CS Weekly Archive > From the Trenches > 01/11/08

An Unlikely Hero:
He Was a Quiet Man's Frank Cappello

By peter clines

One of Hollywood's behind-the-scenes writers steps forward to direct his own twisted screenplay about people who go postal and the women who love them.

Frank Cappello (Constantine) came to Los Angeles from his small advertising company in Florida, where he did the writing, directing, and even the special effects. Quickly establishing himself despite almost no knowledge of format or structure ("Everyone was telling me, 'Your first plot point doesn't come until page 27, and it should be 24 nowadays,' and I was thinking, 'What's a plot point…?'"), he educated himself and built up a reputation as a script doctor with some of Hollywood's power producers. Now he's brought one of his own passion projects to the screen, a tale of love, dark comedy, and violence in the workplace titled He Was a Quiet Man.

In the film, mild-mannered Bob Maconel (Christian Slater) plans to go on a murderous rampage in his office, spurred on by his smart-mouthed goldfish. Things go awry, however, when another disgruntled employee snaps first and beats him to it, killing half a dozen people. Caught off guard, Bob shoots the other gunman and is declared a hero. Now he's idolized by his coworkers and neighbors, promoted by his boss (William H. Macy)…and loathed by office dream girl Vanessa (Elisha Cuthbert), who was left paralyzed by a bullet and wants to die.

Trapped in Las Vegas by the recent southern California storms, Cappello got on the phone with CS Weekly and cheerfully talked about office sluts, people who read the last page first, and why Akiva Goldsman gladly let him keep the credit for Constantine.

How did you end up as a screenwriter?
I tell people I was a writer all my life. In junior high, my English was not that great, so I had to do extra credit. And the way you got extra credit in junior high was if you wrote a story. So, I just started writing a story about this guy on a motorcycle, Stanley Slowputz. I used to read Dirt Bike Magazine, and that's how I started to learn how to write. It was really irreverent writing, it was like, "He was going down the street," and then in parentheses it'd say, "Well, it really wasn't a street—more like an alley." When I came to LA, my first screenplays were written a lot like Shane Black (Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang), and I didn't even know who he was. He has this style where you don't break things up, you just tell the whole action scene in one long paragraph. It was exciting and that's how I wrote. So, I started writing, essentially, because I liked Dirt Bike Magazine and to get extra credit (laughs).

I came out about four times to LA before I finally moved out in '88. I sold my first screenplay in three months for more money than I had made in eight years, and I said, "Oh my God, I'm in the right place." That was Suburban Commando, which was really called Urban Commando. They started dumbing it down, so that's why I always say they called it Sub-Urban Commando, because it was lower than what I wrote (chuckles).

What was it that first inspired He Was a Quiet Man?
Well, you turn on the news. It was pretty obvious it was happening all the time: another guy shot five people, six people. I thought, who are these guys that do this? Are they just nuts or have they been pushed to the edge? Can we ever reach them? Is there ever an answer that can solve this? So, I started writing one day. My original thing was an 11-page story I did in like 20 minutes. It was a guy at work loading bullets, [he] drops one on the floor, someone beats him to the punch, and he ends up shooting them. He goes over and saves the girl and asks her, "Let me see that smile." Then it pulled back and said this was a Rorschach for everything that's wrong in the office environment. And that's how it ended. This one friend at Paramount read it and said, "You should turn this into a whole movie," and I said, "What would it be?" I didn't know. My son, he was 14, he read it and said, "Dad, this is the coolest thing you've ever written." Because he's a dark soul (laughs). I finally pitched my parents the story at Christmas one year, and once I got to the ending, I thought they were going to throw me out of the room. They're conservative people. At the end, my dad just said, "That's really interesting. You should write that." I started writing January 3 and I was finished by January 18.

I just wanted to write a story that you never knew how it was going to end and you never knew where it was going. Every time I got to a place where I'd say, okay, I'll go this direction—she'll kiss him for saving her life. No, she's going to spit in his face. Okay, so she spits in his face—what kind of girl is she? Ahh, she's the kind of girl who fucked her way to the top and she's hardcore. Okay, that's cool, now I know who she is. And as you're writing a story like this, you're writing so fast that your subconscious is really writing it, not you, and so you don't put any of the barriers of "Hollywood wants this or expects that." Charlie Kaufman writes stream of consciousness, and that's what I did on this. I just allowed myself to go where I went.

Did you sit down with this knowing you were going to direct it, or just wanting to get the script done?
No, it was my film all the way. I knew there was no way Hollywood was going to do it. Lauren wanted to produce it. She read Quiet Man and she said, "This is really cool writing, but it's too dark for me. But I'll help you get it made." It was originally written for Matthew Broderick. I said, "Ferris Bueller with a gun? I don't think I've ever seen him with a gun. He'd be the guy in the office that's going to kill everybody?" We tried to get it to him, but he was on the play, The Producers, and he never read it.

So, yeah, I had intended to direct it. I didn't think anybody else would allow the ending that I had on the original script. The coolest thing is, when you know you're going to direct it yourself, you don't have to listen. It's the most free picture anybody can ever have, when you make the movie yourself. You're writing, you're directing, you're producing. I put half the money up and I ended up doing 100 effects shots myself. And I ended up with two damned songs in the movie because we couldn't afford Coldplay (chuckles). I'm not doing it because I want to be Rodriguez and have my name all over it; I'm doing it because I didn't have the money. I had to take everything I've ever learned and put it in one movie. We got our day every day. The crew all worked their asses off for the same rate, which was ridiculously low, but their deferred will be higher. It was just one of those lucky experiences. The process is supposed to be painful, but sometimes you get lucky.

