Write On: 'The Performance' Co-Writer Josh Salzberg

“Fugler (Robert Carlyle) was a character that I really connected
with from the beginning. I know it sounds a little strange that
the Nazi was my way into this, but it really was that idea of,
‘How can we get inside his head and make sure that he’s a fully
fleshed out person that way?’” says Josh Salzberg about trying to
make his villain, a Nazi named Damien Fugler, a three-dimensional
character.


Josh Salzberg wrote the screenplay for The Performance with
co-writer/director Shira Piven. In this episode, Salzberg talks
about the challenges of adapting a short story by playwright
Arthur Miller that’s about a Jewish-American tap dancer (Jeremy
Piven), who’s willing to compromise his own core values to find
fame and fortune in Nazi Germany. 


“The idea of all [the characters] is that they’re all performing
on some level. They all have another life. And that’s true to
show business, that we all have sides of ourselves that we’re not
sure we want everybody to see or that it’s okay for everybody to
see. And then in Berlin in the ‘30s, there’s all these different
communities that were impacted – not just the Jews in
Germany,” he says. 


Salzberg also talks about his background as a film editor, how it
helped him transition to screenwriting, and the challenges of
writing morally compromised characters like his protagonist,
Harold. 


“I think embracing the mistakes that they make, embracing those
flaws and leaning into that is important. Sometimes we can care
about our characters to the point where we want them to be
likable, which is a note we always get, but we’ve got to be okay
with the mistakes – and the consequences for those mistakes. And
that was a lesson that Shira and I kept learning as we were
developing the script,” he says. 


To hear more about Salzberg’s writing process, listen to the
podcast.

Please note: this episode contains discussions regarding racism
and anti-semitism.