I Am Entertainment Magazine interviews Frank Beddor, the man behind 'The Looking Glass Wars'

Volume 1, Issue 5

Frank Beddor

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Frank Beddor, Producer & New York Times Best Seller, "The Looking Glass Wars"

You never know where life is going to take you, and Frank Beddor can certainly be a testament to that.
His life’s adventure seems like a well orchestrated movie with a lot of twists and turns. How else can
one explain going from the US Ski Team to producing hit movies like, ‘There’s Something About Mary,’
and now a New York Times Best-Selling author?

I Am Entertainment Magazine sat down with Mr. Beddor to discuss what’s next for the man who took
Alice from Wonderland and brought her into our world as the real person, Alyss Hart.

IAE:        Could you please tell us where you are from and what inspired you to pursue a career in
entertainment?
FB:        I have such a varied and unusual background to be where I am right now. I grew up in Minneapolis
and was framed by my parents. My father was an impresario, very flamboyant character who had all sorts of
very cool business ventures. He had the first travelling Water Ski show, and he even water-skied down the
Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans dressed as Paul Bunyan. My mom was a theatre major and
we lived near the ‘Old Log Theatre’ and the ‘Chanhassen Dinner Theatre.’ As for me, I had some abilities in
sports at a young age, particularly skiing.

IAE:        Early on, you were invited to join the Olympic Ski Team. How did that come about and what
impact has skiing had on your overall career success?
FB:        While attending the University of Utah I got invited to join the US Ski Team. I pursued my career in
skiing with laser focus and it took me all over the world skiing about 200 days a year. I spent six (6) months out
of the year in Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. The US Ski Team helped me expand my world view and
helped me out of my previously isolated existence [laughs].
     I did a lot of endorsements as the world champion skier. Northwest Airlines was one of my sponsors, as well
as Juicy Fruit gum, Audi, Nikon. I did a lot of commercials for them; mainly Ski commercials. Occasionally, they
would have me speak and it was through doing a Juicy Fruit ad that a movie opportunity was presented. The
film was called, ‘Hot Dog…The Movie,” and it was shooting in Squaw Valley [Lake Tahoe Ski Resort,
California]. They needed some stunt men to do freestyle stunts that I could do. After doing stunts for that film,
I went on to do stunts and doubled for John Cusack in a film called ‘Better Off Dead,’ directed by Steve
Holland. While on the set another writer/director came up to me by the name of Ken Friedman and said, “I
want you to come to LA and read for a part in a movie I’m doing.” While I was in LA I met with another director,
Joe Dante I said, “Hey, I like you. Do you want to be in my movie?” I said, “What are you talking about?” He
then told me that I have great presence and it was just a one day role opposite Carrie Fisher in the movie,
‘Amazon Women on the Moon,’ which was a sequel to ‘Kentucky Fried Movie.’ So I came to Los Angeles and
the role turned into a two day shoot on Universal Studios’ lot. I had a lot of fun on that set and wasn’t even
trying. So after that I started working on 4 to 5 movies and thought to myself, “This is so cool! I want to do this
for the rest of my life.” The moment I took it serious and truly committed to it, is when everything dried up
[laughs]. But even though the work went away, I continued to study with the amazing and world famous, Stella
Adler.

IAE: Wow! So when did you get into writing?
FB: Well, one of the things Stella asked of her students was, before we stepped on stage she wanted us to
write in a scene before the scene we were going to be acting out. I really enjoyed that and I found myself
writing this epic play before the scene I was stepping on stage to do. I tried to translate the same focus that I
had in sports into acting, but when you’re an actor, it’s completely subjective and totally up to somebody else
to choose you; something I struggled with. So I ended up pursuing writing because no one could tell you when
or when not to write, you just do it when you want. I really liked the feeling of being in charge of my own life,
and that’s how I got into writing.
     Funny story about my father; he used to brag about all of his failures and would literally put a whole list of
all of his failures together and hand them out to his family and friends [laughs]. His point in doing that was, you
have to be willing to go into life situations not knowing, and commit to it with the understanding that when one
door closes, another door will open. With acting, I kept trying over and over and it wasn’t natural for me, but I
kept thinking I could force it. But when acting didn’t work out, another door opened up and writing happened. I
didn’t know that writing would be my transition, and it turned out that producing happened first. I produced
‘There’s Something About Mary,’ starring Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller, and sold my first short story.
Wherever your passion and interest lies, try to jump on that train and let that thing take you as far as you can.
It’s about taking the risk without knowing that there’s going to be success at the end.

IAE: Great advice! You mentioned, that you produced the hit film, ‘There’s Something About Mary.’
Tell us how you got involved with that project and what lead to the formation of Automatic Pictures?
FB: The pre-writing story is that I was taking a course [Shakespeare class] at UCLA, and I met these two young
writers, Ed Decter and John Strauss; we were all contemporaries. One day after class, we went out to grab
some beers and they told me they had written and sold this script to Disney called, ‘There’s Something About
Mary.’ They asked if I’d be interested in reading it and I said “Sure.” I read it and gave them some notes, but
nothing ever happened with the script. Five years later, I started producing; so I called them up and asked if
they had anything for me to read. They told me they didn’t have anything else because they sold everything,
but they still had ‘There’s Something About Mary,’ but it was just collecting dust on the shelf. They told me if I
could get it in turnaround and pay off what Disney paid them, then I could own it and try to produce it. So that’s
exactly what I did. I happen to know the Farrelly Brothers from school, and one time I was playing pool with
them and mentioned that I had the ‘Mary’ script, and they [Farrelly Brothers] informed me that they had been
working on a script called ‘The Loser.’ So they took the main character from ‘The Loser’ and married it to
‘There’s Something About Mary’ and we had this whole new script that was hilarious. What was interesting