Did you write a tighter or looser script, knowing you were going to direct it?
I wrote with a lot of white on the page. I wanted it to be a quick, quick read. I remember thinking I don't have to be as descriptive. I've got a screenplay right now called The Rain in Spain that's a prime example. People think they've read a novel after they read the screenplay, but that was intentional. I wanted them to feel it, smell it, taste it—everything. But this one, I wanted it to be really sparse.

Writing, for me, is about the page because that's the first time anyone sees the movie is off the page. I will plan things to come at the top of the next page, so I would leave a lot of white so I could put my reveals on the very next page. I kept it really sparse. I think the first draft was 111 pages. And my last page, I put another page that said, "For all of you idiots who come to the last page and read it—go back to the beginning!" (laughs) Now that we're starting to read scripts online even more, or in Final Draft, people don't print stuff out anymore. It's harder to do a nice reveal.

The talking goldfish immediately brings a "Son of Sam" comparison to mind. Was that deliberate, or were you playing it more for laughs?
I think it was Saturday Night Live once did the kid talking to the clay dog, Goliath, and he was going, "Daaaaavey, pick up the knife and kill them." He never moved his mouth, and I always thought that was a funny image. I always thought that there needed to be another voice for Bob to talk to. Fish became so cliché after I wrote the script that I almost changed it to a lizard. There was going to be a lizard bowl with little lizards there talking to him, because at least it'd be different. But I said, "It's what I wrote, so I think I'll stick with it." I don't know, maybe a talking lizard would've been easier. It just came out of the need for a conscience. Somebody needs to talk in this movie when he's alone. The fish was born so we'd have another ego. And if you notice, the voice of the fish is also John Gulager, the guy that plays the psychiatrist.

You're dealing with some very dark subject matter, but there are a lot of good, solid laughs in this script, to the point that it almost borders on a comedy at points. How'd you find that balance?
I think it's because I've written a lot of comedy, and when I write comedy I tend to try to find every single joke. I used to overwrite comedies. I would get to the point that I would have to cut out half the jokes to make it funnier, because it was too over the top. I just always find the humor in things. I think all the way through I was trying to play on that edge, and I honestly thought I'd gone too far.

A lot of writers get pigeonholed, but you tend to jump genres a lot in your writing. You started with a comedy, did a crime drama, then a supernatural thriller, and now you're doing this dark comedy-character film. Do you try for this much variety or does it just come to you?
I think every writer has that kind of variety, but I think, like you said, they get pigeonholed into the last thing they did. And that's the way you make a career, too, because if you can pigeonhole yourself as, say, a character guy or an action guy, and you're a pretty good writer, then they'll go to those guys. Your name will be on that list and you'll work and you'll keep working. Of course, you'll keep doing the same movies in the same genre. In between all the stuff you read on someone's resume is all the stuff they did to change wherever they're at.

One day I had a sale go bad, a script called Dummies about crash dummies. Months later, I found out that it didn't sell because UTA had put the price so high and was being so arrogant with it that the people walked away from it. So, I left the agency and I got so mad I decided, "I'm going to write what I want to write," and I found this true story that I based it on. So, you have all these things in between all the screenplays that get made that really are what's setting the tone of how you get hired.

After [I wrote] Rain in Spain, Lauren Donner had read it, and it's more of a character piece, and they said, "That's what we need for Constantine. We need a character guy to come in here and really make this about a person not about action." When I first came in, it was Indiana Jones in Hong Kong or whatever, just one chase after another with a cocky guy. It wasn't anything like the comic. They said, "We just need a couple touches for the ending," and I said, "No, you need a lot more than that." So I threw everything out and started from scratch. I was on that movie, on and off, for five years. Three different directors. It's very unusual for a writer to last through three directors, because normally they fire them off and get someone they want, but I lasted. Then Akiva Goldsman came in at the end, and he even said, "They were going to fire you and they wanted me on this, but I got a death threat after Batman and Robin—I'm not going to go there again with another comic book. So, your name's going to be on it and if they go after anyone it's going to be you." (laughs)

Peter Clines has had a lifelong love affair with the movies. He grew up in New England, where he studied English literature and education, and now lives and writes somewhere in Southern California. If anyone knows exactly where, he would appreciate a few hints.

Frank Cappello courtesy Frank Cappello
He Was a Quiet Man courtesy Anchor Bay Home Entertainment

From the Trenches
Working screenwriters discuss in their own words a particular aspect of screenwriting, from the mechanics of writing to the personal and professional impact that writing has had on their lives. > VIEW ARCHIVE

The Big Picture

Features that cover all aspects of screenwriting, from our "Seven Best" lists to analysis of old favorites and new classics. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Weekend Read
Film, book, web site and technology reviews from a writer’s perspective. How can these items help a writer on his or her journey, or make that journey more enjoyable? > VIEW ARCHIVE

DVD Review of the Day
DVD reviews from a writer’s point of view. What aspects of this script and features of this DVD illuminate the writing, development, and storytelling process? > VIEW ARCHIVE