There are many stories of overnight success in Hollywood. But, for the most part, it’s often a long slog to get that big break. Samy Burch, the screenwriter of the acclaimed new melodrama “May December,” is a textbook example of the riches waiting for you once you climb that industry mountain. She’s also a reason why the Black List is as important as ever as it approaches its 20th Anniversary.
Oh, and she’s now a leading contender or an Original Screenplay Oscar nomination, too.
READ MORE: Todd Haynes on Natalie Portman’s “May December” scene everyone will be talking about [Interview]
A graduate of NYU, Burch spent almost a decade working in the casting departments of films such as “The Hunger Games,” “Iron Man 3” and “The Nice Guys.” In her free time, she did what many in Hollywood do, work on screenplays she hoped would get her to her intended profession. In fact, she was hoping this particular script would just get her much-needd representation. Instead, “May December” made the 2020 Black List and was soon snatched up by Will Ferrell’s Gloria Sanchez productions. Within two years it was in front of cameras with Todd Haynes directing.
“I would really not recommend sitting down to write a grand opus,” Burch notes. “That would probably be a lot of pressure. I don’t know actually what number script this is that I wrote, but a handful, I mean quite a lot. I mean I was in a writing program where I wrote a lot, and then you kind of leave with a certain amount of confidence and hope. And I think a lot of it is about just trying to protect that confidence and hope for as long as possible. Because I wrote a lot of other scripts before this one where I liked it. I didn’t say, ‘Oh, well that’s s**t.’ [Laughs.] You just don’t know.”
Set in a small community near Savannah Georgia, “May December” follows a B-level actress, Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), as she attempts to learn more about the subject of her next role, Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), who was at the center of a massive tabloid scandal 20 years earlier. She soon discovers that Gracie’s relationship with her much younger husband, Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), may not be the bed of roses Gracie makes it out to be.
During our conversation earlier this month, Burch discussed the challenges of breaking through the business, what Haynes brought to the project, and much much more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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The Playlist: Where did the idea for this movie come from?
Samy Burch: Well, I wanted to look at tabloid culture kind of thing with some distance. And really the seed that got me excited about it was this character of Joe that’s played by Charles Melton in the film. I was kind of pulled in by this character of a man who’s only in his middle thirties and was about to be an empty nester. And so that kind of was the very first thing written in the sand was, “O.K., this is right before high school graduation when his kids are going to be gone, and he’ll finally have a second to process what happened to him and the media chaos that followed.” And then setting it 20 years later, there just felt like there was a lot more breath. And our “in” being this television actress who comes to town with something to prove, felt like it gave it an opportunity for humor and for investigation and for it to be about performance and denial and everything like that, the search for truth.
This was your first script that really broke through, right? When it made the 2020 Blacklist, right?
Yeah.
How many years had you worked on this script before you submitted it?
I wrote it in spring of 2019, and then I didn’t have any representation, so there was a six-month window where I had it ready and I was just trying to get people to read it. And then I really lucked out and a friend of a friend sent it to my managers now, and I got signed in January of 2020. And so then that whole year was a really wild ride in my apartment.
You also worked in the industry in casting for a number of years, correct?
Yeah.
So how frustrating is it to live here, to have friends in the industry, to have a script that you think is good and still find it hard to find anyone to rep it or pay attention to.
I mean, it’s interesting. I think of that as being the darkest time because I went to the screenwriting [program] at NYU. I’ve always been writing. I worked in casting as a day job. And then when I really did feel good about this one my friend’s manager actually sent it to 10 managers, and I have that list of people in my contacts of 2019. And I remember being so hopeful, I’m like, “O.K., just one of these people.” And not one of them wanted to meet me. And that was the same draft that got [eventual producers] Jessica Elbaum and Will Ferrell attached. So, I think it’s not even frustrating. It’s just there’s a lot of endurance that you need. I’ve had it very lucky. It can be so much worse, but it’s just people. It’s so much about the package that I think things are being presented in. And that was the first time where I thought, “Oh, maybe this isn’t going to click.” I had really had a lot of stamina up until that point. But then I was very lucky once 2020 started, besides, of course, everything shutting down and it being horrible.
I was lucky enough to see the movie at Cannes and I remember having a long conversation with Todd and he talked about how fast the movie went into production once they decided to make it. But, correct me if I’m wrong, it sounds like there was still at least another year and a half once you got repped to the movie even getting a go. Is that correct?
