Script Apart with Al Horner

• Stage Apart: My Neighbor Totoro with Tom Morton-Smith

  All aboard the Cat Bus for a moving conversation about one of the greatest animations of all time – and the emotional madness of trying to bring that tale to the stage in London’s West End. If you’re in London at the moment, you need to see the current theatrical adaptation of My Neighbour Totoro currently showing in the West End. Produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company with puppet designs by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, this magical re-telling of the iconic Studio Ghibli animation was written by our guest today, Tom Morton-Smith – a storyteller whose past work includes Oppenheimer (not the Christopher Nolan movie, but an acclaimed stage drama) and Ravens, a Cold War thriller set at the 1972 World Chess Championship. Taking on Totoro was an undertaking as big and daunting as the titular forest spirit himself. Set in post-war Japan, Hayao Miyazaki’s story told the tale of a father and his two daughters who move to the edge of an enchanted forest, to be closer to the hospital where the girls’ mother is undergoing medical care. As uncertainty gathers, strange creatures reveal themselves to little Satsuki and Mei – leading them on an adventure of wonder and awe. In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, Tom details how he translated that wonder and awe to the stage. He’s also open about his persoal experience, writing the play amid huge change in his family life. The grief and loss – or potential for loss – that sits in the background of the Totoro story is something Tom was moving through himself as he sat down to pen this adaptation.We break down the tale’s themes of environmentalism and the kindness we owe to each other. We also get into the darkness of Ghibli that is often erased or reduced in how the west talks about films like this one. Finally, we talk about “ma” – the Japanese word for “emptiness” – that Miyazaki fills Totoro with, and why it might just be the secret to the joy of this film, now more than ever, in a frantic, digital world. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on [email protected] – get comprehensive feedback on your latest script from Al Horner by visiting ScriptApart.com/coverage.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• M3GAN 2.0 with Gerard Johnstone

  In 2023, Megan – a sassy robot, designed to be your daughter’s best friend – danced and dismembered her way to internet infamy. The title character of director Gerard Johnstone and writer Akela Cooper’s Blumhouse horror-comedy was an evil doll in the tradition of Chucky from Child’s Play, but at the same time, distinct in her modernity. As I asked in my review for Empire Magazine at the time: “Has Chucky ever interrupted a stabbing spree to sing Sia’s pop smash ‘Titanium’? Has Billy the Puppet ever broken into a TikTok-style dance before another Saw franchise victim met their violent demise?” The answer was no, and a moment in meme culture was born. There were SNL skits about Megan, starring Aubrey Plaza. The film took $181m at the box office against a paltry $12m budget. It seemed inevitable a sequel would follow – and two years later, that sequel is here.Written by Gerard, my guest today, from a story he conceived with Cooper, the film is bigger in every possible regard. It lays on the explosions and spectacle thicker and faster than before, throwing car chases and robot-on-robot fist fights into the mix this time around. It’s higher in stakes: the fate of the world is on the line here, as a new rogue A.I threat, Amelia, emerges. And it’s also more expansive in the conversation this Frankensteinian fable wants to have about parenthood, as well as the genie-out-of-the-bottle effect of artificial intelligence. But did you know in the first draft of this sequel, Joe Rogan and Snoop Dogg had brief parts written for them? Or that at one point in the script, Cady – played by Violet McGraw – has to fend off her sweet, old grandad in a fight scene in a diner, because he’s being controlled by a neuro-chip? Or that the story initially involved Amelia firing missiles into the Middle East, sparking a new conflict in the region – a plot line removed for obvious reasons?In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, Gerard walks me through his fascinating and extremely funny sequel. We get into all the important plot points in spoiler detail – and talk about the pressure of following up a film with the kind of immense digital footprint that the first one had.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on [email protected] – get comprehensive feedback on your latest script from Al Horner by visiting ScriptApart.com/coverage.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Black Mirror with Charlie Brooker

