Read Your Script? F—, No!

Josh Olson is a professional screenwriter, and his time and experience are money. So just as the author of A History of Violence wouldn’t ask you to “represent me in f---ing court, or take out my f---ing gallbladder,” please, don’t ask him to give you advice on your screenplay. “I will not read your f---ing script,” he writes in the Village Voice—because you’re probably no good, and he’ll feel obligated to tell you.

It’s also a point of pride. “Everybody can write, right?” So aspiring ink-stained wretches “don’t regard working screenwriters with any kind of real respect” and “will hand you a piece of inept writing without a second thought.” Olson considers it “cruel to encourage the hopeless,” and he’ll be glad to dispel your delusions so “you’ll be free to pursue your real talent.” If you’re lucky, you know what that is. "The unlucky ones keep on writing shitty screenplays and asking me to read them.” (More Josh Olson stories.)