In 1978, a Texan-born man went on national TV, competing in and ultimately winning an episode of the popular American game show The Dating Game. This man was, according to host Jim Lange, a "successful photographer" who you might find "skydiving or motorcycling." Left out of that description – unknown to Lange, the show's producers and millions watching at home – was a terrifying secret: that Rodney Alcala was a rapist and murderer, who would eventually be sentenced to life in prison. He died in 2021, leaving behind a terrible legacy of unthinkable violence – conclusively linked to eight murders, with the true number of his victims thought to be closer to 130.

This week on Script Apart, Al is joined by Ian McDonald – the screenwriter behind Woman Of The Hour, an Anna Kendrick-directed thriller telling the tale of Alcala's Dating Game appearance. Other storytellers might have approached this real-life story determined to answer one question: what possessed a man meant to be lying low, evading the law, to parade himself in front of the nation, for all to see? Ian, though, had a different question that he wanted to get to the bottom of. Never mind the motivations of this cowardly abuser. How was his killing spree enabled by a broader culture of misogyny, prevalent in the media?

To answer that question, the film centres not on Alcala, but on Cheryl Bradshaw, a real-life contestant on that episode of The Dating Game, played by Kendrick. In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, you'll discover why that is, what the meaning of the film's evocative title is, and what it is about society that seems to reward misogynists – then and now, more than ever.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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Today on Script Apart – religion, Radiohead and ratcheting terror, in the basement of a man who has spent way too long on the "Monopoly" Wikipedia. Four years after their first appearance on Script Apart, breaking down their franchise-launching script for A Quiet Place, writer-director duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods are with us once again, to unpick their theology-themed new horror movie, Heretic.

The film tells the tale of two Mormon missionaries, Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes, played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, who find themselves trapped in the home of a man supposedly curious about joining their church. Quickly, they realise that this eccentric Englishman’s true curiosities lie in death, resurrection and the etymology of religion itself. If pulse-quickening tension is your religion when it comes to horror, your prayers have been answered – Heretic is masterful in the way it mounts its shocks en route to a terrifying conclusion.

In this spoiler conversation, Bryan and Scott had plenty to say about their personal journeys with religion – the good that it contributes to the world, as well as the worrying ways that it’s often leveraged by malicious opportunists in our political spheres, as a means of grabbing power. You’ll hear about the evolution of Mr. Read, Hugh Grant’s absurdly unsettling antagonist – and there’s also mention of a “spiritual sequel” to Heretic that they’re working on right now. Apologies to Taco Bell. We don’t talk about Taco Bell.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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Love hurts in the dizzyingly unpredictable Strange Darling – a thriller that upends expectations at every turn, courtesy of our guest this week, Las Vegan-born writer-director JT Mollner. JT grew up surrounded by immersive storytelling – his father ran a haunted house in Vegas that he helped conceptualise every Halloween as a child. That adolescence came in handy when crafting this tale of a serial killer on the final days of a bloody rampage through rural America: Strange Darling, though not a horror, feels decidedly like a sprint through a madhouse in all its gruesome shocks and Tarantino-esque play with chronology.

On this spoiler-filled episode of Script Apart, the filmmaker breaks down the film and its corkscrewing structure. We get into how the film uses chronology as a storytelling weapon, what JT is willing (and unwilling) to reveal about the visions inspiring the killer's rampage, and the idea of the movie as a romantic drama – one that just so happens to be full of murder.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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This week on the show – Azazel Jacobs is here! Azazel is writer-director of the new Netflix drama His Three Daughters, one of the most deeply moving films of the year so far, and a stunning addition to a filmography already brimming with intriguing tonal blurs and beautiful realised characters. You might know Azazel for acclaimed works like The GoodTimesKid, Momma's Man, Terri, The Lovers and French Exit. This film, though, cuts closer to the bone for the filmmaker (and audiences) than ever before, telling the tale of a tense, tender family reunion – one taking place within a heavy cloud of preemptive grief.

Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne play estranged siblings Christina, Katie and Rachel in the film, summoned to their childhood home as their father enters his final days. In the quiet wait, ghosts from their childhoods reemerge and threaten to pull them further apart. In the emotional spoiler conversation you're about to hear, Azazel and Al break down why it is the painful wait for a loved one to pass away is rarely acknowledged in media – and delve into who these characters were for the filmmaker, who describes emerging from the making of this film a changed man.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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Great Scott, it’s been 35 years since the second instalment in one of the most beloved trilogies of all time – Back To The Future Part II, directed by the great Robert Zemeckis and co-written by our guest today, Bob Gale! Bob first guested on Script Apart in 2021, breaking down his first draft of 1985’s iconic debut outing for Marty McFly and eccentric scientist Doc Brown. You may remember that episode detailing how Bob’s original vision for that film was quite wildly different – Doc Brown had a pet chimp and the movie featured a huge nuclear explosion. Part II similarly went through multiple iterations, with the film initially expected to include a third act set in the 1960s. Instead, Bob landed on a story full of darkness that broke from the optimism of the first film to depict a dark future – one that in many ways, we’ve actually come to inherit. 

In the conversation you’re about to hear, you’ll discover what drew Bob to that darkness, the secret to Back To The Future’s longevity and which of Part II’s predictions he’s surprised have come to pass in real life. Thanks to Bob for being a brilliant guest once again. 

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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For a film built around a song titled Remember Me, Pixar's Coco sure has proven absolutely unforgettable in the seven years since its release. Directed by past Script Apart guest Lee Unkrich, the animation told the story of Miguel – a young boy voiced by Anthony Gonzalez who is accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead, where he seeks the help of his deceased musician great-great-grandfather to return him to his family and reverse their ban on music. It’s quite simply one of the richest and boldest family movies of all time, confronting ideas around death, legacy and remembrance in a way that moved the needle culturally in this way that only Pixar can. Much like how Inside Out gave parents a framework for talking to their kids about emotions, Coco is renowned today as a text that helps facilitate conversations with children about what it means when someone passes away.

In the conversation you’re about to hear, co-writer Matthew Aldrich drops by to break down the film in detail. We discuss the musical version of the film that was in development before he joined the project. We get into how the film’s villain, Ernesto Del La Cruz, represents the folly of chasing the wrong sort of remembrance: a remembrance of celebrity and fame, rather than family. And you’ll hear about what makes Remember Me such a beautiful part of Coco – the genesis of that astounding piece of music, that lands like a gut punch when we hear it for the final time in act three.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley are the co-writers (and in Greg's case, director) of Sing Sing – a prison drama that tips on its head the entire prison drama genre. This is a film that forefronts humanity and tenderness instead of the violent and savagery that often powers movies set in jail. There are prison dramas we all adore but how many times have we seen a vision of prison that depicts those places as violent pits where society’s most dangerous animals stew in their savagery?

In Sing Sing – about a group of convicts who stage a play at the Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison near New York – our characters, many of whom are played by real-life graduates of the Rehabilitation Through The Arts programme seen in the movie, are depicted with a rare sensitivity. Whatever their pasts, as this group of would-be thespians build towards the staging of a comedy titled Breakin' The Mummy's Code they’re human to viewers in a way cinema rarely affords. It’s besides the point to say that the film is already being tipped for Oscar glory – this film and the performances of Colman Domingo and newcomer Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin in particular, is a phenomenal achievement in itself without awards validation. Don't miss this in-depth conversation about how it came together on the page.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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"His stories were good because he imagined them intensely, so intensely that he came to believe them." So wrote Patricia Highsmith in her seminal literary thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1955. You might also characterise the work of our guest today, the talented Mr. Steven Zaillian, this way. The worlds and characters of his films and TV shows are imagined in such rich detail and complexity that you can absolutely imagine him believing them to be real as he crafts them on the page. In fact, that level of detail and depth has been his calling card for over thirty decades in Hollywood now. From 1990’s Awakenings and 1993’s Schindler’s List, which won Steven an Oscar, all the way to films like Gangs of New York, American Gangster, Moneyball, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Irishman, there’s a thrillingly convincing quality about whatever story he’s telling – oftentimes, his characters are people you can imagine pulling up a barstool next to you and telling you a tale you’ll never forget.

