A Best Picture nom would put him one past John Huston, another hero.
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DEADLINE: Oscar nominations are underway.
What does it mean to you?
Eric Roth, “Killers of the Flower Moon"Getty/Everett
DEADLINE: What did those scripts have that any of yours do not?
ROTH: Were they perfect scripts?
But they were turned into the most incredible movies, just beyond great.
From left: Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro andLeonardo DiCaprioin ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’Melinda Sue Gordon/Paramount Pictures/Everett Collection
Those are the ones that inspire writers like me to do what we do.
DEADLINE: Its the Oscar season midpoint.
When Killers opened in theaters, none of you got to promote because of the strikes.
ROTH: That process was what, seven or eight years?
We honored the people this was really about, telling the story through Lilys character Mollie.
This was the right movie, and Marty did something that equaled his vision and his maestro status.
Im left feeling Im part of what will be a great legacy.
Ive come away feeling the movie says something that will hopefully last.
ROTH: Im certainly not a director.
There are very few pure screenwriters left at all, it kind of feels like a dying breed.
DEADLINE: Why have you stayed in this lane so long?
That goes with the number of actors and actresses putting the words on the page for them.
DEADLINE: You were a boxer as a kid.
Were you any good?
ROTH: Golden Gloves.
I was getting my ass kicked every day, leaving high school.
We lived in Bedford Stuyvesant, pretty tough place, and the kids were not nice.
And I said, I got to do something about this.
My dad had one piece of advice for me.
DEADLINE: Did it work?
ROTH: Yes, and no.
He came after me again, but this time he brought three friends.
That was a problem.
I was able to stay away and win on points.
I think I knocked one guy out.
I never minded getting hit.
Kids were writing swastikas on a synagogue, and somebody told me a certain guy had done it.
Big kid, too.
And you walked home like gladiators, feeling like such big tough guys.
DEADLINE: Did you gain his respect, maybe turn him around?
ROTH: The sad part was he and his brother both died in Vietnam.
I have no clue, but I always felt terrible about that.
DEADLINE: They say you learn everything about yourself when you get punched in the face during a fight.
I think I understand how youve carried this boxing thing into screenwriting.
Your job description promises you will take punches, because you are replaceable and not in control.
How do you think being a scrapper has helped you in this game?
Early on, I was working with Stuart Rosenberg, who had been my mentor at AFI.
DEADLINE: Cool Hand Luke, The Pope of Greenwich Village.
ROTH: Nice man and pretty good filmmaker.
Finally he said, Im going to tell you what.
Leave it in the script, but Im not going to shoot it.
End of conversation, when you know whos the boss.
But I learned you better figure out another way to be heard, unless you want to go direct.
You cant name on one hand working well-known screenwriters anymore.
Theyre all writer directors.
DEADLINE: Again, why not you?
ROTH: I had some opportunities to direct, and I directed shorts in college and was pretty good.
But honestly, I had a lot of kids.
Beyond the sentimental, I never felt I had the math for directing.
You have to be able to visualize what its going to look like.
Its fine when its in your head, fanciful on the page.
ROTH: Im good with a deadline, knowing that Im going to fudge an extra two weeks.
Well, guess what?
Youre not seeing them before the directors going to see em.
DEADLINE: You dont want to take notes?
ROTH: Not from them.
Since when are you one of my producers?
The key for me is you attempt to alleviate anxiety.
And when someones giving you, how are you doing?
Hows it coming along?
I know what Im doing.
Youll get your script.
Hopefully youll like it as much as I do.
I dont mind if its a director whos saying, how are we doing?
They check in occasionally, thats fine.
Once, I was very, very late.
For whatever creative reasons I was having issues.
Im not sure thats the best advice for people who want to get paid and have a good reputation.
Now, they let me write fairly long ones because my prose is my stock in trade.
Not many, but some say, I can figure this one out.
if theyre not a writer?
Ill give an example.
DEADLINE: I remember covering The Horse Whisperer book rights auction.
Like, okay, congratulations, but lets move on.
We saw that picture differently.
He was always worried about breaking the mold of the book, and I wasnt as hidebound with that.
And eventually I thought, you know what?
Hes going to look in that mirror and see me there and not want me there.
And thats what happened.
That was one of the times I got my feelings hurt.
Ive been taken off other movies, thats not the only time Ive been rewritten.
But the reason was that weekend I was to go to give a talk at the Austin Film Festival.
