The heptapod language was a unique
problem for me as a screenwriter because
when I got to talking about it I knew
how important it was in the film and I
got more and more novelistic in my
description of it whenever I got to that
in the script and if there's one thing I
hate it's a screenwriter trying to be a
novelist and so I got very frustrated
and I was out to dinner with my wife one
night complaining as usual about
whatever as I was working on and I'm
like I don't know how to make this work
without just spending way too much time
on the page and she's like well just
show me what you're talking about and I
scribbled something out there was a
circular kind of cuneiform that had a
few little branching things and I said
roughly this and she says well did just
put that in the script instead and I'm
like you can't put way can you put a
graphic I had bumped into Ted Chiang
online a friend sent me a link to a
story that was published in this
entirely on an online a science-fiction
zine and it was the story understand and
I devoured that and my mind was blown
away at the end of it I thought this guy
can write oh my god what else has he
done and discovered the collection
stories of your life on Amazon and I
just instant Biden and then a few days
later shows up at my at my door and once
again to procrastinate I was like I'll
just read a story I've done a page
that's good and and then they're like a
few hours later I had devoured about
half the book and I had to stop at story
of your life because it emotionally
wrecked me like I had this a weird mix
of just like feeling uplifted and
hopeful and also completely shattered
and just put it down and went out and
hugged everybody within walking distance
and just was like wah ha and then sat
back down I thought how can I torture a
greater audience with this
how can i infect a bunch of people with
this feeling and the story the HEPA pods
actually don't show up it's not a first
contact per se it's over a hundred
different pieces of technology that just
show up around the world that are
essentially flat-screen TVs and we have
Skype calls with the half deparment
light-years away and that was you know
academically interesting no no tension
at all there so the first real choice I
made was to have them show up at her
front door and instantly that gave me a
kind of a strange ticking clock the
public's need for an answer I knew that
I wanted to make this first and foremost
a story about Louise and about this
relationship to her daughter and that
the second tier is the is the visitation
I also didn't want to build the story as
you know like a usual suspects Keyser
söze reveal of aha now the magic trick I
wanted to be able to tell the audience
the entire story in the first few
minutes or in the first you know a
couple of pages and at least the
emotional part of it of all this stuff
that made it all the way the first five
pages in the last five page of the state
the same almost exactly from the first
draft I can tell you that I started
writing just the mother-daughter scenes
and I and I did a lot of transposition
from the short story because there are
some lovely scenes with mom and daughter
in the short story and then I made up a
few of my own and I just had those kind
of banked and then when I started
writing out the the rest of the like the
present-day narrative it was a matter of
like finding out where I could insert
those what's the context for those and
how do I transition to and from them
properly because you know the
transitions are a big deal but now I'm
not so sure I believe in beginnings and
endings store your life the the first
draft was about three months it was a
free month long process the first draft
the very first draft I had a whole
series of scenes that were a little
scene let's really of Louise teaching
very basic vocabulary to the
des pods and Ian would demonstrate and
it was just super like kindergarten
level words and and they were like Eric
this is not sexy at all this is really
boring this is ride oh no you know no
actor just gonna want to try and do why
what are you doing here what are you
doing and I said I don't know how to get
a rep like this is what they got I
learned like no why do they have to
learn this I'm like fine and I went to
their whiteboard and I wrote this is the
question we're trying to get to and
here's how difficult it is and here's
how many sessions you have and after all
that then you have to have enough
vocabulary with them so that they can
answer the question and you can't even
go specific you know because I said
what's a Pulaski and they're like we
don't know and I'm like well it's a tool
that firefighters use you can't start
with Pulaski got to start with tool yeah
and they just stared at me for a while
and they like that's the scene that goes
in the movie get rid of this other crap
that's the scene the trick that I
learned from a friend of mine named John
Rogers use a feature and TV writer John
has always been good about nesting
exposition or framing it as an argument
and so if you have some sort of debate
that happens among the characters and
each of them is trying to defend their
point by explaining why they think
they're right you're still explaining
things mm-hmm but it's under the context
that I just I think it makes it more
digestible and that I think is why this
scene in which there's a scene in which
Louie's diagrams sentence and defends
why it's important for her to teach her
the way that she is we learn a lot about
language in general through that that
moment that we wouldn't otherwise this
story this film is a bit like building a
boat inside a bottle and you'd be very
careful with the way that it was
constructed you can't just over clarify
something or oversimplify something you
can't have a just a mountain of
