"When I first met Cameron." Brooks says, "he was talking about another screenplay he was working on and his discomfort about his ability to write woman characters. However, instead of avoiding the issue by saying, 'Okay, I'll only write about men, or I'm not going to confront this,' he began grabbing every woman who passed and really talking to her. It was like a guy working out with weights to develop a more muscular build. Cameron tackled the challenge and has created a wonderful character in Diane."
"Diane started out as a golden girl," Crowe explains. "Then, as I began to develop her character, I realized that golden girls don't really see themselves that way. What makes them golden, intelligent, beautiful, or whatever, is elusive to them. So I began to ignore Diane's more obvious qualities and began writing about her feelings -- how she felt about graduating early or being put in advanced classes, and how it feels to have everyone view you as being different when your're really not."
Crowe, whose mother was a teacher, had skipped three grades and graduated early, and he found a way to draw upon his own experiences and feelings and transfer them to the character of Diane. In the process, he has created a unique young heroine. In most Hollywood movies the stereotypical unobtainable girl is more often Bo Derek ("10") than the beautiful, strong, intelligent class valedictorian depicted in "Say Anything."
With the father and daughter in place, Crowe began concentrating on his third main character and eventually came up with a boyfriend, who evolved into Lloyd.
"One Night, while I was writing," Crowe animatedly recalls, "a guy from down the street, Lowell, knocked on my door. He told me he was a kickboxer and his father was under investigation by the IRS. His family had given him some money and sent him off to live in Southern California. He wanted to come in and talk, but I explained I was too busy writing. Then he came back a couple of nights later and started going on about kickboxing and how he was a scientific fighter. He wanted to show me his tapes. He had a wonderful mannerism: He always wiped his hand off befor shaking hands. He lost most of his fights but remained relentlessly optimistic. That, to me, is truly heroic. I soon realized nothing I could creat could be as unique as this guy at my door. So Lowell became Lloyd."
If Lloyd Dobler is the handmaiden to Diane Court's future, he is also the master of his own fate. "He's a pure soul," according to Crowe,"a man who represents a very specific point of view: Optimism is a revolutionary act. Life keeps bumping up against Lloyd and those around him, but he chooses to say, 'Why can't you just be in a good mood? How hard is it?'
"So many people view anyone with a positive attitude as being hopelessly naive, a Pollyanna, Too often heroes are portrayed as glum dark characters whom we're supposed to admire just because they are so dark. I thought it would be interesting to write about someone who is shamelessly optimistic. There's a certain power that comes from just blazing through the negativity that's all around you. You don't have to be Shirley Temple to have this attitude and energy."
"Lloyd is someone with a very specific and unusual talent who meets a girl who seems to have no talent still latent," adds Brooks. "She's not only beautiful, but she has displayed a great deal of ability. As for Lloyd, I think his latent talent is his gift for loving someone, which is in itself an extraordinary ability."
"Lloyd recognizes the importance of relationships, romantic and familial," notes producer Polly Platt. "Even though diane's father has done something which she considers terrible, and even though her father dislikes Lloyd and convinces her to break off with him at one point, it is Lloyd who makes her realize she shouldn't sever the relationship with her father. It is Lloyd who plays the peacemaker and impresses upon her the importance of family relationships. He becomes the bridge that will exist between Diane and her father."
At Brooks' urging, Crowe next wrote a ninety-page movella, which became the ourline for the film, before tackling the screenplay. While Brooks worked on "Broadcast News," they continued meeting and working on the script, and a search began for a director. By the time Crowe was polishing the material, Brooks suggested he direct it himself.
"I knew Cameron wanted to direct," Brooks explains, "and one day I simply said to him, 'We either have to top you or you should do it.' And at a certain point, all of us came to believe that we couldn't really top him. From the beginning, this has been a very idealistic way to make a movie. By Idealistic I don't simply mean that everybody loved everybody and that everything has been peaceful. I mean that all the passions were about the right things -- about trying to realize a moment and having the film reflect what Cameron envisioned it should be."
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