How to build a hero
Kimiwriter DAVID KOEPP on creating a comp elling protagonist
Kimi
DAVID KOEPP KNOWS a thing or two about protagonists. “You gotta give a shit about them,” he says. And he should know. After all, he’s created some of the most memorable and iconic heroes/anti-heroes of the last 30 years, products of a fruitful career as one of Hollywood’s finest screenwriters. Here, Koepp talks us through some of his finest.
MADELINE ASHTON DEATH BECOMES HER 1992
One of Koepp’s weirdest films, the blacker-thanmidnight Robert Zemeckis comedy revolves around Meryl Streep’s Madeline, an actor who discovers that the secret of eternal life comes at a cost. “She was great fun to write, because she was just a terrible, terrible, selfish person,” laughs Koepp. He admits that with characters like this, studios can sometimes try to sand off their rough edges. “My response always is, ‘I understand that may not make him or her likeable, but it does make them interesting.’”