The Script I Would Write If I Was Trying To Break In Right Now

How I would try to get my particular set of screenwriting skills noticed by as many industry professionals as possible.

If I was trying to break into the industry in 2025, I would write a female-driven version of Uncut Gems. More about why in a minute.

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It was a different industry when I broke in back in the middle of 2011.

When it happened, I didn’t know the first thing about working as a screenwriter. I had no training, no schooling. I was — weirdly enough — a poet and an academic. I was getting ready to start a creative writing professor gig that fall.

But then a friend of mine from my MFA days had his first novel come out. It got ecstatic reviews. And when that novel was optioned by a couple of literary agents at a boutique agency that no longer exists, my friend took advantage of the situation. He wrote some original scripts that not only got him repped by those agents, but also got him hired as a staff writer on a cable show. Those scripts also got him a handful of pilot deals. In fact, one of those breaking-in scripts was the pilot of a show that would debut a few years later, called True Detective. You’ve probably heard of it.

As you can imagine, this was all terribly inspiring to me. I had always wanted to make movies and television, but I was a small town hick type and I always figured you needed connections to make it in Hollywood. Or, you needed a big financial safety net.

At this point of my life I was 35 years of age with two young children. I had never made more than twenty-three thousand dollars in a year, so I had no savings. I just didn’t see a path. Especially with my first decent-paying job as a tenure track professor just on the horizon.

But after my friend Nic broke in on the strength of his writing and his will, I suddenly had a point of contact in the industry and a model for how to approach breaking in. So I took a crack at writing a script or two of my own before my professor gig started. Nic passed those scripts along to his agents, they responded positively, and long story short, a few months later I found myself getting paid to write scripts.

The script that broke me in was a pilot for a rural crime show I called Tangle Eye. It had some personal shit in it, was told pretty much like a Spaghetti Western, and was set in the area where I grew up: a rural town in Washington state that bordered the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation.

I didn’t know what I was doing back then, so I was extremely lucky that this script ended up positioning me really well for a screenwriting career. It directly led to me getting hired for the writing staff of a new TV show called Longmire, which took place in Wyoming in a similar storytelling arena as my pilot.

I like to think I know quite a bit more about the industry now than I did back then. Which is why I probably wouldn’t write my Tangle Eye pilot if I was trying to break-in now in 2025. I’d write something else.

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So, back to Uncut Gems.

A female-driven version of that movie is probably what I’d write these days. I don’t mean I’d directly ripoff the exact story of the Safdie brothers’ Adam Sandler vehicle. But I’d try to write that type of story. A gritty, funny, rather amoral star vehicle. It would take place in a milieu I knew inside and out (not NYC). It would be propulsive and shocking. It would have a relentless ticking clock and some real holy shit moments.

I happen to think this type of script — if it was written very well — would get passed around the industry by actual working professionals and get actively read by many of them.

It may sound strange or cynical, but I don’t really believe that a breaking-in script’s purpose is to make a good movie or TV show. I mean, it’d be amazing if it also did that.

I think a breaking-in script’s primary purpose is to be a writer’s first step to getting paid to write. You’re not a professional screenwriter until that happens.

Your goal with this early script is to have it become your passport into rooms and zooms and discussions and email exchanges with Hollywood professionals: agents, producers, executives, directors, actors, actresses. That is, the people who can help you get paid to write.

And to get your script read by these people, you need to have written something that these industry professionals will see as rocket fuel for their own careers.

Industry people aren’t philanthropists. They aren’t even gatekeepers. (Or, they shouldn’t be.) They’re usually just stressed-out people trying to stay afloat in a cutthroat industry that cycles through existential crises every three months or so.

So, if you want to get actual working industry people actually interested in you as a writer, you should probably give them the impression that you’re going to help their career fortunes.

Until you do that, you’re either going to be ignored or — at best — humored. But if someone in the entertainment industry gets the notion that your writing might actually help them get a little more ahead, trust me, they’ll suddenly become very interested in you. They’ll even laugh at your dumb jokes.

A female-driven Uncut Gems type of script is how I would try to make that happen.

Partially it’s because I like writing pulpy shit. I’m anti-prestige. I think my strengths are character, voice, offbeat humor, and little odd moments of lyricism. An Uncut Gems type of script would help me put all of those qualities on display. It might even be fun and rewarding to write.

But more importantly, I think such a script would also garner the curiosity and interest of working professionals.

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Let’s imagine three different actresses at three different stages of their careers.

