There is a synergy at work when you find the right partner. Lennon and McCartney are the most famous example. But there are millions of others. All kinds of partnerships that take a kernel and grow it into a field–or a movie or a tv series.
The latest partnership is Amy Schumer and Jennifer Lawrence. They are writing a movie together about a pair of sisters. JLaw loved Trainwreck and sent Amy a fangirl email and the rest is history.
I have sent fangirl emails to famous people and never heard a peep. In fact, I think I’ve been blocked or de-Friended. Even a few restraining orders.
But when you’re famous, other famous people take your call, or text, or email or whatever. Access. That’s what fame is all about.
Here’s JLaw talking about all of this to The New York Times:
By the way, if a famous person did take my call and agree to collaborate with me, it would not make the F***ing NYTs. Just saying.
It’s not that I don’t think JLaw has something to contribute. She’s smart and funny and self-aware in a non-Hollywood, ain’t I the luckiest girl alive kind of way. But hell, does Amy Schumer need help with a screenplay?
This is the girl who did a brilliant take on Twelve Angry Men as to whether or not a jury of not-particularly-attractive guys would do her. One said she had a Muppet face. This is the woman behind “The Last Fuckable Day” with the likes of Tina Fey and Julia Louis Dreyfus. (fyi-I have long passed that point according to Hollywood which measures Female Fuckibility in dog years. By the time you’re legal, you’re teetering on the edge.)
Amy doesn’t need anyone’s help to be funny.
Amy is a goddess of comedy, breaking boundaries in ways that reminds me of Louis CK and Jerry Seinfeld and Roseanne Barr and Joan Rivers. There will be roasts and statues and yes, probably a Lifetime tv series about Amy.
So why collaborate? Because she can. Because it’s instant street cred– if the street is Rodeo Drive– to have JLaw on the bill. Because hey, riffing with a famous pal is a lot of fun.
Because it’s validation for the girl with the Muppet face and no, you can’t write those lines if you didn’t in the smallest part of your soul, believe them.
Emme Cross 
This post was hilarious and I totally agree there’s great energy and brainstorming power to be gained from a good writing partnership. As much as I respect Amy Schumer’s talent and comic genius, even she can use writing help — the second act of her debut film Trainwreck really sagged, just sayin’.
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Haven’t seen it yet but I won’t dispute your assessment. There’s a difference between writing 3 and 4 minute sketches and a screenplay. I blame Judd Apatow. (I blame him for oh, so many things, but still you would think a movie veteran would have seen that the second act needed work.)
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