampshire.
[00:30:40] Yeah. And so there's five kids with their coats, sleds, sleds, and stuff. And I'm like, why didn't I get that amazing. And so hallmark Christmas movies, they give me that every year. So
[00:30:50] Leigh: now I'm picturing you injuring your knee as you're shaking a box of like white snow onto . Was it really, were you ever, are they ever really filming in places that have [00:31:00]snow?
[00:31:00] Cris: No, we were. We, no, we were not. It was, I think summer or something, I don't know, or yeah, spring. And we were on the Warner brothers a lot if you've been on it with the gazebo years, years ago. Well, it's the same spot they shot Gilmore girls like that gazebo that's in that film.
[00:31:15] Leigh: If that gazebo could.
[00:31:16] Cris: Yeah. so I ended up like working for a director as his assistant for a company.
[00:31:21] The company kept me as a PA. And at that point I hadn't worked for nine months and I was like, oh, a study runner job. Sure. And they ended up selling one of the first reality shows out of the us cuz most of them survivor and. Big brother were from Europe. Interesting. They were European property that was licensed to be done in the us.
[00:31:40] So it was called temptation island. I
[00:31:42] Leigh: remember I'm not sure that I've ever seen any of it. You
[00:31:45] Cris: don't have to. And I don't know why they rebooted it, but I got to go to Belize and I turned 30 there at that point and, and came back and couldn't get hired on narrative because there was a big rift. Ah, and now nobody knows the difference.
[00:31:58] Nobody cares. You can work on a, [00:32:00] you can hop between which I love. That's great. That's good to know, but that was not. So in 2000, 2001, it's so different, but you asked if I thought I could do what the script or what I'm up to now, back then. And no, because I've been witness in the unscripted world to so many being invited to people's lives to tell their, to help tell their stories.
[00:32:21] You saw the thing I did with Angelo, which is a environmental beautiful little short doc that I made to get to be welcomed into people's lives and to be there when. At their highs and their lows, and then go into post and get to listen to all of those interviews and watch the footage and try to help tell their story in the best way possible.
[00:32:41] But also you get to hear how people speak. So it makes your dialogue a thousand times better and it makes. You're storytelling a thousand times better. Right. And so the script I wrote and I think I shocked my friend knew I was talking to Jack, he's a director I used to assist in the nineties. I go, yeah, that's this is my 28th draft.
[00:32:57] The draft that I've got that I'm gonna shoot is the [00:33:00] 28th draft of that, of a long girl. And it's because you have to it's in the rewrite.
[00:33:05] Leigh: Absolutely. When you shape it. And when you say 28th draft, it's like, Are you counting all of the different, there's the huge overhaul drafts. And then there's the drafts where I'm changing this character.
[00:33:16] I learned something new about this character. So I'm tweaking this person's dialogue from start to
[00:33:21] Cris: finish. Yeah. Or you're I really think I need to add a scene here with the it's at the, at its heart. It's a father or daughter. So you asked a long time ago what the log line is. It's a coming a middle-aged story wrapped in an unromantic comedy, and it's about a woman in.
[00:33:35] Late forties, early fifties, who get sent on a mission to find a partner by her dying father. They learn very early on that his cancer's back and it's stage four. And he basically has a conversation with her going. The only thing I ever wanted was to walk you down the aisle wow. To know that you're taken care of.
[00:33:50] And it. and she starts the film happy you see her skateboarding and super ha like just in general. And she comes home. It's a really fast way to show you visually that, that everything's cool [00:34:00] with her. She comes home and everything that society puts on us, whether it's plucking, having to pluck things off of our face or seeing all the Facebook posts.
[00:34:08] So everyone that's in relationships or getting the call from your friend that. What your married friend complaining about there right. You know, and then going, you don't understand cuz you're single. All of that stuff kind of just starts encroaching and the journey's actually her figuring out that she's actually happy where she was at when we started
[00:34:24] Leigh: the film.