The first is Sophie Thatcher. She’s awesome. She’s one of the breakouts of Yellowjackets. She’s the lead of Companion and is one of the three leads of Heretic. She’s one of the few actresses in their 20s who has the vibes and chops of the cool young actresses of the late ‘80s-early ‘90s like Patricia Arquette, Parker Posey, Rosanna Arquette, Juliette Lewis, Uma Thurman, Winona Ryder. She’s a movie star in the making.

The second is Anne Hathaway. She’s also awesome. She’s been an established movie star for awhile now. In collective memory, she evokes crowd-pleasing rom coms and princess movies, though she’s demonstrated that she’s capable of playing almost anything.

The third is Viola Davis. Also (obviously) awesome. She’s an Oscar-winning actress who has also played a key role in big studio franchises and led a long-running hit TV show. In terms of sheer talent, she might very well be America’s greatest living actress.

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What do all three actresses have in common, other than being on my dream list of collaborators?

I could see all three of them potentially being interested in starring in their own Uncut Gems type of movie.

This Uncut Gems-esque movie I’m proposing would be an acting showcase type of movie. It wouldn’t have to be a big budget production to be entertaining. And if an actress of high caliber was interested, I think it could be tailored to fit their particular profile and strengths. It might even get financed on the value of the lead actress alone.

For a rising star like Sophie Thatcher, an Uncut Gems type movie could be an opportunity to carry a movie specifically built around her. It could be an auteur-driven piece that could do for her career what, say, the Safdie brothers’ Good Time helped do for Robert Pattinson. Not just show off a young star’s immense talent, but also their cool taste.

For an established star like Anne Hathaway, an Uncut Gems type of movie would be a chance to step outside of her normal persona and remind people what they love about her, while also showing off a different side of her talent. Not unlike what Uncut Gems itself did for Adam Sandler, or True Detective did for Matthew McConaughey.

And for a living legend like Viola Davis, an Uncut Gems type of star vehicle could be a creative burst at the start of the mature phase of her career. Perhaps how The Verdict helped kickoff a really great stage of Paul Newman’s career at around the same age.

Of course, actresses also often just play a part because it calls to them. But there’s always a strategic plan at work in terms of career-building. And if your script could be part of that strategic plan, then suddenly you’ll find yourself actively engaged by the industry.

This showcase lead role element is why I think a female-driven Uncut Gems type of script could really gain traction and get passed-around to a degree that a different, equally well-written feature script might not.

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As far as I can tell, the two most valuable quantities in Hollywood are

1. a recognizable intellectual property (IP)

2. a bankable star

If you have access to either of these, you’re way way ahead of the competition. And if you’re an aspiring professional screenwriter, you’re not going to gain access to a valuable IP.

But if you write a script with a holy shit amazing lead role, you might gain access to a bankable star.

I would write a female-driven script because I think there’s a bunch of really interesting actresses working in Hollywood right now. And I also think there’s not nearly enough great roles available to them. I mean, there are quite a few pretty good roles in good movies. But there seems to be a relative dearth of scripts designed to be an absolute acting tour de force for women.

I think one reason Anora broke through the way it did last year is because it provided exactly that — a showcase for Mikey Madison to step forward as a total package movie star. (It also happened to help that Anora is just a great movie overall — my favorite movie of 2024, fwiw).

If you happen to write a script that looks like it could be the next Anora, or the female version of Uncut Gems, a whole array of working Hollywood people might seize upon it.

For speculative examples, this is just using our Thatcher/Hathaway/Davis triumvirate as our anchor:

A junior agent at CAA. If that agent hears about this script, he or she is going to be intrigued enough to check it out. Because if, say, Anne Hathaway is looking for an exciting change-of-pace star vehicle and this junior agent delivers one to her, that junior agent is making a very good case for joining Hathaway’s team.

An intern in the CAA mailroom. If that intern is wanting to get on the desk of a hotshot junior agent, bringing this potential Hathaway script to that hotshot junior agent is a really good ticket to doing exactly that.

A producer at an independently financed studio. If that producer has been dying to work with Viola Davis but hasn’t been able to find the right vehicle, this female driven Uncut Gems script could finally connect that producer to Ms. Davis.

A producer’s assistant at an independent studio. If this producer’s assistant wants to move from support staff to producer, this script connecting their boss to his favorite actress would be the perfect ticket. If this assistant gets word of such a script, or perhaps even receives a cold email with a promising logline along these lines, chances are they’ll give the script a cursory look. Just in case.

A talented television director. She is hoping to make the jump to (or make a return to) directing features. Let’s say that director worked with Thatcher and really hit it off during the making of Yellowjackets. If that director hears about a script that could be the next Anora, bringing it to Thatcher could be a path to them doing a cool indie feature together. That television director will be quite keen to check out this script. Just in case.

