Though screenwriter Robert Siegel grew up in New York, he got his Midwest roots by graduating from the University of Michigan and then made headlines in Madison, Wisconsin. Literally. As the editor for the great fake newspaper The Onion Siegal came up with those crazy headline. Things like, “Report: 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others.”
But after 13 years he quit and began to write screenplays and has found success with The Wrestler starring Mickey Rourke. The film is on a lot of critics picks for one of the best of ’08. But making the transition from writing witty headlines to writing a quality screenplay was not without some bumbs of his own.
“Some of the drafts I wrote, if you would have showed them to a studio executive, they would have called an emergency meeting…That’s the nature of writing. You kind of have to get lost. You go down a bunch of wrong paths and then you find the right path.”
Robert Siegel
Script magazine
Script to Screen article by David S. Cohen
And what did kind of satire did The Onion come up with for The Wrestler? “Acclaimed director Darren Aronofsky takes viewers on a harrowing journey deep into the face of Mickey Rourke.”
[…] Though screenwriter Robert Siegel grew up in New York, he got his Midwest roots by graduating from the University of Michigan and then made headlines in Madison, Wisconsin. Literally. As the editor for the great fake newspaper The Onion Siegal came up with those crazy headline. But after 13 years he quit and began to write […] Original Source… […]
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