Well, it did kind of happen in two stages. In March of 2020, I mean, literally a day before everything shut down is when I first talked to Jessica on the phone, Jessica Elbaum at Gloria Sanchez [Productions], and I’d been talking to different production companies, and she was just the first person that it just felt electric. She totally got it. They really wanted to do it. So then I did a pass with her notes and Will’s that were really thoughtful. And then it was, November, December of 2020 when Natalie Portman got it and said she wanted to be attached. And then she sent it to Todd, and I met the two of them on Zoom in January of 2021. So there were these little chapters, I got notes from Todd and Natalie, and then that spring is when he said, “I keep thinking about Julianne Moore,” which was a shock. All of these things I’m saying…they were euphoric shocks to my system. But he had always had this Peggy Lee project ahead of ours with Michelle Williams at MGM. And so it was like, there was a lot of nice work where we’d talk about the script. I turned in more things to him, and it was sort of slow. And then they were six weeks out, or maybe less in 2022 at the top of the year where he had his production designer, his locations, all this stuff, and [the Peggy Lee project] fell apart for whatever reason, and he just pivoted the ship immediately. It was like, “Let’s do ‘May December’ now.” Then it was very fast, and all the people on his team were doing period, Peggy Lee, Cincinnati, gorgeous interiors. And then like, “Oh, wait a minute, Tybee Island, [Georgia].”
The original script was not set on the beach or on a coastal town, was it?
It was in a coastal town, but it was in Camden, Maine. And then it was kind of like, is graduation the most important thing, or is it Maine? And we all agreed it was graduation. So, they started making a list of places where they could fake fall or spring. And when Savannah was on the list, I went to my freshman year of college at that art school at SCAD in Savannah. So I knew it, and that was very lucky. It was fun to do, kind of transform it into Savannah, but Tybee Island, which is kind of ritzy little bubble right outside of the historic Savannah. [It] felt very similar in a lot of ways to what I had thought of as Camden as what was felt essential to that setting. I mean, Savannah is just such a specific place and it feels really essential to the DNA of the movie, so it’s very lucky that happened.
You mentioned that you were surprised Todd was thinking about Julianne to play Gracie. Had you envisioned other actors or a different sort of aesthetic for the film than Todd brought?
I couldn’t have imagined what Todd was going to do just because it’s so exciting to watch what he does. For the actors, I mean, my goal really when writing this was to get representation, that was kind of the ceiling of what my hopes were. So, everything on top has been a dream come true.
I was so surprised when Natalie [came on board]. All of these things have been just too good to be true. At a certain point, I was like, “Am I in a coma during COVID and this is some hallucination?” Because I didn’t meet any of these people for such a long time in person because of lockdown. And it was very surreal. But no, I couldn’t have ever imagined it. And I think when I was writing this in 2019 for no one, I had Julianne Moore on the board, on the corkboard. I think I would’ve seemed really grandiose.
When you wrote this, you said you were just trying to get representation. Do you think that gave you the freedom to not overthink it? You weren’t trying to fashion some sort of grand opus?
Oh, sure. I mean, yeah, I would really not recommend sitting down to write a grand opus. That would probably be a lot of pressure. I don’t know actually what number script this is that I wrote, but a handful, I mean quite a lot. I mean I was in a writing program where I wrote a lot, and then you kind of leave with a certain amount of confidence and hope. And I think a lot of it is about just trying to protect that confidence and hope for as long as possible. Because I wrote a lot of other scripts before this one where I liked it. I didn’t say, “Oh, well that’s s**t.” [Laughs.] You just don’t know. And the script right before this one that I wrote was for one of my best friends who’s a comedian named Kate Berlant that was set on a horse farm. We had been kind of talking to people, it’s like there are always a lot of starts and stops.
Yep.
That really felt like maybe it was going to get made. And so far it hasn’t. But yeah, I think the real through line is just stamina. [Because] it can be so disappointing.
The scene with Elizabet in front of the mirror is such an incredible moment for Natalie, but do you remember what your inspiration was for it?
I’ll say that the sort of incredible visual and emotional impact of her speaking right to the camera, that was obviously what Todd brought. In the script, it’s just her performing this letter as a monologue. And it’s a couple of pages long. I mean, what I liked about it was you learn a lot. You learn a lot through that letter of things that Gracie, Julianne Moore’s character, has not been honest to us so far as the audience about how much she was kind of aware of what was going on at the time. I think it’s also a moment for Elizabeth where that’s kind of the best she’ll ever do. That’s how I see it. That’s the closest to playing Gracie that she will get. Even if it’s on camera. But I think what’s so disturbing, and it’s so amazing to watch the way Todd shot it through the lens on a big screen where it’s looking down on you, I just feel like we are Joe at that moment. And you feel the amount of pressure and delusion that’s kind of put upon him. So, that felt like an important piece of the puzzle, of evidence. It’s like this relic that’s kind of preserved some fraction of the truth in some way.
“May December” is in limited release. It arrives on Netflix on Dec 1.