A junior studio executive. She is a huge fan of a really good director who doesn’t necessarily write their own scripts — let’s say Hell or High Water director David Mackenzie — and wants to work with him. And let’s say this exec has heard that Mackenzie is a huge Viola Davis fan (I’m making this all up, by the way). If this exec hears from her assistant that there’s a really strong feature script from a new writer that could have an awards-worthy role for Ms. Davis, that exec might check out the script. Just in case.

A costume designer. If a costume designer loves working with Anne Hathaway and is friends with her, and hears about a cool edgy script that might give her and Anne a chance to do something creative together, she might check out that script. Just in case.

You get the idea.

A script that’s built around an awards- or buzz-worthy lead role for a notable actress has a high potential to get read with interest by multiple industry people. Simply because such a script could be a career-boosting lottery ticket for a whole lot of working industry people. Simply because it could link them to a very valuable commodity.

Right now, we have more great movie star worthy actresses actively working in Hollywood than we have lead character roles worthy of them. There’s a supply-and-demand issue that could be to an aspiring screenwriter’s advantage.

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Unstated in all of this — my imaginary female-driven Uncut Gems script would also be a story I wanted to tell and that I passionately believed in. All of that should be a given. But if you want to be a working screenwriter in the industry, by necessity there must be a shit ton of stories that you would want to tell and that you would passionately believe in. It’s just the nature of the vocation.

Overall, I’d say that most of my paying gigs as a screenwriting have started with a general meeting. Some industry professional had read either Tangle Eye (that breaking-in script I wrote) or The Olympian (my first feature script) and wanted to meet with me.

In 98% of these meetings, these industry professionals weren’t interested in actually making Tangle Eye or The Olympian. They met with me because something about Tangle Eye or The Olympian made them curious whether I would be a good match for some other project they wanted written. This was usually some property they already controlled, or were interested in acquiring.

When you’re breaking in, you don’t just want pats on the back (though they’re certainly nice). What you really want is to make as many fans within the industry as you can and get as many working professionals as possible to believe in your ability to help raise their professional prospects and further their creative goals.

It’s one thing to get a script from someone who wants feedback. It’s another thing to get a script that might actually help you solve your own professional problems. Unless you’re a saint — and I am not — you’re going to read the second script with more interest than the first.

That’s why I think — unless you’re someone powerful’s relative — just writing “a good script” won’t be enough to break you into the industry. Especially not these days.

But what might be enough to break you into the industry — even during a period of contraction and dread — is an excellent script that multiple professionals in the industry see as potential rocket fuel for their own career fortunes.

Your script has to give actual working industry professionals — as opposed to say a teacher or a paid critiquer from a website service — a compelling reason to get invested in it. That means story, yes. Emotion, sure. A good first ten pages, etc etc.

But your script also has to become currency within the actual industry as it actually exists in the present moment. I think a good way to do that is by offering up a lead role that could gain the attention of a Sophie Thatcher or a Anne Hathaway or a Viola Davis or a (your favorite actor or actress’s name here).

A script like that might get read. Not by everyone, but perhaps by someone in the industry who is actively looking for a cool star vehicle type script to accomplish their own goals.

And even if this script never lands in an intended actresses’ hands, perhaps just the possibility of it doing so will get you on the radar of some working industry professional — like a young assistant whose taste her boss trusts — who will unexpectedly become the first step to your first paying gig.

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Okay. That’s it. As always, take it or leave it. Either way, at least you’re getting your money’s worth.

In the meanwhile, please indulge me as I do a little bonus self-promotion. I’ve got a couple of big projects rolling out this year.

1. On May 8th on Peacock, the first three episodes of season two of Poker Face will come out. There are twelve episodes altogether — a new episode dropping each week after that opening trio.

   

   
   I was lucky enough to step in and showrun season two. My main goal going in was not to screw up one of my favorite shows. First reviews are coming out today and it’s a relief that people seem to be enjoying the season.

2. On August 22nd, Americana, my first picture as a writer-director will finally hit theaters. Perhaps at some point I can tell the story about why it took over two years to get the film released after a successful SXSW debut and pretty generous initial reviews. It’s nothing too crazy, just a result of bad timing when our film’s independent studio filed for bankruptcy.

   

   Anyway, the real story is that I’m ecstatic people will get to see the movie. I’m awfully proud of it. Earlier this week, Entertainment Weekly ran a really nice piece on it as part of their summer movie preview. It includes great quotes from Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser, and Halsey where they discuss their characters and the film in general.
   

3. And finally, one of my oldest friends — and one of my favorite poets — Tim VanDyke started off a longform interview with me where we talk about poetry, myth, writing, and on and on. More to come.