We chatted with movie screenwriter Howie Klausner, known for Space Cowboys, The Grace Card and The Secret Handshake, he is also writing up coming film God’s Not Dead 3.
The interview is split into two parts. In part one we chat about how Howie got into writing films and what it is like to write screenplays and in part two we focus on writing for Christian films and take a brief look at Howie’s upcoming projects including God’s Not Dead 3.
Part One:
Could you tell us a little about who you are and how you became a Christian?
I’m husband, a father and a lover of Jesus and a very flawed follower of Him I suppose like all of us.
I knew early on that telling stories was what I’m here on the planet to do and I’m a believer but I kinda walk both worlds, I like being as my friend Amy Grant says “I like being an artist who happens to be a Christian more than being a Christian artist.” But I’ve done a lot of Christian projects and I love them all, I have no apologies for any of them.
The way I became a Christian, actually my movie The Secret Handshake is largely based on that. I became a Christian the night my father died when I was 13 years old, I had a very well meaning young pastor basically wrestle me into the Kingdom in the Emergency Room, it’s almost a comical scene as horrible as it was, it was a very long time ago, but you know what, it stuck! It absolutely stuck!
I would love to tell you I have been on a steady upward path with the Lord but I haven’t, my 20’s were my lost years, about 30 or so I really said ‘wandering away from God is not a good idea’ and that was 20 something years ago, it hasn’t been easy but yeah man this is where I’m at, I’ve dedicated my life and my work to walking with Christ.
You’ve said that you’ve wanted to tell stories from a young age, how did you get into writing?
I was that kid who didn’t have any friends when I was in the 8th and 9th grade and this was pre-internet, pre-text, and so what I would do was write these semi-graphic novels about my friends and the school I was in and they would get passed around. I started getting popular that way, especially when one got taken up featuring teachers and I was suspended from school and all of a sudden I was the rebel writer, so I had an identity, as silly as that sounds, I think thats when I became a writer.
I was that guy in high school who wrote all the plays for the pep rallies and things like that. It was just a natural thing for me to say ‘you know what I really want to go to film school’, I actually moved to L.A to be an actor and I was an actor for a while but I finally figured out that I think I’m better behind the camera than in front of it.
After moving to L.A how did you first get into writing a film there?
It was a long, long journey, as I said I went to L.A to be an actor, I got into USC’s film school, but I was kind of a double minded man as the Bible says because I was like ‘I’ll take the degree but I’m just going to meet lots of future directors and they’ll put me in their films’.
I was actually doing theatre at USC and UCLA and I did commercials and things like that, I worked on a lot of low budget independent films right out of school and got very very discouraged and thought ‘man I’m on the wrong path here’.
When I put my life back on track as a Christian I realised this is what I’m here to do, I’m a good writer, I want to write, I have stories to tell and I’m going to dedicate this career to God and sure enough I sell Space Cowboys instead of a Christian film but you know what the Lord has His way. It took a while to get there, but that’s how I broke into the business. It was a big movie, it sold big and suddenly I had a career after trying for 20 years, overnight success.
When you come to writing where do you get your inspiration from?
I’m a true story kind of guy, I don’t really dream things up. I mean certainly a movie like Space Cowboys for instance was very fictional, but I was a kid who loved space, the space programme, the whole astronaut thing. It’s not that I scour the headlines or anything, for me personally real life or real life feeling stories, thats what connects the most to me, so thats really where I get my inspiration.
What is your biggest challenge when writing a film?
It’s a very frustrating practice because you know even when you’re doing it, even if its complete, its incomplete, a movie is not a screenplay, I love my craft and while you’re in that first draft, its the only creative control you have and you know its going to end and even when you’re finished, its not finished, it’s by its nature one of the most frustrating art crafts that there is.
What is your favourite thing about writing?
I think my favourite thing about writing is characters, I’m that strange guy who really starts to, I hesitate to say this, maintain a relationship with his characters, my wife and children think I’m insane anyway so it doesn’t matter. There is that moment when you’re writing and the characters really do begin to speak to you and that maybe the Holy Spirit, I don’t know but you feel like ‘I’m transcribing, I’m not making this up, he is saying this because he is saying this’ when that happens you know you’ve hit your stride on a script, it’s like yep I’m in.
How do you feel when you see your writing come to life on the screen?
It’s what you do it for, it’s why you do it. The only thing that really matters is when you sit in that room and words and characters that you wrote pop up on that screen. I’ve been doing this a long time and it still feels like the first time, you’re scared to death and yet just completely exhilarated.
Click here to read Part Two of our interview with Howie Klausner