[00:34:24] Incredible. Because the usual trajectory is. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, lonely heart, miss lonely heart. And then the journey to get to happiness, which is the partner. Yeah. And so this is showing the happiness and then as the journey goes on, the unhappiness that sets in as they get closer and closer to being forced into partnership.
[00:34:48] Really? Yeah. And then the discovery I presume of no, the happiness is, was there. This is not, this is an external. It was already here. Yeah. Incredible. That sounds really [00:35:00] moving with the father and the, you know, the, the family tension in the center of it. And I love, love, love the phrase and unromantic. What did you say?
[00:35:08] Unromantic romantic comedy. It's a
[00:35:10] Cris: coming of middle age story. Wrapped in an unromantic comedy,
[00:35:14] Leigh: both of those phrases are so clever because they're just spins on thing that you hear all the time. But as soon as you say both of those phrases, it's I know what it is. I know the vibe you're going for the tone and I haven't seen it before.
[00:35:26] That's
[00:35:26] Cris: rad. I mean, my whole mission is to give women like us in our age, the insight to see somebody complicated and flawed of our age, unapologetic about. Yes. And grappling with the things we grapple with
[00:35:39] Leigh: and not a side character. No, there's plenty of UN like that sidekick character. That's a wacky sidekick and she's, it's
[00:35:46] Cris: quirky.
[00:35:46] That wants to, oh, she just wants to be single that's quirky. Yeah. No, that's just a
[00:35:50] Leigh: decision. It's a choice. You're you're like this person is gonna be in their full humanity as a single
[00:35:56] Cris: person. Yeah. And then I want younger women to [00:36:00] see. A film where a woman's allowed to be all those things. Yeah. I had a table read early on and one of the, my friend, Caroline, who's one of the producers on this as well, such a wonderful creative human being.
[00:36:12] And she's a casting director who's jumping into producing and, but she helped me pull this cast together. And she brought in this young woman who's in her twenties. There's very few characters in their twenties. And I did that by design. Actors of that. Like all of the actresses have to be in their forties.
[00:36:27] I've had them like, what about this person? And I'm like, Nope, you're young now because it's been a couple years. I'm like, oh, that person now aged in. Okay. Maybe. Yeah. but cuz I've been very steadfast about that, but that actress wrote. after the table read. And it was one of the most touching things, cuz I was like, this is exactly what I was trying to do is she wrote Caroline who then forwarded it to me, thanking me for writing the script where she got to see love and romance from a different point of view because she's an introvert and had been wondering herself if there was something wrong with herself.
[00:36:59] And then she got to [00:37:00] read and be part of this thing where she's like, wow, no, there's nothing wrong with you. We're all on our own journeys. And my heart just is why I
[00:37:08] Leigh: wrote this. So moving. so validating incredible.
[00:37:13] Cris: It's so validating and also just that's that's the success like? That's the success I want is we're in a theater and I hear people laugh or reaction to something I've written and made for them, but also to be able to touch people that way.
[00:37:26] I
[00:37:26] Leigh: love that I wanna speak it into existence. So I want you to tell me, what's your dream in terms. The dream financing, the dream development company, the dream release, like what, tell me it like what's what does it look like if you were talking about it now and it was happening.
[00:37:43] Cris: So I have a really great producing team, which the lead producer is BD Gelle and she's really fantastic.
[00:37:48] And she's up and coming. She's had films at Tribeca and stuff like that. And excellent. I can't like, we're like peas in a pod trying to figure this out. And she's got other movies that are in the slate too. And I'll try to help because like you said, the whole cheerleading [00:38:00] thing is we gotta help each other.
[00:38:01] We all rise right together. And the dream would be to find a woman who's actually willing to finance this female led production team. But also those are really hard to find female investors are few and far between for film. And I wish that was was different because. Equity would change. Yeah. The kinds of stories we get told would change.
[00:38:22] So
[00:38:22] Leigh: people like Mindy cowing and Reese wither Spooner, are they? Well, they're TV.
[00:38:26] Cris: I don't know. Reese stood wild as well, but she really, and I love Reese. Don't get me wrong and I think she's done a lot, but I often see her stuff and she's in 'em and this isn't a. Film,
[00:38:37] Leigh: they're stuck by their own.
