NICHOLAS STATHOPOULOS
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NICHOLAS STATHOPOULOS

Can you tell us about your journey into screenwriting? What inspired you to pursue this career?
My journey into screenwriting began in high school when I wrote a 20min short film titled Closer Than You Think following a retired FBI Agent being hunted down by an escaped serial killer he put away. After that, at 15, I began work on a comedy titled This Is An Action Movie; a movie I recently completed after just under a decade, retitled This Is A Robbery. What inspired me to pursue this career was how much of an impact movies and TV shows have had on me. I always became emotionally invested in stories being told on screen, and I wanted to be someone who could do the same, but also use that emotional investment to teach lessons and comment on societal problems and inconsistencies.

How do you decide which stories to tell?
I decide which stories to tell by simply asking myself “what do I want to watch on the big screen?” This mindset is what inspires all of my writing, from TV pilots to feature-length screenplays.

Could you walk us through your typical writing routine?
I have two typical writing routines: one consists of coming up with a core idea and building characters around that idea that support it and can tell a story, and the other consists of coming up with a main character and building a world around that character that moves the story and that character through the journey within that world.

How do you handle writers block or moments of doubt during your creative process?
I handle writer’s block or moments of doubt during my creative process by simply taking a step back. It may be a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, or even a few months before I return to that particular script and continue the story. That is why it has taken me a decade to write my screenplay This Is A Robbery, because I even took a few years off to mature and re-write the story which led to a complete overhaul of the characters and their development.

Screenwriting often requires a deep understanding of character. How do you develop characters that feel authentic and relatable?
I develop almost all of my characters by basing them off of real people in my life, usually people I have met in my life, but also individuals I have read about online for characters that are a bit larger than life. Primarily though, I will take individual traits of people I know and make that a character’s main trait and build around it. I even base characters off of individuals I met in middle school to this day.

What advice would you give to aspiring screenwriters trying to break into the industry today?
The advice I would give aspiring screenwriters trying to break into the industry today is to just write. Write what YOU love, not what you think others would love. Write what you want to read and what you want to see. You should always write for yourself; if you try to write for everybody, you will only ever end up writing for nobody.

What are the key skills a screenwriter needs to succeed in such a competitive field?
The key skills a screenwriter needs to succeed in such a competitive field are resilience, focus, hard work, creativity and dedication to their own personal craft.

Can you share a specific challenge you've faced in your screenwriting career and how you overcame it?
I wrote a screenplay involving the writing of individuals with different backgrounds from mine, but after doing so, I consulted individual friends I have with similar backgrounds to the character(s) to ask for feedback and to ensure what I wrote was not only accurate, but appropriate.

What do you hope audiences take away from your work? Are there particular emotions or messages you aim to evoke through your storytelling?
I always hope audiences take away lessons from my work, small or large. I always want my scripts to make an impact in some way. I often try to send messages about mental health, a passion of mine. I hope to evoke the feeling of understanding for others and acceptance of complex personalities.

You’ve written both feature-length scripts and TV pilots. How does your writing process differ between the two formats, and do you prefer one over the other?
My writing process does not differ between the two formats, I approach everything I write as a story I want to write. That being said, if I begin writing a screenplay that I believe needs more time to flesh out a story, I then know that I should be writing a TV pilot. I write whatever I believe justifies the story being told.

With several successful screenplays under your belt, what are your creative goals for this year?
My current creative goal for this year is to write a script out of my wheelhouse that has required a great deal of research to ensure accuracy. So far, I have written the first act, and anticipate completing the screenplay by the end of the year. Some may say it shouldn’t take that long, but I believe every story is different, and everyone should take as long as they need to tell the story they need to tell.

Lastly, where do you see yourself in five years as a screenwriter? Are there any dream projects or genres you’d love to explore?
In five years, I hope to see myself as a screenwriter that has sold both TV pilot screenplays as well as feature-length screenplays. A dream project I have in mind is a quadrilogy following the Marvel characters Iceman and Pyro in which each film is written from a different character’s point of view. Something that has never been done before.

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