On more than one occasion, I've been blown away by the work of several of the young writers who've studied with me.īut the fact remains, the older a screenwriter (or any writer) gets, the better he or she gets. There's a moment in 'Finding Forrester' in which Sean Connery reacts in awe upon learning that the gifted young writer played by Rob Brown is only 16. I've taught at other places and have been a script consultant on hundreds of screenplays. I've taught well over a thousand students, most of them undergraduates. I've been teaching screenwriting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in The Department of Dramatic Writing and Film & Television Department since 1988.

This happens more often than you might think. And don't assume for one second that there aren't young screenwriters who've written wonderful, complex, smart, wise-beyond-their-years scripts. Not that screenwriters over 35 aren't capable of writing dumb, inane and just plain awful scripts. But when it comes to stories with depth and weight, I think it's fair to say that age and life experience will supercede youth and inexperience. They might be right, if the plot has to do with high school or college kids ('American Pie,' 'Road Trip' or any Freddy Prinze Jr. In Hollywood think, a 23-year-old will write a more commercially viable script than a 43-year-old or 53-year-old. Somehow, older (and presumably wiser) isn't necessarily better or smarter. The Ageism factor is pretty easy to understand. It's getting that foot in that door that leads me to the two things older screenwriters have going against them. I'm also including that huge pool of hearty souls who've been writing screenplays for years and years (or decades) without getting so much as a foot in the door. So, the more relevant question has to do not with the plight of established screenwriters, but with the new screenwriter with a few miles on him or her? And when I use the term 'new,' I don't limit that to the 'older' person who starts his first screenplay tomorrow. There's nothing like a track record to get a pitch meeting, a script read and a deal. since they fell under the category of 'young' screenwriters. But these guys all fall under the category of 'established' screenwriters.

Norman is closer to 60 than 50, and Stoppard turns 64 this year. Academy Award®-winning authors of 'Shakespeare In Love,' Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman, are no spring chickens. Joseph Mankiewitz (who, incidentally, rewrote Fitzgerald) was well over 35 when he wrote 'All About Eve.'Īs for contemporary screenwriters: William Goldman is pushing 70 David Mamet is 53 the Coen brothers are over 35. William Faulkner wrote his first screenplay at 48. He went to Hollywood and found work as a screenwriter. Scott Fitzgerald's career as a novelist had faltered, he needed money fast. For the record, he wrote the original screenplays for 'Double Indemnity' and 'Strangers On A Train.' He didn't even publish his first novel until he was 51. Raymond Chandler wrote his first screenplay at 56.

Odds of becoming a screenwriter