A Q&A with Kim Turner,
Screenwriter, Actor, Producer
Q: How and when did you become interested in screenwriting?
A: I remember writing stories as a child. I genuinely loved reading and enjoyed L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series, and anything by Roald Dahl. I had an unquenchable thirst for myth and I loved imagining what universe lived behind the simplest little object – such as a thread spool or a long-forgotten hat? What if they had magic? And what if that magic was just dormant and your love or belief could re-awaken it? Writing gave way to improvisation in my early 20s, but my imagination fed the improv monster well. Strangely enough, my mother always wanted me to be a writer and I think out of defiance, I wandered as far away as I could from it. I wrote sketches prolifically but not much more than that for many years. Oddly, when my mother passed, I felt compelled to tell the story of how my family and I faced her illness with humor because it felt like that story hadn’t been told yet. Or, if it had, it was tethered by gravity and pathos. We survived an arduous year by laughing whenever the opportunity presented itself. Our general shared belief was that what was coming would arrive whether we sobbed through each day or laughed in its face. We chose the latter. Standard screenwriting advice is “write what you know”. I did that for my first official screenplay but since then I’ve written about a woman who loses her husband and unwittingly summons a spirit to help her through her grief, a divorced gay man who plots his suicide during a fancy dinner party, a recovering drug addict who saves a small child from a dealer, and a show about a con artist shucking snake oil in the 1890s Old West. It’s great to write what you know – that helps to imbue the work with detail – but it’s also important to write the stories you haven’t seen out in the world. A friend of mine says you must be an advocate for your stories. As hard as it is to will 100-plus pages from that taunting, blinking cursor, those stories (and their characters) will never see the light of day if you don’t do the work. I’m still not as disciplined as I want to be but I manage to get my stories out there and I usually do it with humor.
Q: You were selected to the inaugural Writers’ Lab sponsored by Meryl Streep for your script Christy's Got Cancer! What was that experience like as a screenwriter?
A: In the moment, it was terrifying! It was a tremendous honor – one of the greatest of my life – but in that first moment that they gathered us all together at the rooftop of the Writers Guild of America Offices in New York, I was scared to death. Everyone else had been screenwriting much longer than I. I definitely had impostor syndrome! I was also patently terrified that Meryl Streep would attend the event, as we were the first winners of her newly-minted Lab for Women Writers Over 40. Mine was the only comedy – which I find hard to believe – women over 40 are pretty freaking hilarious. But I was so nervous that they would have her spring up and surprise us, I was a complete wreck. She did not (she was filming Suffragette at the time) and I was greatly relieved. My singular regret that night was one of the readers for the contest was from the WGA and complimented me on Christy’s being one of the funniest scripts they’d ever read. I thanked them profusely but I neglected to get their name. I would’ve liked to have kept in touch because that confidence and praise kept me going (and has since then) through some of the rougher patches of writing. My mentor from the Lab was Meg LeFauve (Academy Award nominee for Inside Out, Captain Marvel, The Good Dinosaur and part of the Pixar “brain trust”) and in spite of my initial terror, she has been kind enough to remain in my life as a mentor and friend. She’s terrifying and amazing. Her insight feels as though you actually left your body and experienced blindingly perfect understanding and universal harmony in your conscious mind. She has the power to pull truth from you that you’ve somehow managed to shield from your own mind. She helped me ‘break’ Christy’s open and also gave me about 30-plus years of therapy in an hour and a half. She’s brilliant and I owe her everything. But honestly, the relationships I forged with the other eleven women of the inaugural year have made me who I am as a writer today. As I mentioned, each was more polished and professional than I and each gave me a gift as I went forward with my writing. Even today, they are the first people I go to when I need feedback or guidance.
Q: What are you working on currently?
A: I was hired to write the feature film version of a story that is currently being filmed as a documentary. It is about this incredible woman named Grace Ragland who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when she was 18 but who became a mountain biker of renown in her 40s and ultimately rode the Tour Divide (a 2700-mile odyssey from the southernmost point of Canada to the northernmost point of Mexico along the U.S. Continental Divide) in her 50s. It isn’t just the story of incredible fortitude and overcoming illness – it is also a powerful tale of forgiveness and reconnecting. I am deeply honored to be a part of the production. You can see more of the trailer for the documentary at www.indiegogo.com/projects/grace-the-great-divide#
Additionally, I just finished a spec script for Ted Lasso with my incredible writing partner, Tony Ferrendelli. We met up in an online writing group a few years back and we were the two comedy writers who were always trying to make each other laugh! We were both neck-deep in hilarity until about two years ago when, unbeknownst to either of us, we both wrote THE SADDEST STORIES EVER about a lonely, broken person who saves a small child. It was insane. We both essentially wrote the same story and confessed it was a cheap sort of therapy for where our minds were. After that, we felt like the universe was trying to tell us something… So, we wrote a Ted Lasso script together and just finished another Top-Secret project that we are hopeful to get off the ground in the next year or two. We are both old improv comedy demons, so we’re also looking at writing a sketch comedy show.
Q: In addition to writing, you are also a producer. Please tell us a little more about your producing projects. A: Oddly enough, it was being chosen for the Writers Lab that brought about my producing role. My fellow winner, Anna Hozian (screenwriting professor at DePaul University in Chicago), wrote a short film called The Pool and asked me to read it. It is a beautiful short about who you think you want to be and what the world needs you to be. It is currently out at several festivals and has won at a few. I’m really proud of it. She wrote and directed it and we filmed it in three days in Chicago. She has such a tremendous ear for authentic dialogue and has taught me more about what is unsaid in a scene and the weight that carries. She’s absolutely brilliant and I am privileged to be partnered with her. We are currently starting a production company called Lion and Mouse Productions with an eye to producing features. We are about to option a feature comedy/horror script and hope to go into production next year. One of the Writers Lab winners from the second year was Chris Hulen. We met at a Lab mixer and bonded over our shared love of science and space. She is an incredible writer and I am proud to call her a great friend. She has written a short entitled Everything’s Fine – about a gun violence survivor who has recovered physically but who mentally relives the fear and terror of that day to the point of damaging all of her present relationships. It genuinely gets to the heart of people who live in the aftermath of gun violence and how it marks them. She asked me to produce it with her and I am proud to say that Manny Oliver of ChangeTheRef.org has partnered with us on the production. Manny lost his son, Joaquin ‘Guac’ Oliver in the Parkland, Florida high school shooting. We are currently in the fundraising phase for the short. You can see our proposal at EverythingsFineTheMovie.com. I think it will really resonate with audiences.
Q: Besides writing and producing, what other secret skills do you have?
A: I build professional leaded, stained-glass windows! I worked at the premier stained-glass company in Palm Beach, McMow Art Glass, back in the ’90s. I was a clerk for a while but then they brought me into the studio to learn to make windows. I have helped to craft dozens of windows that live in churches, businesses and homes all over Florida. And I still have my chops!
Q: Where can our readers discover more of your work and interact with you?
A: Readers can go to my website TheMightyKim.com. I’m on Twitter at @MightyK and on Instagram at @TheRedHare. My production company is at LionAndMouseProductions.com. If you’d like to be a part of the Grace Ragland story, the documentary is fundraising at www.indiegogo.com/projects/grace-the-great-divide#/. If you would like to support Chris Hulen’s powerful story about surviving gun violence, please go to EverythingsFineTheMovie.com – you can see the cast and help us get the short made – which will ultimately be a proof-of-concept for a feature film. Other than that, keep your eyes out for Kim Turner/Tony Ferrendelli comedies that are about to make their way out into the world! We are very excited to bring the things that make us laugh out to the great, wide world!
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