We know David Scarpa as a longtime member here at theOffice. But beyond that, he has been a creative force behind films like The Day the Earth Stood Still, All the Money in the World, Napoleon, and Gladiator II, which is currently in theaters. I recently sat down with David to pick his brain about his writing process, how he came up in the film industry, and the advice he has for writers starting out today.

So, I’ll just jump right in and ask how you got started with writing?

As a kid I was a lousy student but writing was something I knew I was good at — I had teachers take me aside and tell me to focus on writing as a career, the way you’d tell an underachieving student who was failing math but good in shop class to consider a career as an electrician. So when it came time to get into college, I had an unimpressive GPA, but I was able to submit a portfolio of my work and use that as a back door to get into NYU’s Dramatic Writing Program.

I was much more interested in filmmaking than in taking writing classes, though. I didn’t really see the point in taking writing classes when I could be learning a skill, like in trade school. There’s a saying that writing can be learned but it can’t be taught, and I agree with that. So I transferred into the film program there. (I think you can learn more about screenwriting by learning the other departments — acting, directing, editing, cinematography, sound — than by sitting in a room with other writers.)

While I was living in New York, I found jobs in commercial production and directed music videos, and briefly thought about a career doing that, but it was very expensive to build a reel as a commercial director. I wound up getting a job as a reader at a film company and realized that writing was the coin of the realm — you could literally write your own ticket. So I returned to writing and focused my energies on that. I moved out to LA and worked odd jobs, and after several years I finally sold a script to Warner Brothers, and I’ve been working as a writer ever since.

When you were a teenager, was there anything in particular that inspired you to pursue writing?

I was always a compulsive reader. If I was sitting at the breakfast table I would read the back of the cereal box over and over. I never read what I was assigned for school, but I was constantly reading. So writing just came out of that.

You learn to write by reading. There’s no other way to learn to write. To the extent that there are fewer good writers today, it’s because there are fewer readers.

So I grew up reading a lot of novels of the 70s like Robert Stone and Tim O’Brien and Michael Herr and Esquire Magazine back when it was a real magazine. And in terms of dramatic writing I really focused on Shakespeare. To the extent that I’ve learned anything about writing it’s from him.

Do you have a favorite play of his?

Actually, I’m doing an adaptation of Macbeth right now for Sony. It’s like “Throne of Blood” as a cop movie. I like all the Shakespearean tragedies, definitely.

So, there is Shakespeare, there is Napoleon, and now there is Gladiator II. It seems there is something about historical projects that draws you in.

I always find myself using a lot of research in the course of doing anything, even if it’s not a project that’s strictly factual. The research helps you to get into the headspace of the movie — the accretion of little tiny details that make up the world of the movie.

I also find that historical characters and stories take unconventional turns that fictional films usually don’t. You find yourself analyzing a historical figure to try to understand them, and you find that there are layers and contradictions to those real people that are deeper than your usual film character. Characters in films usually make rational decisions that can be justified to studio executives, while people in real life do things that are irrational, stupid, self-destructive and completely inexplicable, which is far more interesting. It’s the irrationality of human beings that makes them interesting — if there’s one thing you can learn from Shakespeare, it’s that.

So writing these historical characters gives you the cover you need to tell more interesting stories. In historical films no producer or executive can say “it’s totally implausible that this character would do this” because they actually did do it, and it’s your job to try to understand the demons that drove them to do it.

You’ve done mostly film, but you also wrote a few episodes for the Man in the High Castle. How does writing for film and TV compare?

I’ve mostly done film, but I think TV is more hospitable to writers. I were advising a young writer, I would tell them to focus on television because you have a lot more control as a showrunner or as a creator than you do in the feature realm.

Is creative control something you seek out when selecting a project?

I mean, obviously, you want the movie or the TV show to come out as close to what your intention is as possible. But that’s not always necessarily going to be the case even in TV. You have a lot of cooks in that kitchen too, but I think the writer’s place in the hierarchy is a lot better in TV than it is in film. Unfortunately, I’ve always been a movie guy and I’m drawn to the self-contained short form of features.

I wanted to ask a little bit more about your writing process. What does it look like when you get an idea or you’re presented with an idea? How do you start?

I will often start with either a piece of material or just an idea. Sometimes a historical idea, or a book or something like that. Most of the stuff I do at this point is submitted to me by producers or executives. I read something and I have a gut reaction, I have what they would call a “take.” And then I will develop it out into a longer form as an outline or a treatment. And that will be the basis of everything I do after that. And then I just sit down and, you know, write. As I’ve said, I do a lot of research, but often the research is just a way for me to get into the headspace of doing the thing, and then I just come here and I grind the thing out.

Yes! Tell me more about how theOffice impacts your process?

Well, for me, it’s obviously very valuable because I have three kids. It’s valuable to have a space away from home where I can work. But part of the virtue of it is that you can work around other people. You don’t have to feel isolated. You don’t have to feel like you’re locked in a small box of a room or anything like that, which has driven so many writers to drink. There’s a nice background hum of other people being there, but without too many distractions so you can do your thing. It’s a perfect balance.

David Gleeson (one of the other members of theOffice) once mentioned to me, you write incredibly fast. He said that he would look over at you and wonder how you got so much done in so little time.

Are you sure he wasn’t talking about someone else?

No, he was definitely talking about you!

He’s much faster than I am and he’s far more disciplined. He’s always working. I’m off surfing the internet or doing online shopping or whatever. I’m a big procrastinator. He’s much more focused than I am. But also, when I do write, I obsess over the little, tiny details. It’ll take me a very long time even to get a line out. So he may very well be thinking of somebody else. When I finally get going, I really do pick up steam. But for most of the day, I’m definitely not like that at all.

The biggest thing is just being able to focus and get locked in. And once you are, then you’re into it. I do get all my work done on deadline somehow, but I’m not terribly efficient. Everybody I see at theOffice is definitely getting more accomplished.

Well, I have one final question to wrap this up. Do you have a favorite script that you’ve written?

Well, I think this is the case with many writers — once you’ve been around a while, your best material and the things that you are known for are things that have never been made. So, there are two projects that I’ve written that have become my calling cards and have gotten me all of my work. My reputation is entirely based on those unproduced scripts. It’s not based on any movie that’s actually gotten made.

Do you wish those scripts had been made?

Well, sometimes not getting a movie made almost helps. Because if it’s made poorly, people only see what’s been made. Whereas, when it’s just a script, it stays pristine in people’s minds.

Thanks again to David for sitting down to chat with me. And don’t forget to check out some of these fantastic reviews for Gladiator II before you sit down in the theater!