DEADLINE: Hard for the Oscar winner to puff his chest in Texas…
ROTH: Exactly.
So I have this in the back of my head.
Ill give you another example of that.
So, it was back to earth.
Its part of the game.
DEADLINE: Killers of the Flower Moon lands in the win column.
ROTH: Not the writer, unless you have three or four of those.
Then youre in trouble.
I think its on the director.
DEADLINE: Whats the closest youve come to thinking, Im in trouble?
ROTH: Thats a great question.
Maybe its my arrogance.
Ive always felt that the material and the script Ive written was equal to the task.
Maybe it wasnt going to be as commercial as I thought it would be.
I did a little movie calledLucky You, that was a failure.
I wanted just to have a small little love story, set in the world of gambling.
And I thought he was going to add something that I had missed and wasnt giving in the screenplay.
He had some idea about Las Vegas.
He wanted to convey something about gambling, something about love.
And none of that quite came out.
I dont know if it was from his illness or what.
I felt like maybe I didnt give him all I could have given in some sense.
I think she was supposed to be by any other name a prostitute.
Those two hooked up, and George Stevens was the director.
Its very glamorous and hes always kind of very superstitious, like a craps player.
Theres something about that I love; there are certain scenes that in movies seem so much bigger.
He walks out of the fog.
And the guy says, is that a man?
The other says, goddam right it is.
I love that kind of heroism.
Or James Dean in Giant, when they discover oil.
I like big scenes like that.
I think that was very apocryphal for what the movie was about.
Id have to think of each movie.
There is always a moment Id have a go at do something either heroic or romantic.
Jimmy Woods always called me a sappy dog heart.
And that was very romantic to me.
And I said, I just want to see you again.
I told that to Bradley Cooper, and he put it in A Star Born.
This is not from life, but theres a book I was reading called Wellness.
But they could see each other through the windows.
And they get little glimpses of their lives.
Each fantasizes what and who those people are.
He reaches his hand out and says, come with.
Thats all he says to her.
I think thats spectacular.
Im going to steal that fucker.
Im going to call the author and say, can I use this?
And otherwise, weve had great test screenings.
DEADLINE: Reuniting with the Forrest Gump stars and directorRobert Zemeckissounds fun.
Bob said, well, thats going to be really difficult.
The rights are controlled by Carl Sagans wife.
But he said, you know what?
I was thinking of you.
So I looked at it and I said, lets go.
Whats the worst that can happen?
I know its camera locked off in one living room.
Its very profound in its own way about life and death.
Hanks is great in it and Robin Wright is stupendous.
There are still some things to fix but weve had three test screenings and theyve gone great.
But theres these things these audience are telling us…
DEADLINE: Feels like the challenge is to not make it feel like a gimmick, a conceit.
Theres no coverage, just the cameras locked in on that room.
Hes done some things with this building.
Ramped up the stage and ceilings and this that.
Most interesting is we had to deepfake Tom Hanks.
So he comes on the screen, with Robin Wright and theyre both 22 years old.
Tom Hanks from Big, it looks like Robin Wright from Princess Pride and the audience just gasps.
They just take it as movie magic.
DEADLINE: Thats AI, then?
ROTH: Well, I guess it is.
What they do is digitalize everything from that particular age of Toms life.
Stills, videos, movies.
He then acts whatever age he is, 65 and its being simultaneously done as if hes 22.
I could write a love story with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright at 22, and youd believe it.
Maybe youd think its a gimmick, but youd forget about that.
Bob Zemeckis is a genius.
He just, beyond his imagination, what he can conceive of.
DEADLINE: Zemeckis stopped making live action films for awhile and spent years making these performance capture animated films.
Sounds like Here will be a chance for him to make a mark with this other new technology.
AI was a nasty word during the strikes.
With the right safeguards, is it the next great tool for filmmakers like Zemeckis?
ROTH: Well, it was great for this movie, lets put it that way.
If you want a 50-year-old actor to play a 23-year-old student, they can do it, perfectly.
With all the wisdom and all the lessons theyve learned, except they look like they did.
For Tom, that is the 22-year old in Splash or Big.
He would make his voice a little higher and a little more energetic in his performance.
It is extraordinary, really.
ROTH: Usually Im first and Ill go it alone, and then theyll come in.
I had scripts written before Marty came on, and then we did a lot of changing.
Marty got more and more involved in the writing, and I loved it.
