Interview: Patrick Marber

By Susan Thea Posnock

One aspect of being a writer is to dream of immortality through words.

For a screenwriter, an Academy Award is the ultimate way to achieve this. But, as I discovered over a recent chat with Best Adapted Screenplay nominee Patrick Marber--the comedian-turned-playwright-turned-screen scribe of Notes on a Scandal--restaurant menus offer another way to grasp that “Holy Grail.”

Sitting in the lobby of Manhattan’s famed Algonquin Hotel, our conversation veered off on a tangent about one of its most notable regulars, Dorothy Parker.

“You can buy a Dorothy Parker burger here,” he pointed out. “In London there’s a hotel where there’s a Virginia Woolf burger. I’ve always thought that was hilarious.”

Throwing good taste to the wind I wondered aloud, “Do you dip it in water?”

“Exactly, it’s a drowned burger,” Marber replied, not missing a beat.

While recognizing the absurdity of the topic, I couldn’t resist and asked him what food item he would want to be named after.

“I think an egg dish would be quite nice, a ‘Boiled Marber,” he quipped. “Yes, I’d quite like to be a breakfast dish.”

Joking aside, the 42-year-old Londoner, up for his first Oscar in his second major effort (the adaptation of his hit play Closer failed to earn him a nod, despite much acclaim), recognizes Oscars are more important than eggs.

“I’d prefer to win an Academy Award than be a boiled egg variety,” he candidly admitted.

While he may share the same acerbic wit as Barbara Covett, the aptly named anti-heroine of Notes on a Scandal played by Best Actress nominee Judi Dench, its clear he’s not deluded.

Marber, who is married with three young children, adapted the story from the novel, What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller. After finishing at Oxford University, he toured the UK comedy circuit, catching his break in the early 1990s when he hooked up with actor Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci for radio and television shows. They created iconic, pseudo-media personality Alan Partridge (brought to life by Coogan). From there he went on to write his first play, Dealer's Choice, in 1995.

He said his background in stand-up comedy prepared him for the role of screenwriter.

“As a comic you’re changing your material all the time, so I’ve always been someone who knows a script is a work in progress and constantly evolving,” he explained.

That was definitely the case on Notes, told from the perspective of Barbara's diary entries in the novel, but opened up on film to incorporate the viewpoint of her friend and nemesis Sheba Hart, (Cate Blanchett, nominated for Best Supporting Actress). The two, teachers at the same school, become intricately involved when Barbara discovers Sheba canoodling very inappropriately with a student. The film tackles serious issues like loneliness and self-delusion, but with a twisted comic lens.

OscarWatch: How challenging was it to broaden the perspective of Notes from the book?:

Patrick Marber: I think when you see the film now it looks quite simple, but it took a lot of drafts. The trick of it was to give you access to both of the women, yet still make you feel that Barbara was the teller of the tale.

OW: Was there a big difference in adapting your own work versus the words of another author?

PM: Closer was an easier job because [director] Mike Nichols wanted the film to be very much a version of the play. I was all for opening it out and having shorter scenes and less dialog. But he was very clear and brilliantly persuasive.

OW: Was Zoe Heller involved with the Notes adaptation?

PM: Yeah, very much so. I’ve always explained to her why I’ve made changes, so she’s been very aware of what I’ve been doing. She doesn’t always agree and we have quite amusing arguments. But she loves the film; she’s thrilled it got made.

OW: How much of your own voice is in the finished version?

PM: Line for line I’ve probably got about 10, 15, 20 percent of Zoe’s words in there and I’ve had to invent the rest. Obviously everything I’ve invented would be impossible to invent without the novel. But after a certain amount of drafts a weird kind of possessiveness occurs. I would think all adapters feel this. You’ve devoured the material and own it in some weird, horrible, cannibalistic way. You start to believe that you invented it in the same way that I think an actor has to believe that they are the character.

OW: What’s your perception of the characters in Notes?

PM: I’ve always been terribly fond of Barbara, I know she’s the villain of the piece, but I think she’s so exquisitely sad, lonely, bitter and funny about herself.

Sheba moves me and I think in the end I’m more moved by the characters than perhaps audiences are. [Laughs]

OW: I read that you envisioned both Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett while writing it.

PM: You’re talking about two of the best actors of their generation and two actors brave in their choices, not afraid to be unlikable and plumb the depths. But both have a charm and a sparkle and a wit and sexiness. And I include Judi in that; she’s a very feisty, sensual woman.

I didn’t want this ever to be a dry film. I wanted it to be passionate and emotional and funny and odd. I think it is all those things and we needed actresses who have great scale to their work.

OW: Are you proud that your words helped bring out Oscar-nominated performances?

PM: Well they didn’t need me to bring it out, but I was a factor. Sure I'm immensely proud. There have been some great performances of my work on stage and film. It is the most thrilling thing to watch brilliant actors being brilliant and then forgetting that you wrote it.

OW: How were you able to take the story’s serious themes and make them comic?

PM: I think knowing what genre you're in is terribly important. I never thought we were making a tragedy here. I think there is something moving about it, but fundamentally I think the form is dramatic comedy.

I think one of the things I like about the film is that it’s not demanding that you be moved by this. Its not milking your emotions, it’s not pulling at you to feel. And all the films that move me most never ask me to be moved. I just become moved.

OW: What other films do you think achieve this?

PM: This year I’m very moved by Little Miss Sunshine, but never is that film saying to me ‘Oh be moved by me.’ But the predicament of those characters moves me. I think that’s a beautiful piece of writing by Michael Arndt.

OW: What about all time influences?

PM: Anything Billy Wilder wrote and Joseph Mankiewicz. All About Eve is one of the greatest screenplays ever written.

OW: Who would you like to work with?

PM: I wouldn’t kill to work with Martin Scorsese, but I would crawl across broken glass with a protective body suit on. [Laughs]

I think it’s a good time to be a screenwriter, I think there’s a lot of good directors out there and I think the scale of film that I’m interested in writing is getting made. People are interested in $15 to $20 million films. It’s worked out where they can be profitable and great actors want to do them.

OW: Why do you think that’s the case?

PM: I think a lot of it is to do with there being a generation of actors who want to do great movies and are less concerned about being great big movie stars and getting paid fortunes up front. That means people like me get to write these kinds of movies.

OW: What other aspects of filmmaking are you interested in?

PM: I’m generally quite interested in the firmament around the film because I’m learning the business side of it. I find it very interesting that you have the film, which is the product, then you have the kind of super nexus of activity around it. It might be something I want to write about. More time and money are spent on promotion than creation. In a way the promotion is part of the creation.

OW: Do you want to direct?

PM: I’ll want to direct something when I find a piece of material that I can’t bear the thought of anyone else directing. I haven’t found that yet.

OW: Would you be interested in directing another writer’s script?

PM: I’d want to be the writer/director because I know how much the material is going to change. I want to be the one doing the changing rather than worrying what the writer thinks.

*Originally posted on OscarWatch (Awards Daily)