Unveiling Elad Ziv: The Storyteller Who’s Redefining Narrative Boundaries
17 hours ago
My interview with 2022 Black List writer.
Elad Ziv wrote the screenplay Court 17 which landed on the 2022 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Elad about his creative background, writing a Black List script, and the craft of screenwriting.
Scott Myers: Welcome, Elad. Congratulations on making the 2022 Black List. That must have been pretty exciting.
Elad Ziv: Oh, my God, it was very exciting to say the least.
Scott: We’re going to get into your script COURT 17 but first, let’s explore your creative background. You’re both an actor and a writer. Which came first?
Elad: I’ve been doing both for around 15 years. I think the acting came about three months before the writing. I was a bit of a late bloomer in everything, as I’m sure we’ll get to later with the conception of COURT 17 and everything, but tennis was a huge part of my life growing up.
I really thought I was going to be a professional tennis player. Up until the age of 18 or 19, that was my goal in life. That changed. Then I ran around, did some other jobs, trying to find myself. Then around the age of 24 is when I really decided that I wanted to do something within movies and TV.
At first, it started off with acting. I’ve been doing acting for a very long time as well. That has its ups and downs, like everything else. About three months into the acting, about almost 15 years ago now, I was getting really frustrated with the notion that I’m always waiting for someone else to allow me to be creative. That was a difficult thing for me.
At the time, this girl that I was dating, one of her good friends was a development exec at A Band Apart, which was Lawrence Bender’s production company at the time. She told me, she goes, “You should write something for yourself.” I thought, I was like, “Wow.” At that time, Good Will Hunting, Rocky, those were my favorite movies, “Why can’t I do that for myself?”
I set out, and I wrote a tennis script. That was the first movie I ever wrote, was a tennis script because it was something that I understood intrinsically. I knew that I would have to focus less on how to be a good writer and less on the actual subject matter, since I knew it inside and out.
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