This episode of Zack's Film Talks at SDSU is hosted by Libsyn.

My guest is Andrew Dodge, who wrote Bad Words, the spelling bee movie starring Jason Bateman, which Bateman also directed.

Andrew worked as a story editor at Columbia Pictures for a decade and studied at the University of Southern California.

In this episode, Andrew talks about:

getting bad grades in high school
what it was like to hear his words coming out of Jason Bateman's mouth
the "first period"/ketchup scene in Bad Words
how many projects he juggles at once
an R-rated comedy about a leprechaun he's writing for Peter Dinklage
…and looking forward to seeing LeBron James in Space Jam 2, a project he's attached to as writer—an official nonofficial introduction is floating around online, but we may have to wait a while for the movie. For now, here's Quad City DJ's theme song from the original.

Andrew gives specific, practical advice for screenwriters starting out. (One montage per film is enough!) And keep writing, he says. "You're always going to get better if you're always writing. If you're talking about writing, you're not going to get better. If you are writing, you're going to get better."

Episode edited by Chris Burke.