Screenwriter Eric Roth on 'Killers of the Flower Moon' and a life of big scripts
LOS ANGELES — The man on the porch wonders about what will endure, the stories, voices and years, the way they gathered and played out, making him a recurring whisper in the lives of others. If he were writing a movie—and he has written many— he might pencil in for the camera to linger on the gray beard, wrinkled eyes and the way the face, shadowed by a ball cap, looks to the house across the street.
What will happen to the ones who live there? How will it all turn out when he is gone?
Many words stretch ahead before then, and Eric Roth, who bets on horses and is nearing 80, is busy on scripts for two love stories, a science fiction fantasy, a pilot for a possible Netflix series about the Kennedys, an ecological tale, a stage adaptation of "High Noon" and preparing for Friday's opening of "Killers of the Flower Moon," a 1920s crime saga he wrote with Martin Scorsese about greed and murder against Osage Indians in Oklahoma.
Roth is one of the most successful and admired screenwriters in Hollywood. He's been nominated six times for an Academy Award for adapted screenplay, winning with the whimsical and much-loved "Forrest Gump." He's worked with Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, David Fincher, Akira Kurosawa and other important directors. He's a master at narrative and knows the intersection of artistic integrity and commercial appeal. But like a boy showing his mother a good report card, he, even after all the citations, seeks validation, an inclination shared by many in this town but seldom expressed.
"Maybe something you can say [about me] is that you probably don't know this person but he's been part of your life with all these
