The democracy of ‘Swing Vote’

In 2005, Joshua Michael Stern’s first feature, “Neverwas,” opened the Toronto International Film Festival; but despite a cast full of Oscar winners, it ended up going straight to video shelves. On Aug. 1, his second, “Swing Vote,” written with Jason Richman and starring Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper and Kelsey Grammer, will premiere in theaters. Already moving on, he’s got Sir Anthony Hopkins, Gwyneth Paltrow, Keira Knightley and Naomi Watts in talks to appear in his own version of “King Lear.”

So, how, at a time when experienced feature writers are having trouble finding work, has Stern rocketed from 0 to 160? First, he said, he’s never stopped writing since he started at 14. Next, besides writing and directing, he’s also involved in managing, producing and whatever else needs doing. Then, too, as a child of Hollywood, he said he knows how to persuade top-notch actors to sign up for his films.

“When I meet an actor, I always let them know this is a collaboration,” Stern said. In the case of Ian McKellen, who starred in “Neverwas,” Stern flew to England to explain the role he wanted him to play and to discuss how they could collaborate to make the role the actor’s own. “If an actor can feel he can do something interesting, he’ll at least consider it.”

Costner, he said, was so involved in “Swing Vote” that he produced and wrote as well as starred as Bud, a schlumpy single dad whose vote will decide a presidential election. After the candidates flip-flop on their major issues to win Bud’s vote, Bud sums up the situation in a speech at the end of the film.

“It was a hard speech to write,” Stern said. He and Richman “kept delivering versions of that scene that were poetic, lofty, Capra-esque. Kevin kept coming back and saying it’s too poetic for this character.” Eventually, Costner wrote the speech himself, “as Bud would say it,” Stern said. “It was wonderful.”

He means it. Stern sounds like some sort of Hollywood outlier, a writer-director without an ego. He does think of his work, humbly enough, as a craft, and his role as a workman -- a workman who’s in charge of everything. “You’re your own CEO, salesman, no one does anything for you [including agents and managers],” he said. “You have to create your own work. You’re your own producer. You’re the only one to convince an actor. If it’s the right actor, he gets funded.”

But “it always starts with the script. There’s a great power in those words,” he said. He wrote 10 scripts before he reached his late 20s, when he felt he was ready to begin directing, he said.

Stern’s only film school was his family, notably a grandmother who was David O. Selznick’s East Coast representative, helped discover Marlon Brando and was friends with Michael Redgrave and Alec Guinness.

His goal as a writer-director, he said, is to make movies that will make people feel an emotion strong enough to last through the car ride home.

“Swing Vote” originated a few years ago when he began to feel disconnected from the political process. “I’m usually a plugged-in kind of guy,” he said. “I thought apathy was a bad place to be in and wanted to write a movie about the importance of being involved and being aware that it really is in our hands, this system.”

Costner’s Tig Productions and Treehouse Films fast-tracked the film so it could be released before this year’s election. “We lucked out with the general tenor in the country,” he said, noting that the two leading candidates are in a dead heat.

“In the end, I was trying to create a movie about a guy who wanted to be a better father, and by extension, became a better citizen.”

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Pandas, terrorists, hey, a job’s a job

How does a cuddly cartoon panda bear come from the same minds as murderous religious terrorists?

“We wanted to write something our kids could see,” said Ethan Reiff, half of the screenwriting pair known for the headline ripper “Sleeper Cell” on Showtime. He and Cyrus Voris earned story credit for “Kung Fu Panda,” one of the summer’s top films.

Reiff said he and Voris initially were hired to write “Panda” with different teams of directors and, as happens, stepped aside for others (Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger) to write the final product. As also happens, the film, after several rewritings, turned back to “basically the story we wrote,” Reiff said.

As it turned out, his children laughed from “fade-in to fade-out,” he said. “It was the first time my kids cared about what I did for a living,” he said.

Though the writing partners are basically movie guys, Reiff said he likes the control usually offered in show-running. After “Panda,” they moved on to “The Eleventh Hour,” a science-based thriller series being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Warner Bros. for CBS this fall.

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Is the party over for TV writers?

During some downtime at the summer press tour, the Writers Guild Assn. put on a party Saturday in the Stardust Room atop the Beverly Hilton.

As press-tour parties go, it was a decidedly low-key affair. About 40 writers from lower-profile television series showed up -- some talking shop with one another, others actively glad-handing the handful of critics who turned out on a warm, lazy afternoon. A few just stood apart, alone with a drink or hors d’oeuvres.

With the post-strike work shortage, the writers have seen better years. Though employed on “Saving Grace,” writer Hans Tobeason said he makes less than he did five years ago. “It’s getting tougher and tougher.” Ten years before that, he remembers, studios were “throwing overall deals around like codfish.”

Yes, the cable explosion has opened up more creative opportunities, he said, but the staffs are smaller and the money available -- in broadcast as well as cable -- is much less than it used to be.

Christopher Fife, a writer on the CW’s “Privileged,” said he encountered more competition this spring than he’s ever seen. He said he’s “grateful every day” for the job. “Tuesday nights this fall!” he said, leaving to circulate among the crowd.

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Scriptland is a weekly feature on the work and professional lives of screenwriters. Please e-mail any tips or comments to lynn.smith@latimes.com.