Melissa Rosenberg

Melissa Rosenberg
Melissa Anne Rosenberg is an American screenwriter. She has worked in both film and television and has been nominated for two Emmy Awards, and two Writers Guild of America Awards. She won a Peabody Award. Since joining the Writers Guild of America, she has been involved in its Board of Directors and was a strike captain during the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. She supports female screenwriters through the WGA Diversity Committee and co-founded the League of Hollywood Women...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth28 August 1962
CityMarin County, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Well, I never got into the young adult headspace. With 'Twilight,' they are pretty adult themes, aside from maybe the first one, but even that. They're very adult themes, actually, particularly as the characters age. I never wrote for young adults. I wrote for myself, as an audience.
When I was developing the [Daredevil] idea, we were really doing something closer to what was in the comic book. By that, I mean in terms of civilians in the street knew that superpowers were an everyday matter of fact. When it finally ended up at Netflix, they really decided to land it in the Marvel Universe that exists in the cinematic universe. That changes the story entirely. It was no longer about the other, which is what that metaphor was. It's really more about the character herself, which I love.
When you have a show that's called Jessica Jones, if Jessica Jones isn't in a scene the rest of it become almost irrelevant until you earn other character storylines. You've got to flesh out those characters enough that you can travel.
Trish "Patsy" Walker is just one of my favorite characters and she was a big comic character in the '40s.
To me, to spend all the time and energy and face all those creative challenges that you would spend for a two hour movie, you're inventing a world, you're inventing characters. If they're interesting enough, they should be compelling enough to go for five more episodes. How incredibly frustrating would it be to just do one movie?
I think going into 'New Moon,' I knew the characters better. I knew the world better and I knew the actors who would be playing these roles. I had a sense of their rhythms and tones. 'Twilight' I was writing in a vacuum. We hadn't cast it yet.
I love Charlie, Billy Burke's character. Writing for him is so spectacular, he's so funny and wry and every scene he's in he just takes. There's a scene in 'Eclipse' where Bella tells him she's a virgin, and it's the funniest, most awkward scene I've ever seen on film.
I stay off the Internet, because I'm very sensitive to commentary. There could be 10 comments of 'Fabulous job!' and one 'She's horrible!' and it completely throws me.
Bill Condon, I must say, may have been one of the best professional experiences of my life, collaborating with him. He, himself, is an Academy Award winning screenwriter. He is a storyteller first and foremost, so we speak the same language. We approach things always from the story.
Directing doesn't appeal to me. I'm much more in the world of ideas. My husband is a director, and I understand what it takes to direct. It's a skill set where you have to be able to talk to actors and understand them, and I don't. It's a very different way of being in the world, and I much prefer writing and producing.
That was, in writing the 'Twilight' script I had about five weeks to write that. I'd taken about a month to write the outline and then it was slam into a script and write it down fast because the writer's strike was looming.
I have been working in television for quite a long time. In television, the writer is the constant, and the director is rotated in and out. I am very use to dealing with people's methods. And perspectives.
One must never assume that a character is sympathetic because of either the actor playing them or the fact that they're a lead. I think that's a recipe for failure, actually, because if they become unsympathetic, you lose your audience.
My humor tends to be a little more edgy than is appropriate for 'Twilight,' although I got some in there. That was fun! There's just a tonal difference. For me, storytelling is storytelling. But, I do like writing for grown ups.