CHRIS NEUMER: It’s funny how the concept of “I can do better than you” gets so many people into so many situations for what they’re doing.

MARK BOWDEN: Well, I do think that when you’re exposed to something and you see the way it’s done… I don’t believe that I could direct a movie, I don’t have the eye for it, I don’t have the background, I wouldn’t know how to do that. But writing… Taking something that I’ve written, a story that I’ve written and adapting it for the screen. Watching someone get paid $80,000 or $100,000 and then have them just throw [that script] away and hire someone else, I figured, “I can do that,” and maybe, if I’m given the opportunity I can make something they can use.

CHRIS NEUMER: Well you can do it, and you can probably do it better as well.

MARK BOWDEN: I have that opportunity now. It’s easy to tell yourself that you can, but then when you’re sitting down looking at a blank piece of paper, it’s a challenge. But I think I can do it and I’ve been doing it.

CHRIS NEUMER: That’s got to be a good movie: some screenwriter getting paid a bunch of money to adapt a book and subletting it out, essentially you get your $80,000, I pay some guy $20,000 to do it and that guy comes out with a great script and they love it.

MARK BOWDEN: (Laughs) Ooh. That’s a plan.

CHRIS NEUMER: This is good. This is how the real ones come up.

MARK BOWDEN: Getting around to finishing my point, though: I had that attitude about it that it didn’t really matter to me how bad the movie was, I was going to get paid and it was going to promote, in some way, the book that I’d written. Now that I’m writing this project I’m writing for Imagine where I’m creating the movie…

CHRIS NEUMER: Is this the fictional one?

MARK BOWDEN: This is totally fiction. I know I’m going feel more possessive about this story than I’ve ever done about anything I’ve written, just because I’ve spent so much time creating it out of nothing. So, it exists for a reason and the reason is in my mind. As soon as somebody else starts altering it to fit whatever their vision is for the movie I can’t stop that from happening, but I know it’s not going to be as painless…

CHRIS NEUMER: And you probably can’t say, “Well, that didn’t happen” and use that as an excuse.

MARK BOWDEN: Right.

CHRIS NEUMER: Well, you can, it’s just that people will look at you really weird.

MARK BOWDEN: If your goal in sitting down and writing a script is to write it so well that it would be really difficult for somebody to come up with a better idea for how to make it, then…

CHRIS NEUMER: I’m laughing because I’m thinking of studio executives that I know and I’m not even sure that’s enough of a reason not to tinker with something. You know how it goes…

MARK BOWDEN: I had dinner the other night with Charles Randolph, whom I’ve become friendly with. He’s a very good writer, a really smart guy, and he was saying that he didn’t think that you could do good work as a screenwriter if you didn’t invest your emotions in what you’re writing, if you didn’t ultimately end up caring a great deal about what you’ve done, the story. Therefore it’s inevitable that you will feel pain through this process and my attitude has always been a little more glib than that. “I can do it.” I can write the best script that I can and know that ultimately the way that this movie gets made is how the director and the producer and everyone else in the studio wants to have it made and since I can’t control that process I probably shouldn’t lose a whole lot of sleep.

CHRIS NEUMER: Much easier said than done.

MARK BOWDEN: Yes. Yes.

CHRIS NEUMER: It’s sort of like an intimate relationship. If at the beginning of the relationship you’re thinking, “This is going to end, and it’s going end badly,” it’s probably not going to take off the ground at the beginning, no matter how you’re your initial fear is. You have to be a little bit vulnerable and it’s at that point that you get raked over the coals.

MARK BOWDEN: Yeah. Everyone has their own reasons for doing things. For me, I’m 55, I figure in 10 years I’ll probably be finished with any desire to do global journalism. The idea of travelling off to weird places is eventually going to peter out. Maybe I’ll last until I’m 70. They say that 50 is the new 30 and all that, but I would love to be able to move my writing career from journalism to fiction and screenwriting so that as I get older, if I’m still capable of working, I can write at my desk in my office and build off my writing reputation that I’ve made in journalism to do novels and screenplays.

CHRIS NEUMER: So you could get to a point where somebody would say, “Oh yeah, Mark Bowden’s new film.” And I could say, “Remember when he used to be the world’s best macrojournalist?” They’d look at me confused and I could say, “You know LL Cool J used to rap?” and people would go “Really?”

MARK BOWDEN: I think if you do look for ways to reinvent yourself in your life, and to me it’s just practical, thinking in terms of, “Am I going to be able to continue doing the work that I do when I’m an old person?” And I’m getting older, so ideally I can go probably longer than I’d want to but the ideal situation would be to not have to. And to build a career writing fiction and writing screenplays.

CHRIS NEUMER: Well, the last thing I have for you is, we’ve talked about money a little bit here, but recently… there’s an actor, his name is Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, I don’t know if you’re familiar with him, he was the kid on the TV show Third Rock From the Sun and he’s one of the rising stars in Hollywood. This is impressive because he hasn’t done any big budget stuff. One of the reasons he hasn’t done this is because Third Rock is in syndication and he’s got cash. He doesn’t have to star as the third whistle in some teen romantic comedy. He can have his pick of the litter and he’s choosing only smaller movies with really good scripts and you don’t think about that often, but his money allows him to doing really interesting things. How does money influence your work?

