I wrote this script in 2003, when I was a humble college student, sitting in my boxers and writing in my dorm room. And I came up with the idea of writing an action-based 'Snow White,' with this kind of Huntsman character as kind of a way in. So, that's something I'm sort of proud of.
My instinct is to absolutely recoil when talking about writing in a mechanistic way. Nothing could be dumber than writing a film or TV script based on prescriptions, on other peoples' ideas of what character should be.
My favorite thing to do is action-driven, emotionally-charged scenes. If it's not just two people talking in a room, but it's on the move and things are happening and it's chaotic, and emotion comes from the characters and from the action, and the fall-out ultimately changes the character relationships, that exactly the kind of stuff I like writing.
Everybody drinks," she said calmly. The Only Rational One. "Your sister doesn't." When rolled her eyes. "Forgive me, but I'm not going to spend my college years sitting soberly in my dorm room, writing about gay magicians." "Objection," Cath said, reaching for a burrito.
'Snow White and the Huntsman' was - I came in before they started shooting and basically worked on Charlize Theron's character for the most part. I guess I probably worked four or five weeks on that one and stayed during production a little bit with them.
I kind of approach action/non-action very much similarly. It has to be character-based and it has to kind of come off the theme and the overall arc.
Actually, I was writing as I was acting - it was kind of simultaneous. I wrote on 'E20', which started this whole 'EastEnders' journey. It's not like I was writing and then I got into acting - they have always been kind of together for me.
The idea of me writing something that I'd get to be in as well was not what I saw coming. I do think that life works that way. When you kind of let go of something and accept that it hasn't worked, it takes all the pressure off, and then you end up getting it.
I wish I'd had more fun in college. I spent a lot of time in my dorm room, reading or writing while listening to my Sarah McLachlan Pandora station.
What I ended up doing was kind of crafting an idea for a story, presenting it to a writer - a dear friend of mine, Brad Mirman - and he ended up writing a beautiful script. I should've done that a lot earlier.
Writing on my own versus co-writing kind of is the exact same thing because we don't sit in the same room when we write. We're always writing alone anyway.
Because I came to acting quite late, I kind of think one of the few attributes that I do have is that I try to be honest with the character, with the writing. I'm not a tricksy actor; I'm not exactly a scenery-chewing kind of actor.
I was very happy sitting alone at a dining room table, writing a script.
I don't love balls and sleeping beauties, that kind of thing. I think the great thing about 'Snow White' is those images have scarred me since I was a child with the Queen, the mirror, the taking of the heart, the huntsman and the enchanted forest.
I remember working with Jackie Chan on Shanghai Noon [2000], and when we were working on the script, I thought that my character thought about being an outlaw the way a kid today would think about being a rock star, as a way to impress girls. So it was just kind of a funny idea, but once we had that idea, it changed the character and made it something that was funnier to me to play.
Every time I do a movie, I'm reading the script, or if it's something I have coming up, I'm reading the script, and I just spend hours and hours and days and weeks and months going over the script and just writing a lot of different ideas down, finding a little dialogue or just coming up with ideas for scenes and moments and all that kind of stuff.
Prowling about the rooms, sitting down, getting up, stirring the fire, looking out the window, teasing my hair, sitting down to write, writing nothing, writing something and tearing it up...