This interview is published in the September/October 2002 issue of SCREENTALK magazine.

Charles Bohl

Swimming Toward Success With Swimfan

By Rita Cook

Charles Bohl is such a likable guy. The fact that he has not allowed the glitz and glamour of Hollywood to affect his warmhearted demeanor, even after 16 years in the business, makes me like him even more. Born and raised in New York and a drama major at the University of North Carolina, Bohl eventually moved to Hollywood. It didn’t take him long to begin to carve out a name for himself, as many screenwriters do, with scripts that were bought by studios, but not produced. But his talent has not gone unnoticed. "Sometimes I feel like I am just a working stiff," he says. "You do it everyday and some days are good and some aren’t."With his latest script, Swimfan, released through 20th Century Fox earlier this month, Bohl has written a clever script about high school students which will challenge the minds of adults and teenagers alike.

Tell me how this script was sold?

A friend of mine introduced me to a guy who wrote a script that made me laugh. The guy was coming out from New York for three weeks and I said, "Let’s throw out some comedy ideas and come up with something."The teenage thing was just exploding. Allison Lyon Segan, who was Michael Douglas’ partner, said she was looking for a teenage movie. I said to my friend, "We should really do a teenage movie–I have this idea about a teenage fatal attraction." Teenagers love so hard. We started to outline a movie together. Allison said "You had better get the movie to us fast because we are only going to do one. Michael doesn’t want to do 10 teenage movies." I didn’t think she was going to want it anyway because it was "a teenage fatal attraction." She called Michael and told me, "He loves the idea–when can you have it ready?" Meanwhile, we had only done like 30 pages of the script! For three weeks I sat there, like a maniac, finishing the script. Michael was so excited but then every studio passed on it, so they decided to raise the money themselves. We made the movie ourselves and then studios started bidding on it, the same ones that had all passed on it. Miramax wanted it, Paramount, MTV, Universal was interested, and Fox. It was even on the cover of Variety one day. [Our guys] told me that Miramax bought the movie but I opened my Variety and they said Paramount bought it, so I called [my guys again] and they said, "No, I think it is going to be Fox."

You don’t seem jaded after being in the business for 16 years, what’s your secret?

I have so many friends with so much talent, even 20 years ago, people I thought would rise to the top, and most of them are gone. This is just such a hard business and, even this movie, I look at it and I’m really excited about it. I’m so proud of the fact that I hung in there and just kept throwing things against the wall to see what would stick.

What do you like writing nowadays?

All the thrillers nowadays are about "the cop." When Hitchcock did thrillers they were about "the people." You know, the psychotic uncle or the girl across the street or Rear Window. I am trying to bring back those thrillers that are about "the people."Even in Swimfan, the cop is in one scene. When I was writing the script they kept saying, "We need more of the cop. Find ways to have the cop." And look at the movie now–the cop is in one scene.

What was the inspiration for Swimfan?

The genesis was about how teenagers–especially girls–don’t feel whole unless they’re with somebody, especially when they’re in high school. When you meet someone and it doesn’t work out, and you are really young, and it’s the first time you are going through this–no one teaches you how to deal with it. It’s so easy to say, "Let it go you will meet someone else." But it is devastating. Putting the skin on that, Erika Christensen’s character Madison is a girl who loves really hard right away, but when it goes away she can’t handle it. To raise the stakes, there is a young guy who is really good and he lives with his mother, but he has had "a past." When he was younger he was arrested for stealing and went into juvenile detention, so he is perfect prey for this girl because she knows his vulnerability. Before you know it, he is running into trouble, they find steroids on him and she is behind it. Again, it is done Hitchcockian and we don’t see her do it. He just knows she is doing it and then people don’t believe him because he has lied in the past and has been bad in the past–and she is this new girl who plays the cello and she is like the picture of sophistication.

What tools do you use to practice your craft?

I try to outline things–I certainly know what I want the story to be about. For example, in Swimfan the one-line was "A teenage fatal attraction," but it is also about disappointment and revenge, dealing with things, forgiveness, moving on. As I am outlining, I go off on tangents. I start out with four yellow pads in front of me. I always think of the how and the what. What do you need to do? You need to get this girl to meet this guy and then he is going to dump her. Now, how are you going to do it? How are you going to show it? So, I always go with the what and the how as my thing, which I find really helpful.

Tell me about your thoughts on rewriting?

