Much of the attention surrounding Monster’s Ball has centered on its remarkable acting. Portraying three generations of death-row prison guards, Peter Boyle, Billy Bob Thornton and Heath Ledger bring a wealth of pathos to their corroded family dynamic, and Halle Berry, who received a deserved Academy Award, is stunning as a condemned man’s broken, grieving wife. On a second viewing, however, the film’s real power has a clear source: its script. Devoid of stock characters or easy moral conclusions, Monster’s Ball tells a simple, forceful tale about the basic human need for contact trumping even the most deeply ingrained obstacles. For that, credit belongs to its screenwriters, Will Rokos and Milo Addica.
Rokos, who received an Oscar nomination of his own, will appear this week at the Nashville Screenwriters Conference, a three-day event of screenings, informal receptions and panels held at the Vanderbilt Marriott Hotel. He joins a distinguished roster that includes screenwriters David Self (Road to Perdition), Cheryl Edwards (Save the Last Dance) and Mike Rich (The Rookie). “I think it’s always good for writers to be around other writers,” Rokos explains. “It’s spiritual in a way, to inspire each other with new ideas.”
The affable Georgia native is eager to share his whirlwind experience of the past few years with aspiring screenwriters. “One thing I always try to impart is you can write a lot in 10 minutes,” he says. “It took me a long time to realize that. I used to need a two hour block to feel like I could get anything done.” These days, Rokos has learned to use those rare moments in an increasingly packed schedule of Hollywood meetings and the attendant notoriety that comes with Oscar’s brand name. “People in L.A. tend to enjoy talking about making movies far more than they do making them,” he observes. “So I get my writing in wherever I can.”
One of those brief bursts of inspiration led to “Family Circle,” the 10-minute one-act about a tense father/son relationship that later became Monster’s Ball. “Milo and I originally intended to explore the lives of people who worked on death row for a potential screenplay,” recounts Rokos. “We soon found out that this specific occupation was very commonly passed on through generations. That’s when we started using bits of what I had explored in the one-act.” Addica and Rokos then set off to research, employing criminology textbooks as well as Rokos’ own experiences.
“It’s a funny thing with writing as a team,” Rokos says. “We didn’t stick to an outline, and we were certainly not out to make statements—about capital punishment, race or whatever. We just sat together in a room and riffed on these characters until we got it right.” During this process, the screenplay morphed from a Depression-era yarn to a character-driven modern-day piece. “But other than that, we didn’t revise very much, to be honest,” Rokos says. “We were very hard on ourselves, and if one of us was willing to leave a scene 'as is,’ even if it wasn’t quite right, the other would step in and raise the bar.”
Monster’s Ball was originally conceived with a budget of $500,000, with Addica playing the role that eventually went to Ledger. But the writers’ plans changed when interest was shown in Hollywood. Harvey Keitel had read and liked a play by Rokos, and he joked to Addica one evening in L.A. that the two partners should write something for him. “Originally, the plan was, take 'Family Circle’ and expand it so Harvey could take a look,” Rokos says. Less than a month after completing the first draft, however, Rokos befriended the line producer of a Swedish movie set in New York, in which he had a small role. “It just goes to show the ironies of show business,” says Rokos with a chuckle. “Here we were working tirelessly on a script to show Keitel, and this line producer happens upon our work, asks casually if he can take a look, and sends it to his own contacts in L.A. In two months we had an agent.”
The ironies did not stop there. Monster’s Ball went through a tedious and frustrating gestation period, as several studios and producers became involved in the project. At first, Fine Line Features optioned the script, with Sean Penn attached to direct and Robert De Niro set to star. That fell through. Then Pulp Fiction producer Lawrence Bender optioned the piece, which turned into another frustrating derailment. This time, the problem was artistic disagreement over Berry’s character Leticia and her son, Tyrell, whose death brings her together with Thornton’s character, Hank. “Lawrence really wanted for Tyrell not to die,” Rokos recalls. “We tried to reason with him that his death was central.”
But the writing team realized they had no choice but to assent. “In the version we rewrote for Lawrence,” Rokos says, “Tyrell lives, and is seen working out in the last scene on a heavy bag in the backyard, with Hank coaching him—I am not making this up—and Leticia looking on with a smile from an upstairs window.” Still, as Rokos points out, this is par for the course for many Hollywood writers. “When someone options your script, you might as well make the changes they ask for yourself. Because they will get someone else to do it if you say no.” Thankfully, Bender’s option expired.
Still reeling, the pair took the original draft to first-time producer Lee Daniels. Daniels, while still an unproven commodity at the time in Hollywood, told them he wouldn’t change a thing. He was true to his word. After Marc Forster was brought in to direct, and Thornton and Berry signed on, the film arrived in theaters as something truly rare: a finished product that keeps the traditionally downtrodden, powerless screenwriters’ vision intact. “A lot of that credit,” assures Rokos, “goes to Forster, who never made a change without clearing it with Milo and me first, and to Billy Bob, who brought so much subtlety and decency to the character of Hank.” Rokos, who has a cameo as the warden who accepts Hank’s resignation, saw Thornton’s abilities firsthand. “Billy Bob keeps everyone’s morale on the set very high,” he says. “He’s one of the finest people I’ve worked with in showbiz, period.”
So how does one follow such an acclaimed first feature? Rokos, who is no longer writing with a partner, will see his screenplays The Swedish Job and Shadowboxer produced this year. Artisan Pictures, in turn, has just drafted him to script a remake of John Schlesinger’s 1963 dark comedy Billy Liar. “I came up with a story that is more 'inspired’ by the original than an actual remake,” Rokos says. “The main character is still a pathological liar, but I think lying means something different today than it did in the ’60s. We’re more cynical now, so people tend to often assume you are lying more.”
Remake or not, the film should benefit from the sinewy, authentic dialogue that is Rokos’ greatest strength. His keen ear for everyday speech, demonstrated throughout Monster’s Ball, gets great mileage out of great economy—a creed he lives by as a writer. “Any line of dialogue must accomplish one of three things: advance character, advance plot or get a laugh,” Will Rokos says. “A really good line can sometimes do all three.”
The Nashville Screenwriters Conference takes place this Friday through Sunday at the Vanderbilt Marriott. For information, visit www.nashscreen.com or call (888) 680-4491.