[00:38:39] Cris: As much as I, I love her.
[00:38:40] I want actually this film to have be a platform for me to be able to broaden people's idea of who can play what characters. And so the lead is actually a biracial actress in she's British her. Name's Sophia Kato. So anyone out there who knows her, let me know. I love that. So she's attached. No, she's not
[00:38:57] Leigh: attached.
[00:38:58] I'm saying, oh, that's the, oh, we're talking about our [00:39:00] dreams. I asked you to talk about your dreams. You were doing such a good job of talking, like it's going happening. That I got confused for a second. okay. I see her she's in it.
[00:39:09] Cris: Yeah. So she, so Sophie is a British actress. She's got a Tony nomination and an award.
[00:39:14] She won, won for raisin in the son. I wanna say she won the, won it and got. Nominated for crucible on Broadway. I think she's got a few BTO nominations. She has an Emmy nomination. She has an academy award nomination and has never been given a lead. Wow. She's in her early fifties and she's never been given a lead and she is such a fantastic
[00:39:32] Leigh: actress.
[00:39:33] I'm. I'm visioning this incredible
[00:39:36] Cris: alignment. So the father, I want someone like Jeff Bridges or Michael Douglas, the mom's passed away. And it's very much my story. My, I couldn't have written the script until both of my parents passed away because a lot of. The weight I felt about being in a relationship to a certain extent was them, it was their
[00:39:53] Leigh: desires being put on you.
[00:39:55] Cris: And so the dream is to get it's a 5 million budget and it's to get [00:40:00] those kind of caliber actors attached and then done with you directing of course, with me directing. Yeah. And it's gets shot in LA cuz it takes place in LA and a little bit in Santa Barbara, but the Santa Barbara, part's just a house that can be done at Palisades or
[00:40:13] Leigh: Malibu.
[00:40:14] Sounds like you have a lot of great people already on your side. And
[00:40:18] Cris: you, that's what I'm working on. That's what they tell you. You build a good team around you, especially on your first film and that's what I'm
[00:40:25] Leigh: working on. Okay. So, so by this time, next year, you're in the awards, contender, uh,
[00:40:30] Cris: festivals and somebody asks me, I go for the future.
[00:40:33] I go, I see an academy nomination. That's what I
[00:40:35] Leigh: see. I love it. She's just going right for it. Yeah. I love it. I'm always like, this is why I ask because I am. Ironically, I'm not a great visionary in the sense that I tend to live like two weeks behind. So I'll be thinking about things that happened the last week or the week before.
[00:40:52] And then I think ahead about three or four months maybe. So I, I love, I'm always like dreams, goals. I guess I should [00:41:00] get some of those. Well, I'm like respond, I'm creating, but I'm also responding. And I do wish I got a little bit better at the longer term visions. And so I love. You're speaking that into existence.
[00:41:11] So with such assurety and feeling into it, cuz I think that makes such a huge difference. I think that, and there's many ways to create it's who we are. We're creative to be alive is to be creative period. End of story. People misunderstand that creative means. That they're artistic. That's a different thing.
[00:41:27] Every single human is creative. Not every single human is artistic, which does not mean they should not engage in the arts because I think they should. But there is a different thing. What people tend to say about this person has natural talent. That means they, I think tend towards the artistic, but if we're just talking about creativity, which we are, and.
[00:41:43] Every single person's creative. I think a way to really maximize one's own creativity is to feel into something as if it's already happened as if it's assured you know, and then you can let it settle into your bones and your heart and your mind and fix that into yourself. And I think it [00:42:00]really does.
[00:42:00] Help with one's trajectory. So I'm good at creating in the moment. I'm not as good about that. Remembering to fix things into my heart and mind because my brain will go. That seems so unbelievable and so unrealistic. And that, and that's the trick of it is to override that part of you that says that's unrealistic and whatnot, and just tuck it aside.
