[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: How many stunt people do right now that are writers, that have become screenwriters?
Sammy Horowitz, Action-Actor, Stuntman, Playwright, and Screenwriter: One, but his circumstances are very special. I know a former Navy SEAL who went on to become a writer and he’s very successful and that’s it, and me.
Film Courage: Interesting. He did his service and retired?
Sammy: I met him on a stunt job. We became friends. Then a few years later I saw a Deadline article with him and I saw that he was writing on a television show. I’m like wow that’s awesome and he was a stuntman, he did stunts. But that’s it. I don’t know any other actual stunt performer (man or woman) that has gone on to write on television outside of myself.
Film Courage: When you moved to LA did you were going to begin writing?
Sammy: Yes, I moved here to eventually become a writer. I was doing stunts full-time that was my career but I came out here to meet my writing partner. We decided to move out here. My wife introduced me to my now writing partner and best friend Adam Pasen. I came out, I met with him and we kind of vibed at that time.
When we made the decision to come out here full-time it was absolutely to work as a stunt man for me and my wife’s an actor, so it was for her to work as an actor.
I had aspirations of eventually pivoting into writing hopefully.
Film Courage: When you say “vibed” how do you know that you want to spend time on a creative project with someone?
Sammy: We didn’t become best friends overnight. My writing partner Adam and I are polar opposites, I mean in every possible way.
He is incredibly educated. He’s got a doctorate and master’s from Northwestern and a doctorate from Western Michigan. He’s won playwriting awards and the Kennedy Award. He’s just incredibly accomplished and brilliant. I am not brilliant. I’m not super academic. I’m certainly not academically accomplished.
I’m an ex-criminal. I’m an ex-drug addict, ex-criminal, ex-athlete, he’s not. We are just very different in many ways but we got along and we filled in the gaps for each other.
Also, he taught me how to write. I knew how to tell stories. I knew how to do that, but I didn’t know how to put them on paper. I didn’t know how to structure them.
I feel like I have a master’s now because I feel like I learned from him everything I needed to know about story structure and five-act structure and three-act structure and half hours and one hour. He taught me all this stuff.
Over the course of some years we went from me saying hey this would be cool this would be cool. The first six months we worked together it was to write a movie (a biopic). I would be telling him stories but very soon after that it was him showing me Okay, this is how you do this and giving me books to read and me learning how to do this stuff until we’ve gotten to the place we are now and that we’ve been for I don’t know six years which is we’re 50/50 partners that both come up with ideas. We both break it down, we outline things and we write things.
Film Courage: You said that you didn’t think you were brilliant. Isn’t there a different kind of brilliance that’s not just book smarts? You’ve been around different people. You’ve said you know how to read a room, there’s a brilliance in that.
Sammy: Well…I certainly think I have some strengths that I’m pretty proud of and I guess gifts maybe but nothing spectacular. I think my best gift is that I’m a good writer. I’m good at stuff but I was a pretty good stunt man and I’m a pretty decent actor but I think I’m a pretty good writer and that’s my strength.
Film Courage: The fact that someone in Hollywood might say well you have to have this degree from this school then it doesn’t mean you’re brilliant. How do you challenge this? How do you say I can tap into human emotion?
Sammy: I don’t think Hollywood is doing that now. I just don’t see that. I think that Hollywood is more interested in authentic storytelling. Thank God I haven’t had that type of push back. I’ve had people that are really interested in the type of experiences that I can bring to the table and the stories that I’m telling.
Also, my partner Adam, he’s got incredible stories and experience and yeah he is very accomplished academically, but he’s also an incredible storyteller in his own right and he’s just awesome. I just haven’t dealt with that I don’t think.
Film Courage: Were you writing at all while living in Chicago?
Sammy: Yes, but not screenplays. I was working on an autobiography with my therapist at that time.
Film Courage: And this was going to be a book or a play?
Sammy: Yeah, so I mean this is why I started writing film and television because I saw this therapist when I got out of prison. We were good friends and I really respected this…I mean I still do but I really like the therapist and he said you should write a book and so we were collaborating on this book. My girlfriend, who’s now my wife, at the time she’s like that’s not professional. You shouldn’t be writing a book with your therapist. I didn’t see any problem with it but my then girlfriend was like that’s crazy. And so she said Have you ever thought about writing a movie and I said no. She says I know this writer. I went to school with him. He’s really talented. He’s in LA right now. You should meet him. I said alright and the rest is history.
Film Courage: And that’s Adam? …(Watch the video interview on YouTube here)
About:
Sammy Horowitz is an award winning action-actor, stuntman, playwright, and screenwriter from Chicago. Before moving to Hollywood, Sammy was a member of a predominantly Latino street gang and spent almost a decade in prison. He then went on to be a bouncer and doorman at nightclubs, a stick up man, a drug addict, an M.M.A. fighter, and eventually a full-time professional boxer who fought all over the country. Sammy is one of the only known stuntmen who has went on to write on television. His play, Musket and the Rat premiered in January 2020. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actor Sari Sanchez.
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