Podcast: Screenwriter James Solomon Talks THE CONSPIRATOR
The Conspirator stars Robin Wright and James McAvoy
Screenwriter James Solomon
Would you wait nearly two decades to see your passion project get produced? Screenwriter James Solomon did. And, it was well worth it, he says, to see his period drama The Conspirator finally hit the big screen. “If I were told it was going to take 18 years, but at the end, Robert Redford was going to direct it,” Solomon says, “I would have been fine with that.”
But he didn’t know Redford was going to direct it. Until that happened, Solomon spent the majority of his adult life researching, writing and rewriting the story of Mary Surratt, a Southern woman who stood trial for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Solomon got the ideas when he came across a transcript of the trial in 1993. Nearly two decades later, his dream of seeing this story on screen became a reality. The film stars Robin Wright, James McAvoy, Tom Wilkinson and Justin Long. Script sat down with Solomon to discuss writing, waiting and watching the big finale.
2 Comments
The Conspirator film is the best ever film I watched next to A Beautiful Mind. It gives a real-life view of what might have happened within the trial of Mary Surratt.I was intellectually stimulated by the arguments of the solicitors as they grilled the witnesses.This admiration is perhaps due to my infrequent exposure to such argumentation. I will watch it over and over again.