Q&A with screenwriter Craig Pearce

Craig Pearce, screenwriter for The Great Gatsby, spoke to Encore about working with Baz and writing for 3D.

How did you get into script writing?

I always loved stories and acting and dressing up and being anything but myself and I never realised that was not something other people did. After leaving high school, I did a three year acting course at NIDA but always thought I would one day write. Baz was a good friend and he had a theatre company. He wanted to extend a 20 minute version of Strictly Ballroom. We got it to 45 minutes then he was approached by producers to turn it into a feature film. I started helping him out on the film while they were looking for a real writer but eventually Baz had to go to the producers and say, “There’s this guy who’s my best friend and he is a really good writer”. To the producers’ credit, they believed in Baz so we had two weeks to re-write it.