Why Strong Female Characters Are Just More Interesting with Charles Shyer
Rom-com-versations is an interview series with people from the entertainment industry discussing all things rom-coms
Hi Meet Cuties,
This week I had the chance to chat with Charles Shyer, who is a director, producer and writer, known for PRIVATE BENJAMIN, THE PARENT TRAP (featuring Lindsay Lohan), ALFIE, and FATHER OF THE BRIDE. Growing up in Los Angeles and having a father in the industry, Charles lived and breathed entertainment from the start. Charles has created films that push the boundaries of what was traditionally on the screen at the time, bringing diversity to the screen with characters and plot. I was introduced to Charles through our friend, Marc Klein, who you have met here on Rom-com-versations, and I’m so excited to be speaking with him today.
💕 Naomi: What is your favorite rom-com and why?
💙 Charles: I don't know that I'm a big rom-com fan. Is 20th Century, with John Barrymore in Carole Lombard, considered a rom-com? Design for Living, Trouble in Paradise, and Ernst Lubitsch movies would probably make my list. I like the movies from the ‘30s and ‘40s that are less predictable. I suppose my movie, Baby Boom, was sort of a rom-com, and maybe Irreconcilable Differences was kind of a romantic/comedy drama. I don't know that I'm an expert in the rom-com genre. I like some, I'm just not the hugest fan.
💕 Naomi: I think “rom-com” means something really specific because due to a lot of the movies from the ‘90s and early two thousands. But, I believe a romantic comedy can actually be a lot wider than what most people think a rom-com is. For example, The Parent Trap is a movie that you worked on, and while it's not like a traditional rom-com, the story arc itself and the emotionally satisfying ending still satisfies my craving for a feel good story, so I would consider it a rom-com.
💙 Charles: It's like calling something a sitcom, it's a superficial label. I like what Billy Wilder said about the genre, "You want to make them laugh and make them cry." I think so many movies that are considered rom-coms are shallow, not good movies, and have diminished the genre in my opinion.
💕 Naomi: Let's jump back in time to when you were just getting started and your career was taking off. Was there someone specific who inspired you to start working on movies and start writing?
💙 Charles: I worked for Garry Marshall as his assistant. I basically was just a guy who got his car washed, did his Christmas shopping, got him Fudgsicles, brought him lunch, and got to hang around him. He encouraged me to sit in the story meetings. If I had, what I assumed was most likely a bad idea, I would reluctantly share it with Garry after the meeting and he would say, "That's not a bad idea, Chuck— speak up!" He basically took me under his wing and said, "You could be a writer!" He nurtured me and helped me learn how to do it; he was my mentor.... and that was an incredibly lucky twist of fate.
💕 Naomi: That’s incredible! I feel like, especially in the movie making business, oftentimes a lot of people's careers start with that apprenticeship model where you're just shadowing and around really incredible people that are working on all of these projects. How did you get connected to Garry?
💙 Charles: I was the Second, Second Assistant Director and I went on to a TV show that Garry created. I just asked him for a lesser job - to be his Personal Assistant because I thought that would open the door for me to learn more about writing. So, I gave up my job as Assistant Director to be Garry's Personal Assistant. I took a huge pay cut just to hang around/shadow him. I saw career daylight, I went for it, and it worked out. I ghost wrote a couple of things for Garry when he had assignments he didn't want to do or was just too busy to juggle. I would lay down a draft— Garry would rewrite what I'd done - and make it sing. That was an incredible learning curve for me. To sit with Garry - sometimes 'til two in the morning - as he'd rewrite my work, explaining why he was making each and every change, and watching things get better was crucially helpful. I mean, the guy taught me everything. Everything.
💕 Naomi: Speaking of ghostwriting, you've worked on so many awesome projects -- we'll get into a lot of them in a bit-- but I'm curious what your writing process is like? How do you get started on a new script?
💙 Charles: I don't really have a method. One thing is that I'm always taking notes. If I hear a line of dialogue in a restaurant that I like, I'll jot it down. I have notebooks everywhere: by my bed, by my desk, and especially on my phone. I always have ideas rattling around, like right now, I'm working on a screenplay I started on about four years ago. I have two movies in the can that are coming out soon - one in November and another for Christmas of ‘23. I also have two new scripts that are getting ready to be launched. As you can see, I'm always juggling several things. When I was starting out as a writer, my sage first agent gave me the best advice, he told me, "Activity breeds activity." It takes me a long time for me to finish a project. One script that I just finished I've been working on for like 25 years. Seriously. Actually longer to be honest.
💕 Naomi: What does it feel like to finish a script that you've been working on for that long?
💙 Charles: It's an autobiographical kind of script, so it feels great! I'm glad I finally got it down because it took me a long time to nail the structure-- sometimes it just doesn't come, you know? Another thing I try to do is make an outline, but what I've found is that most of the time the outline only somewhat resembles the movie. Sometimes you go off course and it can lead in so many different directions, it's like the movie has a mind of its own. Usually I do a million rewrites-- sometimes it actually feels like a million.
💕 Naomi: I like the idea of tracking the things in the world around you that inspire you. Something that I noticed from your movies is that there are usually strong female characters, like in Private Benjamin– about a pampered young woman who joins the army– and in Baby Boom– about a woman who inherits her long lost cousin's baby after her passing. Especially at the time that these movies were coming out, there weren't many strong female characters on screens. What made you want to focus on these kinds of characters?
