Don’t Fuck It Up: An Interview With Alex Tse
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When you were adapting the script, did you think of it as a unit, or did you tackle each story individually?

(I was) adapting each story individually. Bradbury’s work has a lot of common themes to it. We could see those themes as we selected the stories. So what’s great about Bradbury is that these stories were already structured very well to be told in these vignettes. In terms of the individual stories, the structure is already there.

What were the common themes?

The arrogance of man—a lot of it has to do with technology, and the way it plays in these stories. As mankind advances, and not just mankind since in some of these stories it’s not just humans we?re dealing with but we’ll use ‘mankind’ as a general term, when civilization advances, they take a step back. You look at The Veldt: civilization is so advanced they’ve created this incredible technology so that everyone’s lives will be easier and you don’t have to raise your kids. Technology will do it for you!

You think you’re resolving a problem, but you’re taking a big step back. It’s the downfall of so many protagonists in Bradbury’s stories. It’s a big theme in his work. In a way, they’re cautionary tales.

That’s a big theme in Watchmen as well. Zack Snyder is associated with both of them—is that why he brought you on board for Illustrated Man?

I don’t know. I think they just had a good experience working with me and we didn’t really talk about Watchmen when talking about (Illustrated Man). But it could very well be that they thought I understood that in Watchmen, that could be one of the reasons why they came to me with this. But we never discussed it.

Unlike Watchmen or Illustrated Man, your adaptation of The Winter of Frankie Machine for director Michael Mann is a looser adaptation. How are you approaching it?

It’s taking the initial idea of something and running with it, as opposed to following the core. That’s the big difference.

Mann has a reputation of being a real hands-on director.

Yeah. And he’s a writer too, which is fantastic. I’ve learned a lot from him. It’s really collaborative. A lot of people ask me that, and to be honest I can’t be happier with the process. I guess people think it’d be intrusive or that I’d be micromanaged, but I don’t feel like that at all.

What did you learn from Mann that you didn’t know before?

It’s a different approach to a story. He’s very thorough in getting into the material and the psychology of characters. There’s a level of depth—especially with this project in which I’m getting deep into a world I wasn’t familiar with. The research part is incredible. It’s a lot different than stuff I’ve worked on before.

Can you give me a specific example?

It’s mostly the number of consultants we have that I can talk to and hang out with. Mann wants to know a lot of information and some of it will end up being useful and some of it won’t. He wants to know every fucking thing. You’re thrown into a pool of information and now you have to sort it out: what’s important to use?

I can understand that’d be helpful at the production level, but when you’re writing, is that ever restrictive? Does that paralyze you as a writer?

It can. But Michael knows what he wants, and knowing that and discussing it with him, you can start filtering it. It’s different if you’re working with a director that doesn’t know what he wants. Then it’s hard to filter the information because you don’t know what the fuck you’re looking for.

When will we see either Frankie Machine or Illustrated Man?

No release date on either. I’m still working on Frankie Machine with Michael and with Illustrated Man, they’re looking at casting. I can’t predict what will happen.

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