[00:42:20] Okay. I hear you. I get your skepticism in your doubt. You're over here, that voice has been. Now I'm going to make some space for the voice that is going to go. Yeah. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. We're gonna get an Oscar. Of course. We're gonna be standing on stage. I can see I'm imagining my outfit right now.
[00:42:33] Like what? Yeah, let's talk about this. Are we gonna do sequin or are we, are we doing off the shoulder? What's happening? So you're doing all the things. You're ticking, all of the boxes in all of the ways
[00:42:42] Cris: we have to give ourselves permission. Right. Especially as women cuz we're taught. We can't like, I think that's how we've been raised.
[00:42:47] And I don't know about younger generations so far. Cause I think they're told a lot. That they can be whatever they want or make sure you go into stem if that's what you like, which I love all of that. Yeah. They're
[00:42:57] Leigh: amazing. But our generation I'm, I'm definitely [00:43:00] not in the camp of dogging on millennials and whatnot.
[00:43:02] Yeah. And the, and the next, I, I think they're amazing.
[00:43:05] Cris: I think millennials are amazing in gen Z. That's coming up is amazing. And God know, I don't know why they're into nineties clothing,
[00:43:10] Leigh: but that's okay. Yeah. oh my God, girl. I keep calling. I keep saying to them, I'm like, you're gonna regret. Trust me as a person who lived through it, the baggy clothes and the dad sneakers.
[00:43:19] No, it's not gonna fly I'm I, God blessed it. This has been an
[00:43:22] Cris: awesome conversation.
[00:43:24] Leigh: I feel we couldn't go and go, but I really loved hearing what you're doing and I'm very inspired by not just the way you're going about it, which I think is really cool. And just pulling people in really sticking to your gums about who you want to be in the center of this project.
[00:43:39] But I'm really moved by, by the script itself, from what I, what I'm hearing, all of the, the themes. And just the tone. I'm probably enough about me to know that like Edy and the Dred genre is my FA because I think personally it most closely resembles life. And what you've been talking about really has so much potential for both comedy and [00:44:00] drama.
[00:44:00] And I can envision. All of the range of emotion. And I just think it's ripe and ready and I'm really excited to hear about it. And to hopefully we'll just, this will, we'll just put like the ellipse at the end of this conversation dot and we'll just keep chatting and hopefully there'll be more alignment now that I know now that I know all of the details it's oh, when I hear about people that are looking for something or wanna jump in on something it's oh, connected to my friend.
[00:44:23] I, this might be a good
[00:44:25] Cris: match. That's awesome. That's and that's part of what I wanted to do this podcast for too is to, so you're someone, we didn't talk about it initially, but we've only met in person once and yet we've kept in touch on social media and here, but what I'm getting at is it's about making those connections and keeping them alive.
[00:44:42] Yeah. And then speaking what you want. Your truth or having these conversations, and this is part of the journey, right? Right. You may think of someone to connect me to, you may not, but these conversations help me be better in my meetings too.
[00:44:55] Yeah.
[00:44:56] Leigh: I think when you work in LA and you're in and around the industry, you have that [00:45:00] mental Rolodex.
[00:45:01] And I think there are plenty of people who use the mental Rolodex only for themselves. It's like tick. Oh, okay. This person is worth knowing because they could help me down the line. Fortunately, I'm not that kind of person, which means I generally don't attract those kinds of people. The people that I hang with are the people where it's like, the Rolodex is used for everyone.
[00:45:17] It's like, oh wow, like we're connectors. And that's, I think the best, the best folks in the industry I'm in Hollywood gets a lot of shit from the outside. And of course it's well deserved in a lot of cases, but I do think as a whole, there's a lot of really great people in the industry. There's the normalization of helping each other, because it is so collaborative, you cannot get things done without collaborating.
[00:45:38] And so it's interesting. We didn't get into it, but it's like, as you know, I was, you know, adjacent, I was orbiting around the industry and then I went side, stepped into the book world and then more recently got back in because I'm doing a lot of climate. Storytelling work with screenwriters and stuff like that.