exposition we didn't want a 40 million
dollar TED talk and and we also didn't
want to talk down to our audience I
never like get condescending having been
around really smart people scientists
and linguists and other consultants that
we use to make sure this film
authentic the way that they talked to
each other is never like whoa speak
English doc you know we never get to
that so it was about doing our best to
preserve the telling of a story that was
basically 2+2 and not saying for the
message in Ted story there was more
about Louie's embracing the inevitable
it was a very kind of deterministic
realization that likely everything is
predestined and you just gotta find a
way to make peace with that and I was a
bit rebellious about that I'm like Ted I
don't like that I don't like that at all
I think it's more profound for me if she
has a choice if she has free will and
can change her future and yet she
chooses to have Hannah that to me is
more affecting and that's really where I
wanted to land on it but if I did that
that I had to make sure it wasn't a rock
climbing accident in which Louise could
just call it eight before and say hey
don't go Denis was the most enriching
relationship that I've had with a
director of my career so far and he just
he behaved very differently from anybody
else that I've been in the room with
I've been so accustomed to getting to a
point where a director is attached or
are thinking about becoming attached and
and it's a very brief meeting where you
know often the director will get my name
wrong and and not really and like it's
like look this is the last time I'm
gonna see you maybe before the premiere
so so and then off they go so with Denis
though he got interested in everybody
all the independent finance ears and my
producers were all like oh my god
prisoners on sandy's dude this campus is
a go movie if we get him and no pressure
Erik but don't mess this up any so we
had a breakfast meeting at a little spot
near his hotel in in Westwood and sat
down and it wasn't like a little
half-hour session at all it would it
went on for like a couple of hours and
we just did a deep dive on philosophy
and science and religion and geopolitics
and would occasionally steer back to the
script and he'd have some questions and
at the end of it we you know ain't got
up he shook hands he's just like Eric
this is nice let's do this next week
sure okay yeah great that every week my
Bruce is like please dear gods say he's
on board no but we had a croissant and a
mocha and we talked about politic it was
great he's like what the hell are you
doing Eric and then finally after all
that time I got a call from my agent
like holy crap dude you did finally work
he's on board it's official and then a
minute later did he called me himself
and he says all right Eric no we are
married and he meant it like he was the
only director I've worked with where
before before any sort of change to the
script he would call and say now Eric if
I move this if I had just this does this
break anything he grilled me on every
page he grilled me what's the subtext
here and this you know and what's this
line of dialogue and why did you use his
verbage in that in the narrative like he
he just combed through that to try and
glean as much information as possible
many many drafts had said you know Louis
says something in Mandarin to the
general and we were about three months
away from shooting and then he calls me
Eric Eric what did she say I don't know
something hundred I have the woman here
who translates from Mandarin she's gonna
teach Amy Adams what to say what does
she say I'm like you have to teach oh
right because she's actually saying oh
oh god this is like Eric Eric Eric this
is the line that saves the world this is
the most important line in the whole
movie
Eric what are you done to me you must
find this for me right now and I'm like
oh god I started sweating I said I just
come up with like Draft after draft of
draft and I guess it was about two dozen
lines later that I found a poem that I
and I did some alliteration so that I
made it sound I guess more poetic I
don't know
god this is pretty good I sent it to him
and he says I don't okay I deeply love
this but so I'm there seeing it finally
put together for the first time at
Toronto at the Film Fest tension right
next to me
and we get to that scene and the bastard
Denis doesn't use subtitles for any of
that like he's just like throw that away
and I'm like so what the dying wife's
last words were in war there are no
winners-only widows there's a line that
was so important to me with her and it
was when she was talking about why
Hannah's dad left and I was talking
about the unstoppable unstoppable
disease and she said kind of like you
with your poetry in your swim trophies
and what she's talking about is her
daughter's contributions to the greater
world and how she affects many other
people possibly even spires other people
and how if you remove Hannah even from
the short time that she's there on the
planet how many of the people as she
affecting possibly even negatively and
the thought about if even if she knows
that there's a heartache a horrible
heartache at the end of this journey
with her daughter and she's gonna lose
her after that time the fact that she
manages to touch other people during the
the years that she's on this planet and
what that effect has on everybody else
and what a possibly even her loss has on
on her friends and the family of her
friends that that that there's far
greater consequences to that so there's
a there's some selflessness involved in
her going through with her choice and
there's also just the fact that she
would rather have loved and lost than to
never have Hannah at all
hello everyone thanks for watching if
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