You're not interesting enough...

On September 30, Charlie Kaufman – Being John Malkovich,  Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, New York – was one of the speakers at the 2011 BAFTA Screenwriters' Lecture Series. His comments have been reported in a number of places, including The Guardian.

One of the many quotable lines from the session addresses a fear which afflicts some aspiring screenwriters: You're not interesting enough to be writing movies.

My first writing job was on a TV show called Get a Life. The show was mostly in the voice of its creators, Chris Elliott and Adam Resnick, who'd worked on the David Letterman Show. Adam's scripts were the best thing about Get a Life – and we all tried to write in Adam's voice. That was the job. 

I was frustrated with the results, but it occurred to me that there was no solution as long as my job was trying to imitate someone else's voice. The obvious solution was to find a situation where I was doing me, not someone else. The major obstacle to this is your deeply seated belief that "you" is not interesting.      –– Charlie Kaufman

If Charlie Kaufman wrestled with the fear of being uninteresting, there's hope for the rest of us. 

First posted:  8 October 2011