Writers Mike Werb and Michael Colleary unleashed a torrent of tales, tidbits, and tips throughout FACE/OFF’s 140-minute runtime. So much so, I ended up with nine pages of notes to condense into this 700-word article.
So, staying succinct, here are the best bits:
The writing process
FACE/OFF was the first thing Mike and Michael ever wrote together. Initially they sat together and composed on the blank page. Though, after a couple of days failing to write that way, they divided the outline between them, separated, then wrote three to five pages a day, which was then sent to the other to edit.
There were certainly points where someone would have to compromise. But there was a mechanism for that. You couldn’t just disagree with the other person, you had to have a reason.
“It’s two people creating a third voice. You have to make room for the other person to contribute.”
Nervous nights
There were a lot of nervous nights mulling over whether the premise was going to work. Everything in this movie, up to the point of the surgery, is about justifying it to the audience.
“Michael Douglas, one of the producers, pushed it towards being a psychological thriller and said you needed proper actors to sell it.”
The writers’ worries were alleviated after a dinner with Nicholas Cage and John Travolta during which they spent the meal riffing off of each other’s mannerisms.
Mel Gibson
The biggest singular argument the writers had with Warner Bros was over Caster Troy sleeping with Eve Archer. The duo understood why the studio was uncomfortable. It’s a naïve rape scene, Eve believing Caster to be her husband.
Strangely, Mel Gibson came to their defence. They were waiting for a meeting when he approached them and said he had read the script and loved it. When they told him about the issue, Mel called up the head of Warner Brothers.
“He said if he doesn’t trick the wife, we won’t believe he can do anything. It really is needed to raise the stakes.”
Studio interference
There were two directors hired to head the film before John Woo came on board. One of them wanted to cast younger., as did the studio, but the writers kept fighting their corner: the younger the leads, the less established the family ties are, and the lower the stakes.
There were other near misses. The studio asked for a draft where Archer and Troy ended up working together, a version Mike and Michael were very glad was never made. At one point, they even suggested having the bomb make a big return. All of this did not pan out, as we know. And for good reason.
Ultimately, the best action movies, when you boil it down, are about the relationships between the characters, and they wanted to focus on that.
“Die Hard, at its core, is just about this guy trying to fix his marriage. It just happens that the obstacles in his way are the terrorists.”
Joan Allen
At the 11th hour of casting, there was a concerted effort to make Eve Archer’s character a twentysomething. The writers felt that the entire film would collapse if this happened, and they really wanted Joan Allen for the role.
“We had quite a big production bonus on this movie and we decided that what mattered more was the perfect cast member, rather than the money down the line.” So, they wrote a letter to the studio offering up their bonus if they brought Allen in.
Ultimately, despite angering a producer, the gambit worked. Allen was cast and they even kept their bonus.
Adlibbing
As one would imagine, they got a lot of good stuff from Nick’s offbeat performance, especially during the scenes he played the priest. They told Cage they were dropping in some of those beats for Travolta, to enhance his performance, though Cage was worried no one would know that those ideas came from him.
The prison sequence was another point of contention. Despite being on set almost every single day of the six-month shoot, on the day they were shooting it, Mike and Michael were unavailable. The sequence was important because it harboured an eloquent backstory about how the Troy Boys became global terrorists, and that very much helped balance the characters.
However, when they saw the dailies, the scene had devolved into them laughing at each other about how their father made them wear pink tutus as children. “We saw it and thought, that’s not going in the movie. It took this speech and turned it into a homophobic joke,” Mike said.
Quickfire tips for writers
During an action scene you want to always keep the focus on the people. You don’t want to write a prose description of an action set piece. They’d write slug lines using the characters’ names, then describe what they’re doing.
The Russo Bros have a rule where you cannot have any more than 30 seconds of pure action without a personal moment. And, Roger Corman’s advice to screenwriters, is that an awkward transition between two scenes is better than seven pages of material.
And finally, “You guys really have to feel entitled to your career. All you normally see are the issues with your script, and that can really impact your time in the industry. You need confidence. You need to separate the business from the craft.”
John Morris is a screenwriter, author and filmmaker based in Nottingham. John has already completed a sixty minute feature, two full length screenplays, and a full length novel, alongside dozens of shorter pieces.
