Interviews

The Spec Script Library

Screenwriter : Steven Ford

Steven Ford grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada,when his father retired out at Nellis Air Force Base. He still lives there and thinks it's " kinda cool" . Why?
" Hollywood pretty much considers Las Vegas
a suburb "

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What is your passion?
My passion is QUALITY. I seek quality in every part of life. No matter what, I always try to look for the quality in a thing. I try to look at everything from as many angles as possible and I always search for the best of everything in everything.

What is your pride?
I am proud to say that I haven't harmed another human being, INTENTIONALLY, since I was about thirteen years old. I am also proud to say that I am a work-in-progress and that I work very hard each and every day to improve and become the best, most positive person I can be.

What is your greatest fear?
My greatest fear is to die a virgin...Oh, too late for that one. My next greatest fear is that I will leave this world without having reached a few simple goals. Some of these goals are personal and private, of the ones that aren't, I will happily mention a few. I would like to fall in love and have a family. I would also like to travel the world. I would also like to create a global organization dedicated to unifying humanity under one altruistic code of peace, goodwill, and common sense. I believe it's time we grew up as a race of sentient beings and evolved beyond all our foibles and petty foolishness.

What does adversity do to you?
It makes me upset at times. Sad at times. Unhappy at times. It can also make me more commited to conquer. Nietzsche said if it doesn't kill us, it makes us stronger. Some even say it builds character. I think, if we examine it properly, it is a much finer teacher than good fortune ever could be. I don't like adversity, but I wouldn't trade its lessons for the world.

What is your best quality?
Communication: I often consider situations with my diplomatic glasses and try to determine the proper way in which to deliver a message, rather than simply selecting the content of the message. How a thing is said is often as important, and some times more important, that what is being said.

What is your worst quality?
I'm often lazy. I'm often selfish. I'm often inconsiderate of others, etc., etc., etc. I'm all the bad things we humans are. The only thing that keeps us from becoming monsters is admitting we possess these failings, recognizing and endeavoring to remove them from our habits. Honestly, I'd have to say my worst quality is not speaking out enough against injustice.

What irksome habits do you have?
Again, the list would be too long! I don't like to wake up early. I stay up late. I play music constantly. I listen to it too loud, sometimes. I'm not very organized. I'm often late. I'm not as polite as I should be...etc., etc. ad infinitum.

If you could have your time again, what would you do that is different?
I would go straight to college after high school. I would speak out more. I would be more clever with women. I would learn a few foreign languages. I would learn to play the piano. I would learn to fly a plane. I learn to play the stock market. I would invest in small businesses. I would build an organization dedicated to stamping out joblessness and poverty. I would start a campaigne to put electronic donation boxes in every public location throughout the world, to make it easy and convenient to donate money to your favorite charities. I would sleep less and do more. I would spend less time working and more time with the people I love.

What would you like to change about yourself?
I'd like to be more organized and more focused. About others? I wish people would be more open and caring. I wish we would all travel more and not be so stagnant. I think, the more we intermingle and the more we see of other cultures and groups, the less xenophobic we will be and the more harmonized we will become.

How important is goal setting to you?
Goal setting is all!

What goals do you have?
Aside from my personal goals, I'd like to marry and have children, two, three, maybe four. I'd like to learn from the wisest people on earth. I'd like to see the world and visit and break bread with people from every nation. I'd like to form a coalition that would place large numbers of citizens from every nation inside every other nation until we are all common citizens of one great nation. This would promote harmony and stall aggression. Nations are far less likely to drop bombs on other nations with whom they share citizens.

What is your ultimate goal?
My ultimate goal is to make a living doing what I love most...WRITING! I would also like to continue to improve as a human being and to live a comfortable life, with a wife and family. Nothing too fancy. Just a nice, quiet life, peaceful, positive and well considered.

What heroes do you have?
I have many. Chiefly, anyone who lives from their hearts and souls and who works for the benefit of humanity. I.E. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Socretes, Andre' Maurois, Confucius, Ovid, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Napoleon, Frederick Douglas, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Nicolaus Copernicus, Leonardo da Vinci, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Michelangelo, Marie Curie, Mary Shelly, Oscar Wilde, H.G. Wells, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Malcom X, Medger Evers, Balthassar Gracian, Anton Chekhov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Leo Tolstoy...to name a few.

What inspires you in others?
Everything. I seek out the good in every person I meet and attempt to find and steal away all the greatest traits I encounter.

What inspires you in yourself?
My commitment to changing things for the better in all the world.

What will be written on your headstone?
I have no idea. Hopefully, there won't be a tombstone. Perhaps they'll remove my brain and put it into a robotic body that can sustain itself indefinitely. That way I could go on nudging the apathetic and lethargic of the world toward action forever!

What does success mean to you?
Success means being a positive force in every since of the word. Not only being able to support yourself, but being able to give back and help others. That is true success.

How do you measure success?
"One investor at a time..." Just kidding. If I smile enough to make my cheeks sore, I'm successful or damn close to it!

What are your pet hates?
I hate getting up early. I hate alarm clocks. I hate injustice. I hate getting caught in traffic. I hate empty brains.

What are your pet loves?
I love music, the cream of every catagory. I love fine art, anything detailed and creative. I love film, the cream of every catagory. I love women, the prettier and smarter the better! I love fine food. I love fine cars and fine clothes. I love all the things that fill champagne and caviar dreams...and I love books. I love reading. I love romantic walks and quiet evenings at home. I love flowers and children...I LOVE LIFE!

What do you think of pets?
I like cats but I'm alergic to their fur, so I prefer dogs.
I like big dogs that don't slobber too much.

When are you happiest?
When I'm making love...
which is about once every three and a half years
(no exaggeration).

When are you hardest to please?
When it comes to business and my screenplays.

What has been your most embarrassing moment?
I once dropped two large buckets of popcorn in a crowded movie theatre.
I thought I was going to die!

What's the most exhilarating thing you have done?
I spent five long winter days in Vancouver with a gorgeous woman
I loved more than life itself...and still do.

What is it about screen writing that gets your fired?
I hope you mean fired up... I've been re-written but never fired. Anyway, I get bored fairly easy and screenwriting was the one thing I found that's never the same. It's different every time I sit down to right. I like love that.
Variety is truly the spice of life!

What screenplays have you written?
Of those I will admit to... here are a few: "Einstein's Brain" "Dear Boss"
"Where Angels Fear" "Steven Denon's Rules" "The Gingerbread Man"
"The Mysterious Stranger" "Mr. Boy" "Bad Luck Monks"
"Can't Get Laid In Vegas"

What is your favorite pastime?
Reading, writing, watching movies and enjoying life as much as possible.

What is your favorite motto?
"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order. We must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right." -- Confucius

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If you would like to contact Steven Ford
please mail him

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