This month, he’s up for an Emmy for his work with Ripley – a Netflix adaptation of Highsmith’s novel, that Steven acted as showrunner for, writing and directing every episode. The series is a hypnotising ten hours in the company of a conman, Tom Ripley, who’s hired by a wealthy businessman to convince his son to return home from a life of leisure abroad on the Italian coast. But the more Tom – played here by Andrew Scott – ensconces himself in the lives of Dickie Greenleaf, played by Johnny Flynn, and Dakota Fanning as his partner, Marge Sherwood, the more his lies and his lust for what Dickie has mutates into something murderous.

In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, Steven tells us about the relevance of fraudster stories in a time of Trump and other public deceivers. We get into the writing tricks and tips that make you root for the morally thorny characters he often writes. And the rationale behind every change from both the novel and the Matt Damon-starring 1999 adaptation of Ripley is uncovered too, as we delve into the slightly different ending to this version of the tale and the meaning of Italian artist Caravaggio’s presence throughout this story. 

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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Unless you’ve spent the last year locked in a radiation-proof vault deep below the surface of the Earth, you’ll have no doubt heard about Fallout – a TV video game adaptation unlike any other. Created by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and our guest today, former Portlandia writer Graham Wagner, the show brought to life the blue suits, barbarism and bizarre humour of one of the biggest game franchises of the century so far, transporting viewers to a nuclear-scored Wasteland hundreds of years in the future. The surprises of this Prime Video series, produced by Westworld creators Jonathan “Jonah” Nolan and Lisa Joy, just kept coming across the eight episodes comprising its first season, with each revelation a powerful observation about the greedy workings of corporations to whom nothing’s more important than their profits – not even human survival.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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Today on Script Apart – a film about a man trapped in an air-conditioned purgatory, full of fast food joints, luggage carousels and people in transit, while he himself remains frustratingly locked in place. 2004’s The Terminal is the Steven Spielberg-directed tale of Viktor, played by Tom Hanks: a kind-hearted soul marooned at an American airport owing to a unique diplomatic situation that broke out his fictional home country, Krahkozia, while he was flying to the US. The film was written by our guest today, Sacha Gervasi, who you might also know from movies like the music documentary Anvil and the Peter Dinklage-starring My Dinner With Herve, as well as the 2012 Alfred Hitchcock biopic with Anthony Hopkins.

In the conversation you’re about to hear, Sacha and I get into what The Terminal taps into that gave it such universal appeal on release, twenty years later and also notably during the pandemic, when people were confined to their own purgatories in lockdown. You’ll discover the darker tone of the original draft of the movie, written for Sam Mendes to direct before a reshuffle behind the scenes. And you’ll discover what the film sought to express about the arbitrary nature of borders, as well as the truth behind the real-life inspiration for the film: Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who lived in Charles De Gaulle airport for eighteen difficult years.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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This week on Script Apart – a sit-down on a proverbial park bench to pick through the box of chocolates that is Forrest Gump, with the legendary screenwriter behind the classic drama, Eric Roth! Marking the film's 30th anniversary, Roth regales us with secrets from the Gump's creation, breaking down why he elected not to make Forrest a NASA astronaut (unlike in the book on which it's based) and what makes the character so enduringly endearing.

You'll also discover how the relationship between Forrest and Jenny was informed by Eric's own love for his wife, what the feather at the beginning of the film represents, and what happened to the ill-fated sequel that Roth wrote – only to abandon in the days after 9/11.

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.

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