CHRISTOPHER HALLIGAN
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 PictureCHRISTOPHER HALLIGAN
​Where do you live (City, State, or Country)?
I moved to Los Angeles with a dream and a master’s degree in film theory, landing an English professor gig at Compton Community College where I taught for 16 years. In 2000, I entered Loyola Marymount University's MFA program in Writing for the Screen. Since
graduating in 2023, I alternate between Whidbey Island, WA and Palm Springs, CA. USA.

Your script stood out among hundreds of others. What was the inspiration for your story and why did you write a script instead of a short story or a novel?
I am a feature screenwriter, having written many feature screenplays over the years. However, it wasn't until graduate school where I learned the craft of television writing and how, particularly, the limited series is a wonderful medium for giving a subject matter the dedication and development that only a novel can. I discovered my subject, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, in an LGBTQ bookstore in the Castro in San Francisco and was really shocked at the very limited amount of scholarship and information that was available on the guy. So began a quest, which included a research trip to Germany, to try and learn more about this guys incredible life. A feature film would not give his life due diligence, so I decided to go the limited series route, which was perfect because I got to decide how many episodes it would
take - in The Urning's case eight - to tell the story.

How long did it take you to write your script...and what is your writing process? Do you outline...use index cards...white board...or just start with FADE IN?
This has been a many-years research project for me - I had to track down scholarship, any writing I could find on the guy. By the mid 2010's, I had a pretty good handle on him, and went to Germany to research and get a feel for the place he lived in. But I struggled terribly with hammering out a compelling, suspenseful linear story and, honestly, it wasn't until shows like The Crown and Bridgerton that I realized it's OK to fill in missing history with story, as long as it goes along with the vibe of the time. This realization unleashed a flood of creativity for me and allowed me to go places that I hadn't thought of before - to be able to get political and make connections to our own times through the narrative of history. Once this creativity was freed, I had pretty much a full arc and outline of the entire series within a few months. The actual pilot took me about six months from first draft to last.

What is your ultimate ambition as a writer?
I came to Los Angeles to be a filmmaker, and I accomplished that, to a certain degree. But the ultimate goal is to be the director of my own scripts, both features and limited series...and actually make a nickel or two in the process. I believe that is the ultimate ambition for any
filmmaker in Hollywood - to be able to create films from the ground up and actually get paid doing it. Only a select few get that privilege in our industry, but that's why they call us dreamers. No matter what the odds, there's no way a true dreamer ever gives up on their dream, their gifts, their talent. Very soon in the game a serious filmmaker realizes that their dream is all they've got.

Was your entry at The Wiki Screenplay Contest a full script or “the first ten pages”? Why did you make that choice?
I entered the entire screenplay. I personally would never enter a script contest with an incomplete script, although I certainly see the benefit it provides writers. I am from the old school. I don't let anybody read it (other than my critical readers) until its done and perfect. At least as perfect as I can make it. But if you are a beginning writer who has difficulty finding good readers, contests like this are incredible opportunities to get your work critically read by people who know what they’re talking about, no matter what condition the script is in.

What’s your all-time favorite movie or television show...and why?
I know I'll get a lot of flak for this, but the film that made me want to become a writer- director is Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), for which he won the Oscar for best original screenplay that year. The depth of characters and the way he weaves them in and out of each others narrative, almost like a contrapuntal Bach piece, I found fascinating and compelling, and made me want to learn how tell stories on film just like it.

What advice do you have for writers hoping to win a contest or place as a finalist as you have?
As my great UCLA mentor, Lew Hunter, told me time and time again, "Write on, and on, and on." Never stop writing. It's the one thing that is yours and yours alone. It is a magic that many people don't have, and don't understand. Never let anyone try to smother or control your magi because, in the end, it's really the most valuable thing you have.

What else are you working on that the world needs to know about?
I am presently writing a new script, Gospel Truth, about the lost years of Jesus Christ - ages 9 to 27 - and how they informed the last years of his life.  I'm coming at this from a completely agnostic, psychological, scientific perspective - in short, Jesus Christ is a sexually-fluid hippy who adopts gnostic symbolism to create a new, more loving and accepting religion - a pied piper who has had enough of the brutal, conservative regime of the time, and finds a very eager following which, of course, threatens the hell out of the powers that be. I want to blow the lid off the Christianity myth and show how utterly human Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all of the disciples really were, what really made them tick, and what proclivities they may have had, sexually and otherwise, that influenced their decisions. I am having a lot of fun with this one.