Stephen Gaghan

Question: I'm really confused by the fact that Syriana was nominated in the Original Screenplay category — am I crazy, or wasn't it based on a book by someone who used to be in the CIA?

I recently noticed that Gladiator was nominated for best original screenplay, when in fact it was virtually a scene-by-scene remake of The Fall of the Roman Empire, starring Stephen Boyd and Christopher Plummer. Why did it qualify as an original script? — Sami

Answer: The on-screen credit for writer-director Stephen Gaghan's Syriana screenplay says that it was "suggested by the book See No Evil by Robert Baer." Baer was a high-level, Middle East-based CIA officer, and his 2002 nonfiction book generated a lot of controversy by ta read more

Question: I just saw a direct-to-video movie called Havoc that was dedicated to Jessica Kaplan (1979-2003). Who was she and why is the movie dedicated to her?

Answer: When Los Angeles-born Jessica Kaplan was a 17-year-old high-school student at Santa Monica's famous Crossroads School, she sold a screenplay called The Powers that Be — about privileged white California kids who were into gangbanging ghetto culture until they run into the real thing — to New Line Cinema for a cool $150,000. This happened a full three years before 13-year-old Nikki Reed wrote a screenplay called Thirteen about her experiences as a wayward child of privilege, but Reed got far more publicity because her script was quickly produced and she costarred in the movie. Kaplan read more