| A Quick One with Kevin Williamson About Dawson's Creek, Scream 3, Buffy and More ~ by Jeffrey Epstein ~ Kevin Williamson isn't just the hottest writer in Hollywood, he's the busiest. In fact, Dawson's Creek is just one of many projects "Where would I find The Graduate?" from the 32-year-old wunderkind and mastermind behind Scream, Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Williamson also has Scream 3 in the works...and Wasteland, a series about a post-college group of friends. And then there's Killing Mrs. Tingle (his film-directing debut) and a sci-fi movie with Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi) due next Christmas. He might even lend a hand on Halloween 7. (At this point he says he's only contributed a few ideas.) Of course, Williamson is being amply compensated: He recently signed a reported $30 million deal with Miramax. In the face of all this fame and pressure, though, this small-town guy from North Carolina retains his small-town charm. In fact, the first thing Williamson bought after signing with Miramax was a new Dodge Ram pickup for his dad. How did Dawson's Creek come about? I had no more scary stories to tell, so I reached into my childhood and came up with--me. It's this young kid in a small town who wants to be a filmmaker. He loves Spielberg, has a crush on the girl next door and his best friend of 15 years is secretly longing for him. I pitched it as Some Kind of Wonderful meets Pump Up the Volume meets James at 15 meets My So-Called Life meets Little House on the Prairie. I sort of threw everything in there. How much of it is based on your teenage years? I'm a piece of every character. Certainly, I was that young kid growing up in a small coastal town who wanted to be a filmmaker. I had a fascination with Spielberg--I still do. I had that best friend, Joey--who's a girl named Fanny. We were best friends all the way through high school. I just talked to her recently for the first time in about 10 years. She had no idea I'd written Scream. She was like, "You know there's a writer out there with your name, Kevin. He wrote Scream." She knew me as an actor. You've said you try to let your characters have the perfect comebacks that people aren't usually able to come up with in real life. When I was watching TV as a kid, I always loved it when people spoke smarter than me. I'd say, I wish I could have that comeback! I do think we balance it. There are plenty of times when they don't know what to say, and they're sitting there with egg on their face. Since you've been writing these snappy comebacks, are you better at them yourself? I'm not as quick as I'd like to be. Sometimes I get nervous and brain cells will just drip out of my ear. You've referred to yourself as today's hot flavor. Is that really the case? What goes up must come down. There will be a backlash eventually if it goes on. All of the scripts I'm developing now are about adults. I love the teenage thing, but I have so many stories I want to tell. You have quite a group of young actors on Dawson's. They're pretty remarkable, and they're so unaffected--so far. That's the big joke: Which one of them is going to turn into the prima donna. We have all our cards on Dawson, just because it's his creek. [Laughs.] You seem to have an affinity for Sarah Michelle Gellar. I love her. We want to put her into Dawson's Creek. A crossover episode--Buffy comes to Dawson's Creek! Actually, we're going to have her play an actress. I haven't written it, but I think it would be good to have a movie crew come to town to film on location. Dawson's hired as a PA, and he has a little affair with the lead. And then I'd kill her. She said she'll only do it if she gets to die, because she's died in every single one of my projects. I'm trying to figure out how to kill her. Maybe a drunken-driving accident, and it can be the "very special episode" of Dawson's Creek, which I rebel against--but, hey, why not? We've had 90210 moments. I was a big fan of 90210: the Brenda years. When she left, I left. Are people surprised when they meet you that a nice young guy wrote Scream? I don't really get it. My mom gets it. She'll have people come up to her at church and say, "What happened? Where does he get those ideas from?" But it's just a story. I read a lot of mysteries when I was a little kid. I loved Halloween--there's Scream. I loved James at 15 --there's Dawson's Creek. I loved Three Days of the Condor--I've got an action thriller I'm working on. Something I love sticks with me and influences my work. I learned how to write dialogue by watching Quentin Tarantino's movies. When I met him, he said, "Man, I love the rhythm of your dialogue!" I said, "I learned from you. I'm still trying to learn." |