The Film That Lit My Fuse is a Deadline video series that aims to provide an antidote to headlines about industry uncertainty by swinging the conversation back to the creative ambitions, formative influences and inspirations of some of today’s great screen artists.
Today’s subject is Anthony McCarten, the New Zealand-born playwright and novelist who has evolved to become the go-to-guy for character-study biopics. He wrote and produced with the estate the just-opened Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody, with two plays now on Broadway: the Neil Diamond musical A Beautiful Noise which opened December 4 and The Collaboration, about Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s historic art collaboration in the 1980s, which opened earlier this week.
The biopics he has written and produced have grossed more than $1 billion, most of that coming with the Freddie Mercury Queen film Bohemian Rhapsody. That film won an Oscar for Rami Malek, and McCarten’s biopics Darkest Hour and Theory of Everything won Best Actor for Gary Oldman and Eddie Redmayne, respectively. His The Two Popes drew noms for both Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce.
In the video above, he explains the influences that compelled him to tell true stories for the screen and stage.
