I love getting to chat with actors during our press junket interviews. Interviewing and speaking with the visionaries behind the projects is always a huge treat as well. I am a writer but I consider screenwriters the ultimate! Sharing the interview with Disney A Wrinkle in Time screenwriter Jennifer Lee. Thanks to Disney for this awesome invitation, all opinions are my own.
Photo Credit Disney
Hmm that name sounds familiar right? If you are Frozen fan, you know her name because she co-wrote it! Crazy right? What a beautiful space of words and thoughts must her mind be. So we chatted about A Wrinkle in Time and she also shared some Frozen on Broadway news with us too!
From a Novel to the Big Screen
A Wrinkle in Time was written well over fifty years ago and Lee shared with us that she was a fan of the book from childhood, so she was very excited to be a part of the project. Here’s what she shared with us:
“Well, it took four years, if that answers the question. It was a challenge but it was one – when I heard they were looking for a writer, I was like, “Oh oh oh!” ‘Cause I had loved it as a kid, my daughter was actually reading it. So for 5th grade, if anyone’s like 5th grade. So I was reading it again and I just kept saying, I had a whole take on it. But I wanted to try it. And what I loved is, Disney really responded to acknowledging that. Like I wasn’t trying to do the book, adapting it for the film, it was very much clear that like, I don’t want to try to be the book.
If we try to be the book we’ll fail. But showing our love for the book, showing sort of how much inspiration there is in the book. And how much the – how strong the journey is in the book. I could stay true to that, then we might have a chance of finally getting it made. ‘Cause it’s been years of trying. So I’m and then of course, when Ava joined, that was the final magic piece of the puzzle, I think, so.”
Photo Credit: Momstart.com
Writing For Broadway
She shared how she was able to transition her writing from screenplay to Broadway. “Storytelling is storytelling and everything comes from the character, from the emotion. It doesn’t matter how fantastical the world or whether it’s just a tiny set. It all comes back to the intimacy of those characters.” We are so excited for Frozen on Broadway!
Quotes to Live by for Mrs. Who
If you’ve seen the film, you know Mindy Kaling is Mrs. Who and she only speaks in quotes. Lee was able to freshen up her quotes and I definitely caught them! She tells us how she decided which ones to us.
“In the book she didn’t just talk in quotes in the book. She also spoke with regular voice. But I couldn’t understand sort of the exact motivation of that. So for myself, I said, well, what if she’s evolved past language? She’s so evolved. And so she uses our words.
Photo Credit Disney
And then what I loved about that is, it allowed us to never be on the nose with what she says. But, and it if she’s drawing from the canon of history, she could draw from anyone. We didn’t have to stick to some quotes from certain periods of like Shakespeare or stuff. We could have Jay-Z, we could have anyone we wanted. We had a blast, people sending in emails to Ava, to me, about favorite quotes they have. So that was really fun. There are some we loved but we couldn’t do, ’cause we couldn’t get the rights to do it, too. ‘Cause it was like, you didn’t realize how complicated that process was. But it was fun.”
