Randall Wallace may not be a man you know by name, but you most definitely know his work. A prolific screenwriter, director, producer, and songwriter, he is most well known for writing the films Braveheart, The Man in the Iron Mask, Pearl Harbor, and Heaven is for Real. His Braveheart screenplay garnered him a Writers Guild of America Award and both a Golden Globe nomination and Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. In addition to writing, he is also the producer behind films such as We Were Soldiers, as well as being the director of Secretariat and Heaven is for Real, among others. I was lucky enough to sit down with Mr. Wallace to discuss the release of his upcoming book: Living the Braveheart Life: Finding the Courage to Follow Your Heart. The book itself is an interesting read, as it is both biographical and motivational, asking readers to ask themselves what it is they are willing to die for. Readers will learn the story behind the story of the Braveheart script, while learning about the man who wrote it.
You’ve written in quite a few different mediums- songs, books, screenplays- how does your writing process differ between them?
“I think about that a lot, and I never have a consistent answer. I think that everything that’s true is complicated. Everything that’s true has a paradox about it. You’re trying to find the most simple way to say something and finding that simplicity is what’s difficult. There has to be a great deal of courage to start the writing journey. Writing is an act of faith.”
You write a lot of stories of these epic adventures where the everyman steps up to become the hero. With that in mind, do you ever see your own story being turned into any sort of film in the future?
“I don’t know. (laughs) Robert Redford is a little old to play me now. Honestly, I think it would be a hard story to tell. I know it because I try to tell it in some ways in this book. I have three sons, and I wonder at times what their perception of me is because in some ways, their’s is the only one I care about. Everybody else’s opinion of me is whatever it is, but their’s matters, and it matters not so much in what it says about me, but what it says about them. You know, to them, I might sit down and scribble away on a piece of paper and get paid for it, but behind that there are the thousand rejections and nights of despair. I want you to know that I was as much alive when no one knew who I was as I am now. I hesitated about writing this book because really Braveheart is the story, and in movies, maybe you don’t need to see behind the curtain- why would you want to? In a certain way, I think my life is a movie- it’s called Braveheart, it’s called Pearl Harbor. In a way, I can express more of the truth of whatever is me through that stories that move me.”
What’s next for you? Are there any projects you can share?
“I’ve got a new project that is about military working dogs- the SEAL team dogs. The dogs are warriors too, and the interplay between not just human and canine but the sense that we all want to find what is essential in ourselves so that we can make contact with it. In Heaven is for Real, it was a really a deep exploration into spirit and faith. Now I want to do something that’s gritty.”
Randall Wallace’s Living the Braveheart Life: Finding the Courage to Follow Your Heart is available for pre-order now and will go on sale September 8, 2015.