💙 Charles: Much of my writing has been done with a female partner, like my ex-wife Nancy Meyers. So the genesis of that work was because I was writing with Nancy. I wrote Alfie with Elaine Pope, who was a great writer for Seinfeld, and I wrote my last script, The Noel Diary, with my friend, Rebecca Connor, who's a brilliant college professor. Don't ask me why but I tend to find it easier to write with women. In terms of strong female characters in my movies, I've always found myself gravitating towards strong actresses, like Barbara Stanwyck, Irene Dunne, Roslyn Russell and Carole Lombard. Smart, fast talking dames. I just always found them more interesting to write about than the macho guys. Their dilemmas always seemed more interesting.
💕 Naomi: I totally understood what you were saying about writing about women. There's a different lens, different issues, and different things that the character is thinking about. What's it like working with talent to bring these characters to life?
💙 Charles: A lot of it happens in casting where you really get to know the skills of the individual. With Diane Keaton, she's just so original that I tried not to lock her into any specific character and let her create it on her own path. I try not to be too rigid in that aspect. Diane never did the same take twice, which I loved because her take was always so original. I think it's really important to give the actor/actress space to make the character their own. Di always listened to music on headphones right before the take because she didn't want to be distracted by the crew or the technical stuff. She'll have headphones on and right before the take she'll throw them off and jump into the scene. She's in her own space beforehand and it’s truly special. I mean, she's a unique talent. I've been very lucky in my career to work with some great actors. Goldie was another who would've been a movie star in any era, 30's, 40's, and so on— she’s a classic. The movie I just made, The Noel Diary, I worked with Justin Hartley from This Is Us and he was as natural and pure an actor as I've ever worked with. On the other hand, I've worked with a couple of actors that I really did not connect with -- and that was tough. Those movies didn't turn out to be good movies.
💕 Naomi: You wrote Father of the Bride, which was a remake of the movie from the 1950s. I remember watching it with my dad at the time and laughing so much because my dad was very over-protective, as I think many dads are. I know you have daughters, were there pieces of your life that you brought into the movie? How did you start working on Father of the Bride?
💙 Charles: I didn't even know the original movie, but Steve Martin came to me and Nancy and asked us if we'd like to do it because he really liked Baby Boom. We read the script that had already been written, and we didn't love it. In fact, I read it on the airplane on my way to New York to meet Steve. Don't ask me why I decided to read the script at the last minute, but I thought I was going to jump out of the airplane because it was just not very good. But Steve convinced us to rewrite it, which we did. I had two young daughters at the time, so yes, I think a lot of Father of the Bride is based on feelings that we had for our daughters, especially me. The basketball scenes are all taken from Nancy's life -- she and her dad would always shoot hoops together. It was easier to write because it was a natural adjustment for me to put myself in Steve's place already having daughters. The original Father of the Bride screenplay, by Goodrich and Hackett, was a really good script. They were terrific writers. So there was a lot to bring in from that.
💕 Naomi: What was working with Steve Martin like? I am a huge fan of his!
💙 Charles: He's a total original and he's very respectful. He would always have ideas, but his whole method was, “You get it the way you want it first, and then I have an idea that I'll try at the very end.” I would always say, "Yeah, yeah, okay, great." So we’d do it our way, then we’d try Steve’s version, and his version was always better. It was always the one that ended up in the movie. It's really the Second City philosophy of experiment to take something given to you and build off of it, which makes the process collaborative rather than critical.
💕 Naomi: That feels like a really fun way to be working with talent! Another movie you worked on is The Parent Trap, which is a movie that I grew up on and have rewatched many times as I'm sure a lot of our followers have done as well. At that point, Lindsay Lohan was 11 years old, but was at the start of her career. What was working with young actresses like?
💙 Charles: I think she had maybe a line or two on a TV show prior to The Parent Trap, but I'm not sure. We did screen tests of Lindsay and five or six other actors, some of which are now big movie stars. We tested Lindsay with Dennis Quaid, if I remember correctly, and as soon as she did the test, I told Nancy, "We will never beat this girl." She was just so great and so into it. She was truly brilliant in that part— part(s), actually.
💕 Naomi: It was a perfect casting for that character. The comedy in that movie just hits! Something that I've noticed through a lot of your movies is that you understand the rhythm of comedy and that snappy dialogue back and forth really well. I feel like that's something that makes these movies stick in people's minds. Is that something that you've honed over time or do you think that was natural to you?
💙 Charles: That's from learning from Garry Marshall, Preston Sturges, Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, and the greats in the past. Pace is everything and you just have to keep it moving. I always time my scenes with the Script Supervisor and one of the things that I talk about constantly is pace. We read a scene through and then we'll do it faster and faster, and quicker and quicker. I just like to keep the pace going while at the same time keeping it real. My new movie, The Noel Diary, is like 95 minutes, which is very quick, but it really works.
💕 Naomi: Definitely, I'm a huge fan of the 90 minute films with snappy, amazing dialogue. I have one more question: you've alluded to some of the projects that you have in the works. Can you give the Meet Cute audience a sneak peek into what we can expect from some of the projects you're working on?
💙 Charles: Like I said, I have a movie coming out in November on Netflix called The Noel Diary with Justin Hartley that I'm really proud of. I have another film that's a quasi-Christmas movie, but not like a corny Hallmark movie, that will drop in November 2023 starring Brandy Norwood and Heather Graham called Best. Christmas. Ever. And then I have a new movie called A Thousand Miles Away that is a drama that looks like it's going to happen later this year. So a bunch of stuff is happening and I feel like I'm in a good place in my life in terms of work. If I had a girlfriend, everything would be complete. I guess I need a real-life "Meet Cute."
I hope you enjoyed this rom-com-versation! Be sure to watch out for Charles’ movie, The Noel Diary, coming to Netflix in November!
Stay tuned for my next Rom-com-versation.
xx,
Naomi