Simon Beaufoy: Screenwriters’ Lecture

Simon Beaufoy, the British Screenwriter behind iconic films including The Full Monty, Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours, has spoken of his love of film, saying: “Narrative is a really seductive thing… it will take over… and that’s the point.”

Speaking as part of the 2011 BAFTA and BFI Screenwriters’ Lecture Series, Beaufoy also explored several aspects of screenwriting, including how a script’s tone can completely change.

• Read a full transcript from the event

Whether a feel-good comedy or political drama, Beaufoy’s films are always insightful and full of compassion for his characters…

His debut feature-length script, The Full Monty (1997), which was originally written as a drama, enjoyed huge critical and commercial success. The comedy followed six unemployed men who turn to stripping as a money-earner, and gave Beaufoy his first BAFTA and Oscar nominations. It was, as Beaufoy says: “an example, and a really telling example for me very early in my career, that a film will tell you what it wants to be whether you like it or not. I was setting out to write a political film with some jokes in. We were all trying to do that, Uberto [Pasolini] the producer and Peter [Cattaneo] the director; that was our intention. [But] during the editing process it became a comedy with some politics. It jumped genres which was a really extraordinary thing for me, watching that happen.”