Write On: 'Nonnas' Screenwriter Liz Maccie and Director Stephen Chbosky

“Sometimes it’s easier to find and access your truth through
‘pretend’ characters. So I had this embarrassment of riches of
this true story but in my heart, I was like, ‘I totally get to
tell my truth!’… So my advice is find a way to do it, and if you
have to do a mind trick by saying, ‘I’m writing this pretend
character’ that’s fine, but put all the stuff that’s real to you
into that pretend character, because I find there is an immense
amount of freedom in being able to write through these characters
because they aren’t exactly my family, they are pieces of them.
Writing your truth is possibly the scariest thing, but your truth
only belongs to you, you are the person who experienced it in the
exact way you experienced it. Know that you are giving a great
gift to the world by doing it,” says Liz Maccie, screenwriter for
the new film Nonnas, about how to make someone else’s story
personal to you. 


On today’s episode we chat with Nonnas screenwriter Liz Maccie
and director Stephen Chbosky about turning this true story into a
heartfelt movie about a man who risks everything to honor his
late mother by opening an Italian restaurant with actual
grandmothers as the chefs.  


Maccie and Chbosky, a real-life married couple, talk about their
own families and how they were able to put pieces of themselves
on the screen. They discuss the hilarious Nonnas’ food fight
scene and how to balance grief with humor in the
writing.  


“I feel that the other side of grief is hope,” says Maccie,
adding, “Because I have lost so much of my family, sometimes
you’re drowning in the grief. Then you have that moment when you
suddenly feel that spark of hope again… we are all going to lose
someone, even losing a pet. When we love something, someone and
it goes away it’s a devastating feeling and I think that connects
us.” 


Chbosky shared this advice for writers: 


“The one bit of solace or encouragement that any writer of any
age can find is that sometimes, the more specific you write about
your experience the more universal the script and the movie is… I
really am a humanist at heart. I believe in using this art form
to find ways to unify people, inspire them and certainly give
them hope, put on their shoes and go at it the next day, I just
think that when you write about your own personal experience it
can lead to great things. And it doesn’t mean that it has to be a
dramedy or comedy, it could be horror, it could be sci-fi, it
could be any genre that you feel as long as it is specific to
you.”. 


To hear more, listen to the podcast. Nonnas is currently
streaming on Netflix.