Kenneth Lonergan: Screenwriters’ Lecture

Kenneth Lonergan, the BAFTA-winning writer of Manchester by the Sea, has urged aspiring filmmakers to embrace their imaginations as he delivered one of BAFTA’s 2016 Screenwriters’ Lectures.

Lonergan’s is known for working on stories that are predominantly engaging character-driven dramas. Ones that explore the minutiae of the human condition and its many challenges and complexities, in such an intuitive way that they can’t fail to sympathetically connect with an audience. Often provocative, always sensitive, his films rarely offer easy answers, they simply provide a profound and poetic glimpse into the lives of everyday characters.

His advice: “If you’re trying to write a screenplay that’s supposed to be about human beings, you have to have some imagination about what those human beings are like. And in order to enjoy a film or screenplay – we’ll stick to that for the most part – your imagination has to be able to believe that what you’re seeing is real. Or has to not mind the parts that aren’t real, or has to enjoy the parts that are fantasy because they’re fantasy.”

• Read a transcript of the event

Born in New York, Lonergan originally tasted success on the stage, writing shows that would perform both off and on Broadway. His first film script was for Analyze This (1999), after which he decided to both pen and direct his next feature, You Can Count on Me (2000). It turned out to be a wise decision, with the script earning him both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.

His next film as writer-director, Margaret, about a young woman (Anna Paquin) who witnesses a bus accident and must deal with the consequences, was completed in 2007 but became mired in distribution hell. When it was eventually released in 2011, it garnered great reviews and more awards recognition. Sandwiched in between these two, he wrote The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000) and worked on Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (2002), the latter collecting both BAFTA and Oscar nods, with fellow writers Jay Cocks and Steven Zaillian.