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Have you ever heard ofAsiatic tearthumb?
Its native to more southern climates.
It was never in New York until Hurricane Sandy.
Its also called mile-a-minute because it grows so fast it can grow six inches in a day.
Koepp has been battling the invasive weed at his summer house in Amagansett.
The roots are horrifying.
Theyll run like ten feet sideways through the soil.
(This may help explain the summer house in Amagansett.)
There were two authors that were really big for me, Stephen King and Kurt Vonnegut.
I think I developed a humanist viewpoint thanks to Vonnegut and [Doonesburycartoonist] Gary Trudeau.
Along with the aforementioned killer fungus, it features a bunch of very scared humans.
What happens next, though, is not what youd expect from the screenwriter ofJurassic ParkandMission: Impossible.
I found this really deeply satisfying in a way that movies can be only rarely, he explains.
I was fascinated by being able to digress!
Also, I like solitude.
And you certainly get a lot of that.
The notes he got from his editor were so gentle and intelligent, he says.
I thought,This cant be!Ive never had that experience [in screenwriting].
They view it as essentially theirs.
The novel, he realized, was essentially his.
But it also comes with a potential downside.
As he worked on the novel, he says, There were two things I was afraid of.
One was, to spend a really long time on it and not even get it in print.
The other is public humiliation, which I never enjoy.
Ive had my share of it.
Movies are a public thing.
And I know that screenwriter with some hit movies who tries to write a novel is not … Thats how I picture whats coming, he says.
(A recent ravein the New YorkTimesmay have allayed his anxieties.)
This is no breaking news, but now the middle is largely gone.
And I like those movies!
Ive done those kind of movies!
But I dont want to do them forever and my interests are a little different now.
I ask him to clarify.
He answers wryly, I dont say its name anymore.
(If you check outhis IMDb pageyou can probably make an educated guess.)
All of us miscalculated, he says of that project.
You dont do it on purpose!
People get really mad when a movies bad.
I swear, we dont do it to irritate you.
Not that hes completely exhausted his fascination with killer botany.
Theres still Asiatic tearthumb to defeat.
And make that a horror movie.
When he pulls the vine out of the tree, theres a mouth attached to the end of it.
Hes joking sort of.
