INTERVIEW: “A Con Movie in Reverse” Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka on Apple’s ‘Sharper’

NOTE: This article is a republication- Source: Creativescreenwriting.com (by Brock Swinson).

Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka met in the graduate program at Columbia Film School. Gatewood recalls, “We weren’t friends. We didn’t hang out, but we had our first screenwriting class together and we liked each others’ writing.”

“We started to talk and found we had uncanny similarities in terms of taste, what movies we liked, writers we liked, and in our second year, we started to write together.” Working on scripts and sharing beers for fun, the writers eventually found a path to make a career out of their partnership.

“Slowly, we stopped drinking as much as started writing more,” jokes Tanaka. “That’s how our partnership evolved.” Today, they’re known for their work on The Sitter, Comrade Detective, Dice, Superstore, and the new Apple film, Sharper.

Described as “a con film in reverse,” the new movie stars Julianne Moore, John Lithgow, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, and Briana Middleton. The mysterious description reads, “Motivations are suspect, and expectations are turned into chaos, as a con artist takes on Manhattan billionaires.”

Over the years, their writing process has evolved, partially due to growth, partially due to raising families, and partially due to the recent pandemic. “It had to change depending on our life situation,” admits Tanaka.

“Ideally, we’re both in the same room and treat it like a job. But there are times when we have to work separately. We may do Zoom. We may split up scenes. In a perfect world, one of us is taking the lead, the other one is coming up behind and rewriting so by the time you get your first draft, it’s much more polished.”

Read the full interview here