Unveiling Kieran Turner: Secrets Behind the Stories You’ve Never Heard
11 hours ago
My conversation with the 2022 Black List writer.
Kieran wrote the original screenplay Black Dog which landed on the 2022 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Kieran about his creative background, writing a Black List script, and the craft of screenwriting.
Sadly, Kieran died of cancer in December, 2024.
Scott Myers: Kieran, great to have you here and congratulations on making the 2022 Black List. To start off, how did you develop an interest in writing for movies?
Kieran Turner: I’ve actually been in and out of the business in one form or another since I was about six years old. I was born and raised in Florida. I started as a child actor at about the age of six, mostly doing commercials. I worked a lot in New York. I worked a little bit in LA. I did that for about 10 years.
I was just finishing up my time in acting thinking I was going to continue as an actor when I went into college. I went to NYU. I started as a drama major at Playwrights Horizons, which was one of the studios at NYU,
At Playwrights Horizons, they made you do everything. Every week you had to write a new scene. You had to direct a scene, cast it, stage manage it, art‑direct it, and all that kind of stuff.
I realized two things. One, that I really enjoyed the writing and directing aspect of it. Two, that I was really a terrible actor. What I was able to coast on and get away with as a child was not going to serve me as an adult. I didn’t quite have it as an adult.
Thankfully, I realized that fairly early on and realized how much I loved doing the behind‑the‑scenes. I stayed at Playwrights for the first year, was also a massive party boy.
This was tail end of the Club Kid years in New York City. I had been living in New York since I was 16, so I was already used to going out and doing all that stuff, going to Tunnel, The World, Mars, Nell’s, and all those places.
My first year at Playwrights, I was flunking out. It was really hard for me to get up and get to school by eight o’clock in the morning, because I was just coming off of being out at four o’clock.
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