Write On: 'Bob Marley: One Love' Writers Terence Winter and Frank E. Flowers

“I think what's unique about this biopic and about Bob [Marley’s]
story is that it really wasn't about his ego, it wasn't about him
trying to be the biggest star in the world. It was about him
connecting with God. I mean, he would smoke weed to kind of lower
his ego and raise his consciousness so that he could read
scripture, right? He would take these basic concepts: love thy
neighbor, all people are equal, and try and channel that and
inhabit that,” says Frank E. Flowers, co-writer of Bob Marley:
One Love. 


 


On today’s episode, I speak to Frank E. Flowers and Terence
Winter about taking on reggae icon Bob Marley (Kingsley Ben-Adir)
for their new biopic, Bob Marley: One Love, also written by Zach
Baylin and Reinaldo Marcus Green. After an assassination attempt
on Marley and his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch) in 1976, Marley went
to London in self-exile. It’s there Bob Marley and the Wailers
recorded Exodus, which some consider to be the best album of the
20th century. With scattered flashbacks, the film mostly takes
place from 1976 to 1978. 


 


“With the screenplay, we talked a great deal about how to tell
the story. It's obviously a big life and a huge canvas and
certainly, you could do the cradle-to-grave version where this
happened, that happened, etc. But I'm always a fan of opening a
movie as hot as possible, like start with an incident that just
grabs you and is undeniably compelling and we both obviously
arrived at the biggest incident in the movie in that sense is the
shooting which is just horrific and feels like it kind of comes
out of nowhere. It also lent itself to the classic structure of
the Hero's Journey where our hero is shot, has this incident that
happens in his home and then has to leave home and learn about
himself before he comes back home again,” says Terence
Winter. 


 


I also talk to Winter about writing The Wolf of Wall Street, The
Sopranos and one of my favorite shows, Xena: Warrior Princess. He
also talks about the downside of writing for a dolphin when he
worked on the show Flipper. “There were only 10 stories in the
world that organically involve a dolphin. When you get to the
eleventh one and then you look at each other like what do we do
now?” says Winter.


 


 To hear more, listen to the podcast.