Usually, its my vision first but this one and the one with Zemeckis was 50/50.
That was really as close a collaboration as Ive ever had.
I delivered a script of The Insider to Michael Mann and then he said, lets think about this.
And then he did some writing, and I did more writing.
Ali would be the other one.
We were in a really big hurry.
We could start in September when Will Smith was available.
Others are usually like Dune.
Denis [Villenueve] took my version, and then he ran it through his typewriter.
DEADLINE: You were okay with that?
ROTH: I am usually okay with it.
I dont want to start trouble, but there a few times it pissed me off.
DEADLINE: Steven Spielbergs Munich?
I wasnt happy that he replaced me.
He wrote as great a play as ever has been written, Angels in America.
We could debate things he did in Munich or different things I did.
I understood why Steven did it, even though I wasnt happy.
I might not answer it.
ROTH: lt wasnt that.
I think Tony was brought in for another reason.
I dont think it had to do with what was right or wrong about what was written.
I mean, they took all my Wikipedia down and just put Jew.
I was getting threatened.
People were saying they were going to come cut my throat.
DEADLINE: When was this?
ROTH: During the writing of it and the filming.
And I said, I think its a bad time.
I dont want someone coming and machine gunning me while Im standing on the stage.
Its the same thing, there are no easy answers.
Maybe some political solutions.
And thats what happened, in Munich.
So you get conflicted.
But I hadnt really written much of [Avners] mother.
But his father knew he was checking in, about that.
Most of that was gone.
I asked Steven and he said, I didnt even know this.
He just never really said anything.
So maybe its right.
But the movies a really good movie, so I would never knock it.
Its an important film.
DEADLINE: I recall the controversy.
I managed to break them both anyway, and I could never get away today holding that long.
ROTH: I dont think he made it up.
Im not sure, altogether.
DEADLINE: And what else would you expect a Mossad guy to say?
So you might take that whatever way you want.
That might be him saying, its all true.
After I did The Good Shepherd, I do read things differently.
Anything the Israeli governments announcing or Gaza is announcing, I take it with a grain of salt.
A lot is disinformation.
Then I can jump in and benefit from their imagination.
Like with Bob, on Forrest Gump.
I think I had overwritten it at one point.
Bob said, its too much, man.
He was a child molester?
Even though she was entitled to do that, she was still a murderer and will never overcome that.
So we took that out.
I always thought that was smart of Bob.
And then all the things, I mean, hes just in such an inventive man.
I love David more than life itself.
ROTH: Hes a perfectionist, yeah.
He makes a precise watch.
DEADLINE: Does that drive a writer crazy?
ROTH: Doesnt bother me.
Im not the one having to do the takes.
Of course, I did witness him work on Benjamin Button.
Thats the way he works and they respect him for it because its always great.
He has made as good movies as anybody in the last 20 years or more.
I loved that hummingbird, and I always felt it meant something.
David left that, for me.
So thats the kind of thing you go, okay, Ill take that.
ROTH: Marty will try anything.
He decided to do the script after a year of me writing it and then doing rewrites.
It was three or four years when Leonardo DiCaprio decided, I dont see myself playing that lawman.
Marty went off to do The Irishman, so there was more time in between.
DEADLINE: What are you thinking when that happens?
ROTH: I was a little stunned.
I said, its two in the morning.
He said, Leonardo has a big idea.
I said to myself, oh, Christ.
Another fucking actors got a giant idea.
Im used to it.
And on the way over, I figured out what Leonardo wanted to do, and it wasnt wrong.
He wanted to play the husband.
He felt uncomfortable playing the great white hope.
Hes really smart about story structure and knowing what works for him.
We did a couple of things [in the early version].
One was, we didnt ever make him the one who solved the mystery, in quotes.
It wasnt a mystery.
He had been a Texas Ranger, a stand up guy.
I did a lot of research, trying to find this guys flaw and I couldnt find one.
He wasnt an alcoholic, he was a decent guy.
Something his dad taught him.
ROTH: He came from a family of lawmen that, his brothers were all Texas Rangers.
His father executed a guy.
I think we made the right choice.
He says, we call that justice?
This was like convicting a man, for kicking a dog.
He killed people, and so it was a false justice.
It was always wrong.
I mean, theres no question about it.
I think that message is soul crushing.
DEADLINE: What happens after Marty tells you all that hard work was being scrapped?
