Video Interview: John Patrick Shanley (Doubt)

The WGA has launched a new video interview series called "Angle On," focusing on screenwriters with notable movies in current release. Here is five minutes with playwright-screenwriter-director John Patrick Shanley whose screenwriting credits include Moonstruck (1987), for which Shanley received an Academy Award (Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen), Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), Alive (1993), and Congo (1995).

In this interview, Shanley places Doubt in the context of the changing Roman Catholic Church of the late 50s and early 60s, and also discusses how playwriting has changed over the last 40 years, how to adapt a play into a movie, how any screenwriter is, in a way, 'directing' the movie ("Screenwriting is point-of-view"), and how the best kind of writing "comes when you get grounded in the physical world... you connect with those things, then view human events through that connection."

It's a juicy little interview with lots of insight into the writing process. By the way, Shanley has already been nominated for a Golden Globe for his screenplay for the movie Doubt.