I like it, but it is difficult. If you really get used to rewriting–just know that writing is rewriting, then, you get to the point that after five drafts it will really be good. But, you have to listen to the right people too. In terms of the process, everybody has their own thing. I think if you can’t outline something, at least get your beginning, middle and end and especially the theme–what it is really about. I don’t know what Swimfan is about, to tell you the truth. I just saw it the other day and I don’t know what it is about. I guess it is about a lot of things, but it is about not becoming that person in a way, not becoming that psycho at all costs. I mean, we all have that in us, we’ve all been hurt and we all want revenge.

What do you think keeps a person from the dark side?

I’ve had some really bad experiences. I had one friend who was really close–she was older and I wrote a script for her. She didn’t pay me Guild minimum, and I was young and stupid–in my 20’s–and she made me sign this thing that was an agreement between us. At the bottom, it said we owned this together, she owned my words.She tried to sell it for eight years but couldn’t. Then I got these producers that were interested and I called her and said, "I have some producers." This was a musical and they thought they could get Diana Ross attached. I said, "I want to take it to them. Do you mind?" She said she would step aside, "I love you so much I want this more for you than for me." I gave the script to the producers and it took them a year but they finally sold it to Sony. I called her and I said, "I am so excited!" Remember this was a really good friend of ten years–I had been to her home in Hawaii and everything else. Her lawyer calls me after that … I said, "No, she said she would step aside." She had a change of mind. I offered her $10,000 USD, even though she had only given me $1500 to write it. I was just getting ready to sign the deal and her lawyer called and said she wanted $50,000 or she was going to get in the way of this. This was my good friend who wouldn’t even return my calls anymore. I ended up making the deal and I had to write her a check for $50,000.

What happens when you go through something like that?

I have to tell you, I had a house on an island in North Carolina that I bought–I left Hollywood for three years. I was so burnt out on the business; it was such a horrible thing. I’d sold another movie to Disney, which was a horrible experience, and I literally had my mid-life crisis at 35 years old so I went to this house in North Carolina and I lived on an island. It was a beautiful little place … and then it was very strange … it was like I knew I had to go back. I came back and I went to meet Allison (Michael Douglas’ partner by this point) and I had nothing going. All my friends who were studio heads were all gone, and in this business people just drop like flies, not just writers and actors, but executives too. I said in Allison’s office, "I don’t if I’m ever going to get back in the club again. I left, and know one even knows who I am anymore."

Any writers you admire in particular?

My favorite writers are the Ravetch’s, Harriet and Irving Ravetch. They wrote Norma Rae. When I need inspiration I watch Norma Rae and I see just how brilliantly something can be constructed.

Character or plot-driven scripts for you?

When I first got attention for my writing it was because people said I could find a hook in a story, but also because my dialogue sounded real.

How did you do that?

It was because I was acting so young. I acted in Jr. High and High School and I moved out here and I acted in plays. When you are an actor you say the lines to yourself and it was only when I wrote this play and won a one-act playwriting contest that I thought maybe I should do this. When you are in Hollywood you have to really think Hollywood. If you want to make a living, you have to think of something with a big hook that a studio can sell on a poster on a one-line. Then what really needs to make that come alive is the character.Think of Jaws. It’s a killer shark movie, but you have good characters. That is why so many movies today are so bad, because they will have these big actions–the wife stuck in the burning building–and it is just action, but the characters are all so wooden. With Swimfan, I am trying to get into the niche where I can do some more of these thrillers–smart thrillers for young people. People who don’t even know who Hitchcock is and don’t even know Rear Window or Vertigo.

What did people tell you when you first started writing?

When I started writing people would say to me, "There should be two things happening in every scene, you should be moving the plot along, but you should be telling something about the character." I swear there was a time when I just didn’t get it. When you get it, that is when something is really good, because you can really go along, even like in Norma Rae she was sexually active and she was a questionable mother and she had a big, bad temper, but she also had values and fought that Norma Rae fight. While she was charging forward she was also struggling with herself. That is what makes a really good movie.

That’s really hard to do.

Without the cliché, in a lot of movies they will say, "Give them a parent that doesn’t accept them, or give them a bully father." But how many times have you seen that? I think we have to find the good way to do this, the new way.

Talk about the myths of screenwriting.

