Michael Arndt
Last night, I had the honor of meeting Michael Arndt, the writer of Little Miss Sunshine.
He spoke at Cody’s Books on Stockton Street. Little Miss Sunshine is a brilliant comedy about an eccentric family who goes on a road trip so that Olive, an eight-year-old girl, can enter into a beauty pageant. The Writers Guild of America and The British Film Academy awarded the film, “Best Original Screenplay.” So far, the film has been nominated for four Academy Awards and five Independent Spirit Awards.
The story behind the story is impressive too. Michael Arndt worked as a script reader and as an assistant to Matthew Broderick. Then he made a promise to himself that if he took a year off work he could come up with at least one saleable script. After he saved enough money to scrape by, he quit his job. He had never been published, didn’t have an agent. What he had was confidence and a belief that if he invested the time and energy then he couldn’t go wrong.
He said he never expected to reach this level of success. In the introduction to Little Miss Sunshine: The Shooting Script, he writes: “James Joyce once said we should treat both success and failure as the impostors they are. I would humbly concur-the real substance of life is elsewhere.”
Listening to Michael Arndt was very inspiring. He revealed insightful points about writing and storytelling, and even about writing comedy with an agenda (my favorite subject).
At the end of the evening, he said if you think you can find happiness in things you can’t control then you’ll never be happy. In other words, we should focus on writing because it’s what’s important to us. The desire for success shouldn’t be the only reason.
He signed my copy of his script, “Remember-Fun is better than Winning! Happy Writing!”