What It’s Like to Write a Lesbian Vampire Lifetime Movie With James Franco

This weekend, Lifetime airs James Franco’s remake of the 1996 Lifetime movie Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? In true Franco style, the reboot bears little resemblance to the original — primarily due to the addition of a lesbian vampire romance. Though Franco created the story for the new Mother May I, he asked actress-screenwriter Amber Coney (who also appears in the film) to pen the script. So what’s it like to write a campy Lifetime vampire movie for James Franco? We’ll let Coney explain…

James Franco survives on art, decaffeinated coffee, imagination, and very little sleep. I was brought into his strange and amazing world after meeting him at USC, a place where he both bequeaths his knowledge and experience as a teacher, and finds talented and hard-working individuals to take part in his multi-faceted, constantly moving creative empire. I’ve always been drawn artistically to explore darkness, light, and areas of gray, and James’ sensibilities have many similarities to my own — so it isn’t a wonder that we somehow ended up working together.

James was the first person who prompted me to write a full-fledged screenplay. Prior to working with him, I had been doing other sorts of creative writing, but had only delved into screenwriting through shorter-form scripts. I’m sure he got the hint that I strive to be a multi-hyphenate like himself, so one day he asked me if I could write a feature adaptation of this Southern Gothic novel by Nick Cave that we were both reading. Of course, having James ask me to go into uncharted territory creatively was beyond thrilling to me, so I woke up every morning and wrote for hours upon hours, until a few weeks later, I had a first draft.

Once James realized I could write (well and quickly) he started sending me outlines of his original stories to work off of, thus beginning the regular workflow and collaboration between us. I was still acting, auditioning, and balancing a part-time job when I first began, so every hour that I was not doing one of those things, I was writing. Needless to say, I became very comfortable with a hermit-like existence. Anything for art, I told myself… right? I believe I had just completed my third screenplay for him, when he called me. His usual means of communication are email or text, so when he called me I was surprised to discover that it wasn’t a pocket dial. In fact, he had a proposition.

James told me that Lifetime had asked him to helm a remake of a 1990’s cult classic starring Tori Spelling — as a sort of continuation of what the network did with A Deadly Adoption co-starring Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig. “But,“ he said, "I’m adding lesbian vampires.” I had two thoughts: “Wow,” and “I’m so in.” James went on to tell me that his remake of Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? would be very different, and that he wanted to pitch his concept to the network in the form of a full-fledged script. He already had an outline, but: “I need a screenplay to send out by next week.” That, I suppose, was the catch. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but when else would I get the chance to write about lesbian vampires? I said yes once again, throwing caution to the wind.

The process began like this: immediately after the call, James forwarded me his eight-page outline and a link to the original movie. I read the outline, saw the film, and realized how much of a departure from the original his story was. At the beginning, in fact, James was toying with the idea of changing the mother character to a father, so he originally called his re-invention, “Daddy, May I Sleep With Danger?”… which in retrospect, is a very amusing title. In spite of the obvious differences, I did notice many through-lines regarding certain characters, relations, and themes of fear, sex, and romance. Although the time pressure was a bit daunting, the task at hand was so perfectly bizarre and enticing, I had an intuitive sense that I’d be able to do it. So I sat down to write.

Writing the first draft of the script turned out to be an incredibly thrilling, albeit short, experience. At that point, I had been accustomed to James’ outlines, which were always clear in terms of the world of THE story, exactly what needed to happen plot-wise. Anytime I write a script, I watch what I envision the movie to be in my head, and then transcribe what I see onto the page. This time around was no different, and my mind was swirling with the story’s dark nights, ominous vampires (‘Nightwalkers’), a protective mother, a bright college student, and loads of fangs and blood. It took me 4 days to produce the first draft. I edited the script on the 5th day, crossed my aching fingers, and sent it out. Then I went to sleep, and the Nightwalkers continued to haunt my dreams.

A week or so later, I got a text from James: “Lifetime likes your script. Good job.” Soon after, I had my first conference call with James, his producers, Sony, and Lifetime to discuss all the preliminary notes that they had. The rewriting began shortly thereafter; I can’t even count how many permutations of the script there were — but eventually we reverted back to the mother character instead of a father, and re-adopted the movie’s original title.

Melanie Aitkenhead was brought in to direct, and the most entertaining discussions she and I had with James were about the rules of our vampire world. LIKE, what should the blood exchange between two Nightwalkers in love be called — “blood union”? “Eternal bond”? Should we even give it a name? And then there were all the discussions about the blood itself. How much should we show? Knowing James, I knew the answer. In the theatre rehearsal scene, where our protagonist Leah (as Macbeth) is killing Duncan, Melanie threw out the idea that since it’s a rehearsal, the actors might not be practicing with actual blood. “Maybe we could do something theatrical, like use red fabric or cut paper…,” she suggested. James stood firm: “No. Let’s keep it as is.” The bloodier the better, just as I had suspected.

On Halloween night I was with James and some of our friends in Santa Barbara — we were all dressed up as a skeleton squad, a la The Karate Kid. In the car back to LA, we did a reading of the script via conference call with Melanie. The fact that we were skeleton people doing a reading of a lesbian vampire story for Lifetime was an experience I’ll never forget. Hearing the piece read aloud was the moment I really felt it come to life for the first time.

A month before production, I called up James’ producer Vince Jolivette to talk to him about casting the film. While I wanted to focus on being on the production side for this project, as it was my first script that had been picked up by a major network/studio, I couldn’t let the possibility of playing a vampire pass me by. So I asked Vince to put a word in for me with Lifetime and Sony so they might make me part of the vampire pack. I didn’t want to just write fangs and blood, I wanted to live it. He was all for the idea, and soon enough, I was approved to play Sonté, one of the vicious members of the lesbian vampire pack. Dreams really do come true.

We shot the film during the holiday season, which turned out to be the best gift ever. Merry Christmas, you get to shoot a Lifetime lesbian vampire film! I was on set throughout almost all of production, both as a writer and an actor, which turned out to be very advantageous, as James, Melanie, and I continued to refine the script throughout the shoot. James is an expert in many regards, and considering his years of experience in television, film, and writing, his guidance throughout the entire process was incredible. It was a satisfying and pleasant surprise to see that the movie manifested very similarly to what I had imagined. There was a lot of heart, but we exploited just the right amount of camp, bringing a certain self-awareness to the project as we had intended. And through this guise of camp, we explored deeper, more complex issues, and created characters that I think audiences will love. It’s already been hailed “The Citizen Kane of Lesbian Vampire movies,” and I couldn’t be prouder.

There is good reason why James Franco is where he is today, and able to do almost anything he wants creatively. He is an ever-evolving artist, unafraid to push the envelope, and extremely generous in bringing younger artists into the creative realms in which they will thrive. James is a pioneer in everything he does — in the Lesbian Vampire genre, and so much more — and I’m honored to have been a part of that.

Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? — featuring Tori Spelling as Leah’s mother — premieres Saturday, June 18 at 8 p.m. on Lifetime. The original Mother, May I… will air Friday, June 17 at 8 p.m. on LMN.