Cinema 2023: Top Screenwriters, Andrew Haigh, “All of Us Strangers”

Andrew Haigh has written and directed several movies, Weekend and 45 Years.

All of Us Strangers started differently?

ANDREW HAIGH: Someone sent me the novel, 1987’s Strangers, by Taichi Yamada. It’s a traditional ghost story, in the Japanese sense, but the central idea — meeting your parents again long after they’ve gone — got me, even though my parents are still alive. There’s something about that reunion with the past, and how it can make you remember and relive painful experiences, and how reliving can help you move on and perhaps find some liberation.

Personal Connection

HAIGH: Whether I’m adapting something or it’s an original screenplay, I need to be able to connect on a very deep level — personally connect with it.

Writing for Film Vs. TV

HAIGH The thing that I struggle with TV is you never know if your show’s going to be canceled, which they often are. Mine was. I don’t know how you can tell a story unless you know what the ending is. There are also different demands — like, you know that the audience is sitting there and they’re on their phone. Maybe they’re doing that when they’re watching films, too, let’s face it. But at home, the washing machine’s going off, stuff’s happening, the doorbell’s ringing, so you have to constantly keep their attention. And I quite like not to keep people’s attention sometimes. I want them to drift off a little bit and sort of sink into the story. In TV, you can’t do that.

Question and Answer

HAIGH For me, it’s about a question and then an answer. You’re answering something that you’ve set up. I have to know what that answer is. I don’t need to know what it is on a plot level, and with this, I sort of had no idea — but I knew how I wanted it to feel. I don’t always know how the plot is going to help reveal the things that I’m trying to talk about, but I know where I want to end.

All of Us Strangers, written by Andrew Haigh. — *All of Us Strangers,* written by Andrew Haigh. PARISA TAGHIZADEH/COURTESY OF SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

Scene in film you’re asked about?

HAIGH: There’s a scene where Adam talks to his dad about how he felt growing up gay in the 1980s. To me, that was an essential scene. It’s a film about the pain that we keep inside that stays in us even though life changes when we get older. I’m 50 now, but I can be dragged back to how I felt when I was 13 or 14 in an instant. So that scene with the son and the father where he gets to talk to the father and ask, “Why weren’t you there for me? Why didn’t you understand? Why didn’t you come into my room when I was crying?” And for the dad to answer in an honest way? That was really fascinating for me. I wanted to be compassionate to parents and children in the situation, especially in relationship to queerness. It was certainly emotional for me to make. As I say, my dad is still alive, but he’s got dementia now, so I’ll never get to have those conversations.

Where do you write?

HAIGH Front room in the morning, cafe in the afternoon.

On what do you write?

HAIGH For me, lots of paper to start with. Bits of scenes, ideas, that kind of thing.

Favorite part of the writing process?

HAIGH I would say that spark of an idea at the beginning, which is like, “Oh, this could be really good.” And then you start writing and you’re like, “Oh, I’m a terrible writer.” That’s when it gets hard.

Poor Things, written by Tony McNamara YORGOS LANTHIMOS/COURTESY OF SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

If you could have written one other script that became a film?

HAIGH Some Like It Hot.