As I’ve stated countless times before, Hallmark’s production of Unleashing Mr. Darcy holds a particularly special place in my heart. I have become friends with so many of the cast and crew members since its premiere some two and a half years ago, and when it was confirmed earlier this year that a sequel was happening, I couldn’t have been more ecstatic. When I had the opportunity to watch the sequel, Marrying Mr. Darcy, I declared it one of the best sequels ever in Hallmark history. Furthermore, two of the people involved with penning this masterpiece, James Iver Mattson and Barbara Brauner, kept appearing in my Twitter timeline. Being the stalwart Hallmark supporter that I am, I reached out to them for an interview, and I was pleasantly surprised with their heartfelt, immediate response. Today, it is my delight and honor to feature these two incredibly talented individuals.
RH: How/why did you get started in writing as a career?
JIM/BB: We’ve been writing together for a long time. Years ago, James was writing for Saturday morning cartoons. Barbara was working in a library and writing a romance novel. James had a one-line notion for a live-action comedy about a bad cat, and Barbara had such good ideas for it that we decided to write it together. We were lucky, and the first script we ever wrote, Fluffy, sold to Disney. It never got made, but it got us started. And every once in a while a producer calls and asks, “Whatever happened to that bad-cat script?”
Did you have any kind of training for this writing career?
James has a degree in English (and is one class short of an MFA in Film Directing from UCLA), and Barbara was a double major in English and Theater Arts. But our best training was watching a lot of movies and TV. Now that we get paid for writing, we can say it’s research.
What was your first individual screenwriting credit? Any special or interesting memories?
James’s first credit was for an animated version of the children’s book, Little Toot. A fun memory from that job is that he created new characters that were children; by the end of the project, the children got turned into talking dogs. Only in animation.
If I understand things correctly, your first screenwriting credit together was Deliver Us From Eva. Please tell us how that came about, what the inspiration was for the story, and if/where this is available to watch (if you know).
After Fluffy sold, we sold several other live-action comedies to the studios. Deliver Us From Eva was an original romantic comedy script we wrote that was inspired by a friend of Barbara’s mentioning that her husband didn’t like any of her women friends. So we combined that idea with a little bit of Taming of the Shrew, and Focus Features (a division of Universal Pictures) bought it. The script was rewritten by the director, so the final film, which stars LL Cool J and Gabrielle Union, is half ours and half his. You can stream it on Amazon and iTunes, and it seems to play every couple of weeks on cable TV. (Warning: it’s R-rated for language.)
How did the opportunity for Marrying Mr. Darcy come about? Were you already familiar with Unleashing Mr. Darcy and/or Teri Wilson‘s stories?
Over the last couple of years, we’ve been busy writing a book series for tweens called Oh My Godmother, about an ordinary girl who accidentally becomes a fairy godmother. The series is published by Disney / Hyperion books. Coincidentally, we had a notion for an updated version of Pride and Prejudice. We did a little research and instantly found that Teri Wilson had already published a wonderful take on it that was being turned into a Hallmark Movie. (And our Pride and Prejudice story went right back in the drawer.)
Late last year, our agent called and said that a Hallmark Producer, Sydell Albert (whom we love), needed a rewrite for Marrying Mr. Darcy since the first writer had to move on to other Hallmark projects. We instantly clicked with the material and Sydell.
Once signed to write, how long did the process take to write this and get it greenlit?
After we received approval for the revised outline of the story, we started writing the script in mid-December 2017. We did several more drafts based on Hallmark’s very smart notes, and the movie went into production in early April. So the whole process went very quickly.
Were you able to visit the set of Marrying Mr. Darcy? Have you met Teri and/or any others involved in the production?
We’re based in Los Angeles, so we weren’t able to visit the Darcy set. We’ve met Teri and everyone else through social media (thank you, Twitter and Instagram.) And we feel like we almost know Teri because Sydell Albert has such lovely things to say about her.
Were you surprised by the fan response? What do you think about a third installment and/or a weekly series featuring these characters?
We were absolutely thrilled with the fan response. We had heard that Hallmark fans are the best, and it was completely true. It was such a thrill watching people live-tweeting about it. From our writers’ perspective, it was incredible to have people quoting lines that we wrote.
We would love a third installment! Teri Wilson created wonderful characters, and it’s a fantastic cast. And we’ve enjoyed reading the fans’ ideas on Twitter.
Since I believe you plan to continue writing as a team, do you have any other works upcoming you can mention? Do you have anything you are working on individually? Do you write in other mediums besides screenwriting?
Yes, we definitely plan to keep writing together as a team – we make each other laugh, and that’s hard to find. We’re currently working on a Christmas script for Hallmark (which we can’t tell you about yet ). And we’re also outlining a new middle-grade book series.
What do you appreciate about Hallmark? Were you a Hallmark fan before writing Marrying Mr. Darcy?
We appreciate the way that Hallmark creates sweet romantic comedies. We both love rom-coms, even going back to the classic Hepburn and Tracy movies. And we appreciate how, when you watch a Hallmark movie, you know that things are going to turn out well. We had both seen a few Hallmark movies before Marrying Mr. Darcy, but since getting the job we’ve been binging on them. There are so many great movies!
Do you have aspirations to be involved in other parts of production either in front of or behind of the camera?
Writing is our dream job, and we’re so lucky to be able to do it. So we’re staying happily behind our keyboards.
If you could visit anywhere in the world for a vacation, where would you go and why?
James: Lhasa in Tibet.
Barbara: London specifically, and anywhere in England in general. (Yes, she is an Anglophile.)
While the original Unleashing Mr. Darcy enthralled a wide variety of viewers to no end, the sequel to this charming film has continued to resonate with viewers all over the world. Even though Teri was responsible for the original, I am so grateful to everyone who labored intensively to make this sequel a reality, and I consider James and Barbara two of those vital reasons. I was unfamiliar with their work prior to Marrying Mr. Darcy, but now they are on my radar and I know that if their names are on a script, absolute delectation is about to appear on the screen. I seriously pray that Hallmark continues to utilize their talents in the weeks, months, and years to come, and if a third installment and/or a series happens to come along for Darcy, I am crossing my fingers that Hallmark reaches out to these two creatives yet again. Until that happens, I am confident that this new partnership will spawn a variety of Hallmark films in the future, and I urge all of my readers to watch Marrying Mr. Darcy (if they haven’t already) and follow these two on Twitter. These are two of the most interactive screenwriters who work with Hallmark, and viewers can always count on appreciation and acknowledgments from these two pleasant people. I know that countless viewers are desirous of a Christmas sequel and/or a series, and all I can say is, let the network know your feelings on the subject and don’t let the dialogue expire. Additionally, I am thrilled to support these writers in all their many endeavors, for authentic talent and unconditional kindness are embodied in every line they write, whether on social media, in a book, or in a script.
FOLLOW JAMES & BARBARA
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Perhaps the Christmas story Teri mentioned will make it as a Hallmark film they can work on?
