CNW 2/5/06 Interview: Christians must bring holiness to Hollywood

Christians must bring holiness to Hollywood

Barbara Nicolosi is a screenwriter and screen consultant who has made it her personal crusade to keep Hollywood and the church on speaking terms. As one of the founders and executive director of Act One, Inc., a training and mentoring community for Christians who want to work in the mainstream entertainment industry, she has worked to develop the talents of Christians who would be screenwriters, an effort that is starting to yield results. She also is a teacher and writer, whose 2005 book (edited with Spencer Lewerenz) “Behind the Screen: Hollywood Insiders on Faith, Film and Culture,” will be available for signing when she speaks on “Signs of Hope from Hollywood” at Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary, Rush and Pearson streets, at 7 p.m. Feb. 8. Her appearance is sponsored by the Father Hardon Media Apostolate.

She spoke by phone with Catholic New World staff writer Michelle Martin.

The Catholic New World: Why did you think Act One was necessary?

Barbara Nicolosi: I was reading scripts for a production company in Hollywood—just reading so many bad scripts from people of faith. They were all about their message, but the scripts were really bad as an art form, and the individuals were marked by a very sore lack of professionalism. I think people of faith tend to approach Hollywood with their script in one hand and sword or a gun in the other. This makes us seem a little frantic or paranoid or extreme.

We decided we needed to do something to help the next generation of believers to do something we hadn’t done very well. We were kind of the first Christians on the beach after the sexual revolution.

TCNW: Has it been successful?

BN: It’s been successful on different levels. We’ve learned that the process of nurturing artists is a much more patient process than we thought. It probably takes a writer three to five years to become proficient at the craft of screenwriting—and that’s if they are doing a lot of writing. Most of our people are trying to be a waitress or an assistant or a teacher all day, and then writing at night. I don’t think Michelangelo could have painted the Sistine Chapel part time.

But we’ve reached kind of a turning point, with Act One people working on two feature films this year. On “Curious George,” from Universal Pictures, Claire Sera is on the credit list—I’m not sure if she gets screen credit—and there is another movie coming out called “Ultimate List” that was kind of an indie film that looks like it will get a theatrical release.

We also have about eight students on working television shows. They’re not staff writers yet—they’re production assistants or writer’s assistants, at the first level.

On another level, we’re starting to really win some industry recognition and awards. Our students won the Disney Writers Fellowship. We’ve won twice in three years, and that’s one that like 2,000 people apply for and five get it.

TCNW: How has it become successful?

BN: It’s because we don’t teach them and hand them a diploma. That’s what Act One has become: It’s become a community that is trying to find out how to become a creative community. How do you get them writing and keep them writing with the right amount of encouragement and praise and tough love?

TCNW: Why is it important to have people of faith writing for movies and TV?

BN: It’s important on a couple of levels. Why is it important to have a Christian writing on “Curious George”? That’s a kids’ movie. One of the big problems in the world today is the lack of heroes. Look at the sports world—it’s all about money. Look at their lives—so many are just awful. Who are the heroes? Eminem? Who is the entertainment industry telling us is a hero? When you’ve got a completely secular heart, you cannot craft a real hero. Being a real hero means you believe something is worth dying for, and by doing that, you gain eternal life. You can’t sign on to that if you think this is all we have. Then the hero ultimately has to have self-interest. In the “Matrix” movies, you have Neo willing to sacrifice the entire created world to save his girlfriend. We’ve gone from Hollywood’s great movies, like “Casablanca,” where the problems of two little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this world, to where the problems of two little people are the only thing that matters.

You can’t tell a story of the triumph of the human spirit if you don’t believe in the spirit.

TCNW: What role is there for overtly religious stories?

BN: We absolutely need wonderful art that is telling the church’s story that is being put out there for the mainstream. Look at these pagan artists—I have never met one who has not been to Rome to see the Pieta and the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s. They are drawn to excellence and beauty. When the church has achieved a high level of excellence and craft, she’s been allowed to tell her story. But we’re not doing that. No one is going to brood over or meditate over “Gather Us In.” No one is going to make a pilgrimage to the L.A. cathedral. It’s like a big meeting room.

TCNW: Why should Catholics pay attention to Hollywood?

BN: The competitive nature of the mainstream marketplace will ensure a higher-level product. There’s nothing like the ghetto to make us satisfied with mediocre work, and say isn’t that wonderful. Competition will make sure our product is actually good.

On another level, we’re supposed to care about the world. We absolutely need people of prayer in the center of the creative community, which is paradoxically the most dark and isolated and fear-filled community that I have ever encountered. People here have lots of talent and beauty and money, and absolutely gaping holes of misery. Everyone here is addicted to something. They’re all trying to distract themselves.

God has a special love for the creative world, and we cannot walk away. I don’t think there’s anything pastoral about just abandoning the creative community. Instead, we should be converting them.

TCNW: Can we do that?

BN: To develop the our people, it is going to take us 20 years to catch up—let’s bring over a few more people like Barbara Hall, who created “Joan of Arcadia” after her conversion. It took her 20 or 25 years to develop that level skill, those contacts that allowed her to do that. It’s going to take us 20 years, too. But a much quicker way to catch up is to convert people who already are there. Jesus can do that, if we’re here, if we have enough Elis on the ground, who can be there to answer the Samuels, when God calls them.

Hollywood is not Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s Nineveh. But there is so much anger in the church—and there’s nothing holy about it—anger at the mainstream media and the entertainment world. We have got to get past that.

TCNW: What can the church say to Hollywood?

BN: There’s so much we can say. The message is to be in dialogue. Inasmuch as the church needs to learn from the secular creative community about expertise and beauty, it has so much to give. It has a spirituality that can put the prophetic life of the artist in the right context.

The other thing the church has is access to the Holy Spirit, the source of inspiration. How do you connect to the deepest sources of inspiration? The church is all about that. We have all sorts of stuff about helping to balance the moral life. So much of our misery is self-inflicted.

I came here thinking the goal was to replace them with us, and I just fell in love with them. Most of the people here are so smart and so creative and so open and so generous on an instinctive level. That’s not the top level, the people with green light power. Those people need to be replaced. But the other million or so are just people.

And they have unbelievably godly influence and power. I have a friend who works on a sit-com who says, “Every week, 50 million people see what I write.” Jesus never had an audience like that. Everything is available here: Beauty, adulation, fame, celebrity. If you do not have Jesus in your heart, you will lose your soul.

They have to stay in our house. We are so trying to help the, be formed spiritually while they grow artistically.

For more information, visit barbarancolosi.com or actoneprogram.com. For information about the Feb. 8 presentation, call Father Don Woznicki at (847) 272-7090.