ROTH: I started again the next day.
I wanted it explained to me, and we debated it, me, Marty and Leo.
Wed had a four-hour read through a couple days before that.
The first two hours were swimming, and then the thing started to bog a little.
And I was curious.
Something was bothering Leo, and then thats what it was.
But thats the beauty of this.
Nobody says, well, Eric, you fucked up.
It was just that that was the first incarnation, and then we changed it.
I worked my ass off to get it there.
I said, geez, Im exhausted watching all the writing that we did.
And it took over the whole suite.
There was so many scenes, many little scenes we [didnt use.]
I had a whole thing with gunfighters and this and that.
Anyway, we embraced and tried everything and eventually, it was his vision.
And God bless him.
Were about to maybe start another movie.
DEADLINE: Which one?
ROTH: Ill let you know when it becomes official.
Its a hell of a subject, man.
DEADLINE: I look at Marty, and Francis Coppola and Ridley Scott.
ROTH: I feel that way, too.
ROTH: I dont look at them as great ones.
I just say, I want to verify everything I write sees the light of day.
Even when I wrote an airport movie, like Airport 79.
Im not sure it was, but I remember feeling that way.
ROTH: I have a pretty good batting average.
Its called Shoot Out the Lights.
A love story like The Way We Were, about a musician and a doctor, like my wife.
DEADLINE: Which is?
ROTH: He killed a lot of indigenous people, Native Americans, so I could understand that one.
Once, Brad Pitt came to me and said, you want to do the Hatfields?
I said, great idea.
I love the story of that feud.
I wrote the script.
I told Brad, you got to jump man, because someones going to end up doing this.
He didnt jump quick enough.
And Kevin Costner did it on television.
Its still a great script, maybe they can still do it.
It starts with his grandfather leaving Ireland, a boy at 17.
A great immigrant story.
DEADLINE: And a stage version of High Noon?
We had two actors and theyve both fallen out.
The last one, I literally wanted to go through the Zoom and kill a motherfucker.
Thats how I felt.
ROTH: First of all, he gave me notes, which were fair enough.
I said, we will be linked at the hip.
I will do anything you want, but Im not turning this into a development situation.
Weve got a theater, weve got money, weve got backers.
A great director named Michael Arden who won the Tony last year [for Parade].
I said, were making this not fooling around.
Either commit or dont, and he seemed to commit.
And then he changed his mind like a week later, and I went crazy.
I really wanted to strangle him.
Part of that, I think has to do with this age thing.
I want these things to get done.
ROTH: Marty and I originally wrote a classic Western.
I dont think Killers now is a classic Western, more a cautionary tale.
High Noon had the same ingredients, but more from a John Ford point of view.
Michael has not been able to get the money it would cost to make.
But anyway, this has been a rough one.
So many people want to do it.
Its a beautiful Western.
Its a true story of The Searchers.
John Ford made a great iconic movie, but that one was not true.
Historically, they didnt rescue the girl when she was like Natalie Wood, 11 or whatever it was.
They didnt bring her back until shes 41 years old.
And by that time, she did not want to come.
She knew nothing about her past life.
Her name was Cynthia Ann Parker.
Four amazing guys who were part of this whole tale.
DEADLINE: Your decision to stay forever in screenwriter mode makes you something of a bystander in this.
How are you when a script you wrote and know is great languishes?
ROTH: Its disappointing.
Some heavyweight directors wanted to do it.
I love Michael, but he would never give it up.
I said, Michael, I want this made.
And he said, well, Im not going to let Ridley Scott do it.
I can do it.
ROTH: He wont on this one.
Till our dying day.
I just gave him trouble about it the other day.
DEADLINE: He too has his bucket list.
You adapt these sprawling books into sophisticated movies that play well in movie theaters.
ROTH: I feel slightly culpable, being one of the instruments to getHouse of Cardsmade.
If Id known the results…I dont know.
Ah, somebody else wouldve done something that had the same kind of influence.
And Im not sure its a good thing.
I watch things on smaller screens, but I love the [theatrical] experience.
Few and far between, probably.
But I still have hold out hope that Ill be remembered for a few things.
And we ended up at, I guess it was the Bruin.
We walked into the forecourt and the box office there.
It was completely dark.
We figured, disaster.
We looked at the ticket booth and it said all the shows were sold out till midnight.
And I said, oh my gosh.
Francis Coppola said, great movies never die.