  Today on Script Apart, we’re taking a long, hard look in the mirror – Charlie Brooker’s dystopian anthology series Black Mirror, to be more precise, with the beloved British writer joining Al for a spoiler-filled breakdown of the show’s brilliant latest season. Yes, this week we’re delving into a show that reflects back at us our darkest fears about the unrelenting march of technology on modern life. Across thirty three acclaimed episodes and one interactive special, Black Mirror has wondered what parts of the human experience might soon be transformed – or worse yet, disfigured – by advances in artificial intelligence. The answer is “a great many parts.” The resulting stories are always gripping.When Charlie conceived the show in 2011, those advances must have felt still quite abstract – a possibility on the horizon. In today’s time of Chat GPT, little is abstract anymore about the topics and technologies spotlighted in Black Mirror. The internet is constantly ablaze with observations about the collapsing gap between our reality and the reality of the show. Because what may begin as a flight of fantasy in Charlie’s hands has a distressing habit of becoming real years later.Yes, we’re living in a Black Mirror episode, to quote a common online refrain, and in the spoiler chat you're about to hear, Charlie and Al get into that. You’ll hear how the show has changed across its time on screen, responding to the fact that tech companies are no longer faceless corporations like they were when the show began; they’re now the extension of celebrity CEOs, with cult-like legions of disciples. You’ll get Charlie’s take on Al’s suspicion that episodes like ‘Hotel Reverie’ appear to indicate that something has softened in the writer since he began this journey with Black Mirror. And you’ll hear some truly mind-bending descriptions of the original ideas behind some of the series’ best-loved episodes, including one that was intended to be a Bond movie-esque adventure, one that was originally planned to be a musical and of course, the moving San Junipero.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on [email protected] – get comprehensive feedback on your latest script from Al Horner by visiting ScriptApart.com/coverage.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Elio with Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian

  As the Talking Heads once nearly sang: “And may find yourself beamed up into a spacecraft. And you may find yourself pretending to be the leader of Earth. And you may find yourself hanging out with weird and wonderful beings from outer-space, going up against intergalactic warlords and maybe learning a thing or two about belonging along the way.” Yes, it’s an Elio special on today’s Script Apart, as we venture across the cosmos with the Pixar film’s co-directors, Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian.Elio tells the story of a child who longs to be abducted by aliens. Still reeling from the loss of his parents and struggling to adjust to living with his well-meaing aunt, the character embarks on an adventure that changes how he sees life back on Earth. It was written by Julia Cho, Mark Hammer and Mike Jones, from a story by Madeline, Domee and Adrian Molina.Domee you may know as the director of Turning Red, which we covered on this show in 2022. Madeline, meanwhile, is the director behind Burrough, a beautiful Pixar short film from a couple of years ago (this is her first feature). In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, we discuss initial drafts of this story in which Olga was Elio’s mother, rather than his aunt. I ask about how the film grapples with loneliness; the process of creating the magical worlds that Pixar movies so often invite filmgoers into, whether that’s Monstropolis or Coco’s Land of the Dead; and of course, the meaning of that Carl Sagan speech asking “Are we alone?” that close the film.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on [email protected] – get comprehensive feedback on your latest script from Al Horner by visiting ScriptApart.com/coverage.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 28 Years Later with Alex Garland

  The last time acclaimed writer-director Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Civil War, Annihilation) appeared on Script Apart, he told Al about his desire to quit directing temporarily and focus on writing – you know, like in the early days of his career. Well, it doesn’t get much more like those early days than returning to the blood-soaked quarantined Britain he imagined two decades ago, with a director who he shared an incredibly fruitful partnership with around the turn of the century.28 Years Later, which hit cinemas on Friday, sees Alex team up once more with Danny Boyle – the filmmaker with whom he made The Beach and Sunshine, as well as a 2002 zombie horror that redefined the genre. This sequel, however, is no retread of the film that sent a shiver through Britain’s spine. It’s a deeply contemplative meditation on Britain, death and how history is remembered and misremembered. The film stars Alfie Williams as Spike, a boy living in a protected tidal island community off the coast of Northumberland, who leads his mother, played by Jodie Comer, on a dangerous quest onto the mainland in search of a doctor to cure a mysterious ailment. What follows is not what many fans expected, in all the best ways.What you’re about to hear is a spoiler-filled conversation delving deep into the influence of Brexit on the film. We dissect that ending and its allusions to a disgraced figure from British pop culture history. Also explored: the origins of the Alpha zombies, the inspiration behind Ralph Fiennes’ Kelson character, and Alex’s original draft of a 28 Years Later movie, which saw Chinese special forces infiltrate Britain in search of the lab where the rage virus began. Enjoy the episode and stay away from those infected, people.Support for this episode comes from Final Draft.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. This episode was recorded and mixed by Daniel Gregory.Screenwriters – get comprehensive feedback on your latest script from Al Horner by visiting ScriptApart.com/coverage.Follow us on Instagram, or email us on [email protected] get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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