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Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and director Billy Ray joins host Kevin Goetz for a wide-ranging conversation about what makes stories work and why emotion, character, and integrity sit at the center of great screenwriting. Ray's credits include Captain Phillips, The Hunger Games, Shattered Glass, Richard Jewell, State of Play, Breach, and Flightplan. He discusses the lessons he learned from writers and films that shaped him, the discipline that has sustained his career, adapting The Hunger Games, learning from failure as a director, and why audiences need to care about what happens rather than simply wonder what happens next.

Integrity, Emotion, and the Stories Billy Ray Tells (01:41): Ray identifies integrity as the recurring theme in his work and explains why the best screenwriting is an intellectual exercise designed to create an emotional response. If audiences are thinking about how smart the writing is rather than feeling the story, he says, the writer has missed the mark.

Early Experiences, Curiosity, and Becoming a Storyteller (05:29): Ray reflects on experiences that shaped him at a young age and how they contributed to his sensitivity to other people's emotions. He and Goetz discuss empathy, curiosity, and why genuine interest in other people is essential to both writing and life.

Knowing Your Audience: Messaging and Persuasion (13:35): A discussion about political communication becomes a broader conversation about audiences. Ray argues that effective messaging begins by understanding where people are emotionally and moving them from there, a principle Goetz connects directly to movie marketing and persuasive advertising.

What Makes a Great Screenplay? (22:38): Ray recalls growing up around writers through his father, a literary agent, and being handed Alvin Sargent's Ordinary People screenplay as the standard to aspire to. He explains his fundamental rule of character: a protagonist needs both an external problem to solve and an internal problem that only the journey of the movie can fix.

Great Characters, Great Villains, and the Cathartic Contract (26:29): Using Ordinary People, Rocky, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Sound of Music, and Schindler's List, Ray and Goetz examine character construction. Ray argues that a great antagonist needs a defensible point of view and that every supporting character should reveal a different facet of the protagonist.

Outworking the Competition and Shattered Glass (42:01): Ray discusses early influences including Rod Serling, literature that challenged and comforted him, and his realization as a young writer that he could not control talent or the state of the industry, but he could control how hard he worked. He also names Shattered Glass, his feature directing debut, as the film of which he is most proud.

The Hunger Games and the Art of Reverse Engineering (46:30): Ray remembers reading Suzanne Collins' novel overnight and immediately recognizing its potential. He describes using Jaws to persuade producer Nina Jacobson that changes could strengthen an adaptation, and explains the concept of reverse engineering a screenplay so the first two acts properly support a powerful ending. He also shares the extraordinary security measures involved in writing The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.

Failure, Audience Testing, and the Oscar Chase (51:15): Ray speaks candidly about directing Secret in Their Eyes, recognizing that the film was not connecting strongly enough with audiences, and being shaken by the experience of losing an investor's money. He also reflects on his Oscar nomination for Captain Phillips, why awards can become addictive, and the danger of choosing projects because they seem like "Oscar movies" rather than because they are the right stories to tell.

Host: Kevin Goetz
Guest: Billy Ray
Producer: Kari Campano
Writers: Kevin Goetz, Darlene Hayman, Nick Nunez, and Kari Campano
Audio Engineer: Gary Forbes (DG Entertainment)

For more information about Billy Ray:
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Ray_%28screenwriter%29
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0712753/
Burn the Water: Available from Scholastic and booksellers

For more information about Kevin Goetz:
- Website: www.KevinGoetz360.com
- Audienceology Book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Audience-ology/Kevin-Goetz/9781982186678
- How to Score in Hollywood: https://www.amazon.com/How-Score-Hollywood-Secrets-Business/dp/198218986X/
- Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Substack: @KevinGoetz360
- LinkedIn @Kevin Goetz
- Screen Engine/ASI Website: www.ScreenEngineASI.com