I knew I wanted to be a screenwriter ....

It was a long process, actually. Michael won the California Student Film Festival in 1979 and knew he wanted to make films, but had always been an amateur writer and felt most comfortable figuring out stories. (This may be why he ended up earning his living editing children's books -- basically as a story doctor for novels and picture books.) When, as a teen, Michael discovered that someone actually *wrote* movies, he knew he'd found what he wanted to do.

After his second viewing of "Star Wars" -- a long time ago in a small town far, far away -- Dan decided that creating something so entertaining and affecting was a truly fine goal for any writer. Years later, studying newspaper journalism at the University of Oklahoma, Dan earned most of his English Lit. credits in Film Studies courses taught by Joanna Rapf, the granddaughter of producer and Academy co-founder Harry Rapf. At the time, the classes seemed like easy ways to fulfill some degree requirements. In fact, they weren't easy at all, but they did introduce him to classics like Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Rules of the Game, Singin' in the Rain, and the works of Buster Keaton -- further fueling a lifelong obsession with movies.

We know we've succeeded....

We're amusing ourselves. When we're having a good time at the keyboard, when parts of the story that we hadn't even foreseen using are finding their places in the story, well -- that's when we know it's working.

Our inspiration to write The Last Hard Dollar.....

The story came about during one of our marathon phone calls. We talk on the phone often, sometimes while watching the same movie, critiquing it on the fly and rewriting particularly bad scenes as we might have tackled them. We had frequently joked that our dialogue during these calls was worthy of being put down on paper (Hubris, we know thy name), and on this particular night we were setting up jokes and characters and pitching lines back and forth to one another with such a giddy fury that at the end of this hours-long call, we knew we had something substantial. 

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FilmMakers Magazine: What inspired you to write?

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: One of the big inspirations was knowing that what we wrote would immediately have an audience: Each other. It sounds sappy to say, but we are our own best audience, and one of the great pleasures in writing is in having someone we trust to bounce the work off of. And in this situation, we each new that the other wasn't just a passive listener, but would take the material and make it better. That's the greatest compliment to a piece of writing: that someone can see what you're doing with it, and dig in and improve it.

FilmMakers Magazine: What did you do to prepare yourself to write your first script?

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: We did what most people do: We spent a lifetime watching movies. We also read a lot of screenplays and books about the craft. Without Robert McKee, William Goldman, and a whole shelf of other books, we would have been lost.

FilmMakers Magazine: Is this your first script and how long did it take you to complete?

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: We each have started (and failed to complete) scripts on our own. This is the first script that either of us has finished. It's hard to say just how long it took to complete, since a lot of time was spent chatting about it (and working our day jobs) before the actual writing began. Then it was a matter of many late evenings and weekends, and many lengthy phone calls and E-mails. If the script sells for six figures, it should just about cover our telephone bills. 

FilmMakers Magazine: Do you have a set routine, place and time management for writing?

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: That's the goal, but as yet, reality has intruded, making it hard to stick to a routine. We look forward to a day when we're free to concentrate on the writing -- rather than on the jobs we do to subsidize the writing -- because the best work happens that way.

FilmMakers Magazine: Do you believe screenplay contests are important for aspiring screenwriters and why? 

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: Absolutely. The right screenplay contest can garner exposure for unknown writers who would otherwise have a hard time getting a script read by anyone who can further their careers. Contrary to what some how-to books would have you believe, not everyone has a second cousin or a friend-of-a-friend who can put a script into an agent's or producer's hands.

FilmMakers Magazine: What script would you urge aspiring writers to read and why? 

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: There's no way we could single out the one script that's most important for aspiring screenwriters to read. You should read everything you can get your hands on; even the bad stuff can teach you a lot about the craft. Having said that, you could do worse than to read Casablanca, Miller's Crossing, Lethal Weapon, Broadcast News, Jerry Maguire, and just about everything by Billy Wilder.

FilmMakers Magazine: Beside screenwriting what are you passionate about and why?

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: Good writing in general. The Great Gatsby, The Shipping News, the works of Michael Chabon, John Cheever, Alice Munro, Lorrie Moore, Michael Connelly, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Poe... And Shakespeare (who knew a lot about structure and wrote great dialogue). Obviously, this list could go on as long as any tiresome list, but the point is this: If we hope to be great screenwriters, it helps to first try and be a great writer, and that means reading great writing in every form -- not just great scripts.

FilmMakers Magazine: Who is your favorite Screenwriter and Why? 

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: Cameron Crowe? Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond? Preston Sturges? James L. Brooks? The Coen Brothers? We could go on and on here, but what would be the point? There are so many great screenwriters, and they're all great in such idiosyncratic ways. Naming only one seems like a paltry way of paying homage to the wealth of talent that has made movies matter to us.

FilmMakers Magazine: Name the director you would love to work with and why? 

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: Wes Anderson. Why? Because he's one of the few directors who is making films that are formally arresting and that dare to find their own shape. And damned funny. They seem both tightly put together and yet organically plotted, and so end up feeling a lot like life.

FilmMakers Magazine: Name the actor you would love to work with and why?

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: Gene Hackman. He is among the most versatile and accomplished actors working today, able to go from pathos to hilarity in the space of a second. His work is always interesting, even when the movie he is in is not.

FilmMakers Magazine: Any tips and things learned along the way to pass on to others?

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: Don't be afraid to toss out whole sequences that you love. We had concocted some very clever material that unfortunately didn't fit into our story and for a time warped the shape of the script. It was okay; nothing is wasted, maybe we can use that material in some other script down the road.

FilmMakers Magazine: What's next for you?

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: We have a few other scripts we're working on, none of which we'll talk about just yet -- talking too much about an unfinished story can end up taking the place of actually writing it. But they're all unutterably brilliant. Or so we think, anyway.

FilmMakers Magazine: Where will you be in six years from now? 

Dan Bennett and Michael R. Stearns: Writing for a living, both original features and episodic television (as creators/producers). With a little luck....