MARK BOWDEN: Well, what happens to a lot of people is that their lifestyle enlarges. You make a certain amount of money and so you jump up to another level, and so you enlarge your lifestyle so now you need to keep making that money. And that’s why people are going out and making really bad things just for money cause they get to a point where they’re chasing dollars all the time.

CHRIS NEUMER: I know what you’re saying. Makes me wonder what Robert Deniro has to pay for.

MARK BOWDEN: (laughs) If that’s not your main interest in life: getting more and more and more money, the smarter way of doing things is to realize that what money gives you is an opportunity to do what that actor is doing…

CHRIS NEUMER: What I was curious about with you is as you’ve gotten bigger and your name has gotten charisma and panache attached to it, have you found that money has helped, the extra money that you’ve been paid and that you’ve been afforded, has opened up doors for you? I guess my question is how has money impacted your journalism career thus far, in terms of actually the writing?

MARK BOWDEN: It hasn’t affected the writing at all. What it’s done is it’s enabled me to work for myself, basically. I have a relationship with The Atlantic because it suits me and it suits them, but if they wanted to end it tomorrow, no problem. It’s not going to financially [impact me]… I don’t need the job. It works for me right now. It maybe won’t in three or four years, so having that freedom is great. I do three year deals with The Atlantic. So at the end of three years I’ll sit down and I’ll say, “I’d like to do this again”, or maybe “I wouldn’t like to do this again.” Whatever. But they end up offering you more and more money to get you to keep doing things. It puts you in a really nice position in terms of negotiating. But in terms of the work itself, that hasn’t changed for me at all. I do the same work, I do exactly the same thing today that I’ve always done, which is get up in the morning and look at what interviews am I doing, what am I writing, what’s the story I’m trying to tell. The biggest thing that money’s allowed in my life is now that my children are grown, if I want them to come home for the holidays, I can bring them all home. I don’t have to worry about them having the money to fly home from California or anything like that. I want you home. If you can get off work, and if you want to come home, you’re coming home. And that’s the single best thing that’s happened to me as a result of having money. I don’t have to worry about that.

CHRIS NEUMER: But no extra doors have opened for you in terms of stories… I know that people have said in reference to Bob Woodward that once he got out the big story that other doors opened for him…

MARK BOWDEN: That’s true. But that’s not really a function of money, that’s a function of your reputation as a journalist. So, having written Black Hawk Down, even if Black Hawk Down had never been made into a movie, it was a hugely successful book within the military, the United States government, within the intelligence communities, they were just fascinated by that book. As a result of that I do have entry to places where I otherwise would not have been able to get at. Another thing that happens to me because my medium’s better known and my story’s have been successful is that people seek me out with a story. And I’m sure they do with Woodward. Some guy who’s just been involved with some really amazing CIA op somewhere in the world thinks, “Boy I’d love for somebody to tell that story, or get that story made.” And then they sit back and my name occurs to them. It’s the same thing on a somewhat larger scale when any beat reporter at a newspaper has. Let’s say I’m a police reporter and I’ve got a good reputation for doing good work well then a cop with a beef or a victim of a beating is looking for someone to tell their story, they’re going to come to me. For me, it’s just on a lot bigger scale.

CHRIS NEUMER: That’s basically what I’ve got for you. Anything else you want to throw forth?

MARK BOWDEN: I’m very interested in film and writing and how it relates to what I do. I’ve gotten into the film work in a different avenue than most people.

CHRIS NEUMER: It’s funny that you mentioned how your friends… how you’ve seen them go, “Oh great, here’s Mark, he’s got books, he’s doing this huge journalism thing, and now he’s also getting screenwriting. Great.” It’s funny how, and I don’t want you to think I’m blowing smoke up your ass when I say this, but it’s funny how being “good” really is it’s own door opener.

MARK BOWDEN: Well, that’s nice of you to say. The way I look at it is that I see Hollywood and the dealings that I’ve had with them as this giant machine that is fully-equipped to make the best movie, but they don’t know what to make a movie of. They have all the best cinematographers and sound people and makeup people and wardrobe people and every other aspect of filmmaking at their beck and call, but they’re desperate for somebody who has experience in the real world, because that’s what I think. I’ll meet with friends who are working with one studio or another or some producer and they’ll want to know, “What are you working on next?” or “What’s the next story you’re writing?” and it’s because I’m bringing them messages from out there, from the real world.

CHRIS NEUMER: Because that’s where the real world is. I think this much we can agree on. The real world is definitely not walking…

MARK BOWDEN: And the people who live there are probably aware of that to a fault: the idea that they live in this privileged little bubble…

CHRIS NEUMER: I think that’s the main reason why you live in LA. I live outside of Chicago in a small town, maybe 15 minutes outside of the heart of downtown Chicago, and when I go back there, it’s like okay, there are minorities there, I love it. And when I’m out in LA, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Studio City, etc not so much.