[00:45:52] And there are old connections that pop up in some funny ways that make me laugh in terms of, oh my gosh, I had this weird interaction [00:46:00] with this person and, and here they are again. And thank God. There was no bridges burned that could have been back then because. Here we are 15 years later in the same realm again.
[00:46:09] And it's all good, but it makes me laugh cuz it's like Hollywood is not as big as you think it is. And people's memories aren't as long or as short, I guess I should say. And so it's just fun to reconnect with everybody and especially with you and just hear what you're up to. And also what's really cool about old friends.
[00:46:24] In the industry is the evolution of where, what, where you were at and what you're working on then and where you're at and what you're working on now. So I'm really grateful that you invited me and we got to just catch up and hear what's going on. And I really, I can't wait to, I can't wait for the
[00:46:38] Cris: next, is there anything you want people to
[00:46:40] Leigh: know about?
[00:46:41] Yeah. I have some things to say real briefly because my focus is really around the role of screenwriters in the climate movement and. What I want screenwriters to think about. So a lot of people will talk about sustainable production, so they will talk about diesel generators, plastic onset, that the idea of sustainability is always [00:47:00] focused on production.
[00:47:00] And what I want screenwriters to think about is the script of course, is the blueprint. So this, the only reason that they're moving to all of those locations, The only reason that they're flying from one place to another is because it started with the script. And there is a real empowerment. If you can revise a script for budget, which you can and always have to do, you can revise a script for climate.
[00:47:20] So do you need that scene in the airplane? Do you need that fast card? Do you need, you know, you can do basically an emissions. Pass on your script as you're in the pre-pro process and look at it from a climate standpoint. And so I want folks to think about that, but I also just wanna empower screenwriters that this idea of climate storytelling has always been people think, oh, it means either environmental documentary, or it means a dystopian.
[00:47:45] Sci-fi where the earth has already been trashed. And now we're, we're struggling against which all of which is valid and. Pieces are not, are very much alive as, as far as people's interest and what's being made. But there's also the idea. Like I like to say to people, what if in [00:48:00] ocean's 11, they were, the heist was a piece of carbon capture technology.
[00:48:04] It's still a sexy, slick, cool movie, but there's this little bit of. Climate stuff in the center of it. And so I think what we are opening up to, and what we're getting to this is like this beginning of this movement around there's romcoms that can have a climate focus, there's heist movies. Like I said, any kind of a genre because we are living in it right now.
[00:48:24] It's no longer like, oh, in the future, climate change is gonna happen. It's happening now. And so I guess my plug. Say you probably have existing scripts that can be adapted, whether it's a theme or a character, or even an obstacle for them, like a natural weather event, that's way lays your character. You can think about your scripts in terms of climate.
[00:48:42] And, and think about that also in terms of what's gonna happen when it goes into production. Do we need all of these props and costumes and things like how can I look at the script from a sustainability standpoint without changing the story, but just as we. Budget and making amendments for budget. We can do that for climate too.
[00:48:58] So that would, that's my [00:49:00] soapbox moment. There
[00:49:02] Cris: no, that's great. I don't know if I'm always, I've got all kinds of bins that I put things in so that I'm, I'm being sustainable in my house. And I have my bags, I take the trader Joe's, but I don't know that I thought of it quite that way. And that's a great that's what like that carbon capture, whatever for a heist film.
[00:49:16] That's a great idea. Right?
[00:49:17] Leigh: I. I keep saying it to people and I'm like one of these days, someone will, it's not the movie that I'm gonna write, but someone
[00:49:23] Cris: should, yeah. Maybe someone who's listening to this will do it. Yeah. Free idea. Um, well thank you so much, Lee. And thank
[00:49:29] Leigh: you. And, and we'll talk soon. Yeah, we'll talk soon.
[00:49:32] Okay.
[00:49:32] Cris: Bye Chris. Thank you so much for tuning into Bush. Will spinster. If any of these conversations are resonating with you, please subscribe on apple podcast, Google podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast, you can find BLIS will spinster on Instagram and Twitter and through our website, bliss will spinster.com.
[00:49:48] Again, thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next week go find your happy.