If there is a myth it is that this is easy. I think that it is really difficult. Also, I think you can learn some things, I think you can learn the craft, but you need to have the talent. Characters jump off the page because someone really has a voice. Characters can have their Act Two turn and have their car crash or murder because a writer learns the craft and you need something to happen, but talent …

What are the three most important things to say about screenwriters and the craft?

Number one has to do with ageism. I am 40 years old and I have written a teenage movie–the movie is my voice. It is my idea from beginning to end. In Hollywood, everyone is looking for the new, young thing. There is something about experience. If it is just about hip dialogue you can bring somebody in to hip up the dialogue. It really is so important to give people credit. I don’t know about you, but if I was going to trial, I wouldn’t mind the brilliant guy out of law school, but I would really rather have the guy that has been doing it for 20 years. The second thing is that people insult the profession. People write scripts all the time and they just think that everybody can write a script. I find there are very few really good writers. Writing is rewriting, very rarely do you just write something and knock it out of the park–you just don’t. There is too much to do–especially in a screenplay. In a book, you can write a paragraph about what the characters are thinking, but in a screenplay you have to externalize what a character is thinking. Obviously through dialogue, but they don’t want too much dialogue. They want action now.The third thing is endurance. It is the only thing I can really give myself credit for; I have hung in there. I have had a lot of disappointments. I had Jim Carrey attached to a film once, and Streisand, and Glenn Close, and there are just those moments when you go, "Oh, my God." I will never forget the Streisand thing because I thought I could relax … now things were going to happen … and then you wait and wait and wait. With Glenn Close, I had to sign this thing saying "You cannot show this script to anyone else for four weeks." Glenn wants to do this and I have to wait until she reads it. You are thinking this movie is going to get made. I’ve had three times when the presidents of the studios have said to me. "We are making this movie." and all three of those movies have not gotten made.

When you finished writing Swimfan and the production started, what was that process for you?

Horrible (laugh). I was very close with my director; I worked with him one-on-one and did three drafts with him. Then … the finance company in New York … we wanted to make sure this movie is really hip, so we bring in this other writer to hip up the movie. They brought in a writer from a TV show who, with all due respect to them, did bring one scene to the movie, which I really loved. But the rest of it we had to throw out and go back to the drawing board. … I wanted to throw in the towel, but it was my baby so I started faxing my thoughts, talking to my producer, calling the director … and we sort of reshaped it and got it back. They still wanted to do more with it and they just believed that two heads were better than one. Then the company in New York brought in another writer, who actually brought something really nice to the movie at the end and made our climax at the pool, but still they brought a lot of holes to the script. Very few movies don’t have more people involved and despite all the hands that got in the pie for a minute, Swimfan has really kept its vision.

Any other writing stories?

The last thing I wrote was a thing called Noah for Disney. I was the original writer and I sold it to Disney as a feature and then it became a Sunday Night Tony Danza Wonderful World of Disney movie. And [then] these other writers came in, and the director did a draft and I hated it. Mine was about a dysfunctional family on a boat, and, at the end of this production–it was a modern day Noah’s Ark story–Disney said, "We are thinking of cutting out the flood, we don’t have the budget." There was a flood in the last 10 minutes that was all digitally done. So when the arbitration came–you fight for arbitration for the profits–it was shown on television and you want money, but I wrote in and I said I don’t want first credits, so they gave me second credit.

A Noah’s Ark story with no water?!

I am not kidding you and you can absolutely put that in there. I can actually laugh at it now, but I was devastated when I saw the movie.

What personifies the pinnacle of your success as a screenwriter?

I think Swimfan is the kind of movie that is going to be out there in the vernacular, people are going to know about it and I think it is going to be really popular, but … I think it is when I do something like Norma Rae. When I say that, it is not only pulling it off as a writer, but pulling it off and getting something made because no one wants these kind of movies and they are very difficult to get off now. You can probably get it off more on cable channel. I want to create things that just touch people. Either really make them laugh or touch them.

Any advice for screenwriters?

Find your voice and tap into that thing in yourself. It is a very hard thing to do because if you want to sell in Hollywood you have to give them a little of what they want. But be in touch with your own voice and make it come alive.

Rita Cook is a producer, writer and currently President of Cinewomen Los Angeles. She was an associate producer on Trimark’s Route 666 and co-producer on three films Schizophrenic, Gabriella and Lost Soul. Editor-in-Chief of Insider Magazine and Staff Writer for SCREENTALK Magazine, Cook will be producing a horror film in November, The Kiss Of The Vampire, of which she is also co-writer.