We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lea Pascal. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lea below.
Lea, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
No. 20 year old me had no idea that she was an artist. I came to screenwriting in my 30s, attended UCLA’s MFA Screenwriting program in my mid-thirties, and just finished my first decently funded short film at 39. I also just had my first baby at 39. I truly do not think I could have done any of these things any earlier and been any good at them. While failure and trial and error is really important to being an artist, I think if I had a) had any kind of success earlier, or b) had any serious failures earlier, both would have landed me in an anxiety-ridden spiral of “I can’t do this.” Even though I have been writing my whole life, it took me a lot of trial and error, and an insane variety of jobs to really know what my skill set was. Part of that is growing up in Philly in the 90s, being an entertainment writer was not a job that I knew existed. I knew writers could have careers, but the path was so unique to every writer it was hard to see how to make any money at it. The advantage to kind of stumbling into screenwriting in my 30s, having been an actor, a dramaturg, a florist, a bartender, a financial aid specialist, and a slew of other things, was that I had been in so many different worlds and roles, heard a thousand voices, and stepped into so many shoes. This is crucial to telling stories. As a director, the variety of skills that it takes to lead a team, from communication, to management, to collaboration are all tools that take a lot of practice. To be green at these things in your 20s, is to be flexible and malleable as a leader in your 30s, and could mean I being wiser and confident in my 40s and 50s. It was so hard in my 20s to feel like I’d never arrive to myself as a rounded artist; now I know that slogging through making mistakes as a younger artist has set me up for a sense of self-assuredness that will only grow as I keep working. Also, point of view is the reason that any kind of art has meaning to me. I had no point of view as a younger person. Starting my creative career a little later in life gave me something to say.
Lea, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a writer/director. I write stories about people in systems of care, generally, often women, often touching on socio-political issues, and always through comedy. I just wrote and directed a dramedy short film called The Greatest Joy about a woman’s miscarriage told over three days. Before I became a writer/director, I was an actor living and working in Chicago, mostly doing a lot of improv, and a director from Second City recommended that I look into writing. I took a comedy spec writing class at iO improv in Chicago, and I was hooked. During my MFA Screenwriting program at UCLA, I directed my first short under the tutelage of Liza Johnson (The Last of Us, Barry) and knew that directing my own writing was how I wanted to spend my time. I’m currently seeking development and financing of The Greatest Joy as a feature film. Especially now with the restrictions on women’s bodies and women being held hostage by reproductive politics, it’s a film I find more timely than ever. My last agents told me that there was no market for stories about reproductive rights, so I’m hoping that getting this feature made changes the minds of those who think that there is no audience for telling women’s stories about their bodies.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The myth that merit actually takes you to the top of your own personal mountain is something I have had to unlearn. Merit, talent, skill, whatever you want to call it, is such a small part of being successful in a creative profession. I used to think that if I was really good at what I did, whatever that was, I would be seen and rewarded. But the reality is that the talent is the thing that can legitimize you after you have already gotten people’s attention. The talent doesn’t catch the attention; the networking does. The ability to sell yourself, having developed your taste and being able to communicate it, and knowing the right people at the right time is a sweet spot of opportunity that can really make professional magic happen. I have entered 1000 screenwriting competitions, tried to meet with hard-to-attain reps, and embarrassed myself through unveiled desperation plenty of times. While these actions are helpful to learn about failure, it really was time and hard work, and developing my own taste and skill that is finally getting me closer to the career that I want. Talent matters, but not up front and not right away. Talent is something, for me at least, that just backs up my talking the talk. And the talk matters.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
What a huge, difficult question to answer. I will never be able to do it justice, as this is a massive socio-political question, especially if we are talking about America. I lived and trained in Europe for a long time, and they treat their artists like they actually matter to the ecosystem of society. They get funding and they are part of the cultural conversation on small and large scale. In the US, the entertainment world is, dare I say, entirely market-driven. It doesn’t leave much room for the less digestible material to get made. A great example was I MAY DESTROY YOU, which started a cultural conversation that I think took everyone by surprise. I know someone believed in that show and made sure it got made and got made well. We could use a lot more support of that ilk in the US, and in Hollywood in particular. So, I guess the best way to support artists and creatives is to take more risks on them. The reliance on only producing proof-of-concept-driven materials (adaptations, remakes, sequels) takes money away from stories that have not been told before that may have more relevance to the now. Art, at its best form, should be a proposed question to society that sparks critical thinking. Riskier material will take us further as thinkers and a culture than we realize, and critical thinking is becoming extinct.
Woof. I’ll step down off my pedestal now.
Image Credits
Thea Lux