The Gambler screenplay (classroom scene)
INT. UCLA CLASSROOM. DAY
We only use one classroom for Jim. It’s a big one. This one,
only half full, is still a good crowd mixed evenly along
racial and gender lines. He's a popular professor. Among the
students is (and this explains everything):
AMY, watching him, eyes tired from her night job, her laptop
open.
And another is DEXTER, a white, blonde stoner UCLA tennis
player, a good one.
Way, way, way, at the back, a ballplayer named LAMAR is
checking his cellphone while his "academic advisor" is
whispering to him fiercely.
JIM is writing on the board “A Groats-worth of Wit, Bought
with a Million of Repentance”, then, turning:
JIM
The first public notice that was
ever made of Shakespeare was from a
grub street writer Robert Greene,
who called him an “upstart crow
beautified with our feathers”.
In the book under that title on the
board. If you haven’t discovered
Robert Greene on your own at this
point, the man who wrote the novel
Pandosto, you don’t belong in this
class.
ON AMY’S SCREEN is the famous picture of the ghost of ROBERT
GREENE in his winding sheet, pen to paper at a table,
condemned to hackdom even in the afterlife. She clicks and
hides the picture.
NEBBISH
(who has no idea who
Robert Greene is)
Is the stolen feathers thing
because Greene knew Shakespeare was
the Earl of Oxford?
JIM puts his head on the blackboard. Not again.
JIM
Listen. The Earl of Oxford
published poetry. It wasn’t any
good. Had Oxford been able to get a
play put on, he would have broken a
leg to do it. Can you think of any
human being that would for any
reason not put his name on
“Hamlet”?
BLANK faces look at him.
JIM (CONT’D)
The Oxfordian thing, the antiStrafordian
thing...what pisses
people off about Shakespeare...
What lies behind every controversy
about Shakespeare...is rage. Rage
over the nature, and unequal
distribution, of talent. Rage that
genius appears where it appears for
no material reason at all. Desiring
a thing...
He passes AMY, walking...
JIM (CONT’D)
...cannot make you have it.
He drifts through the room, talking.
JIM (CONT’D)
The trouble with writing, if I may
bring it up here in the English
Department...instead of allowing
you all to talk about sexual
politics all fucking day long...is
that we all do a little of it from
time to time, writing, and some of
us start to think, delusionally,
that well, maybe with a little
time, a little peace, a little
money in the bank, maybe if we left
the old lady and the kids, maybe if
we had that room of our own, we
might be writers, too. Why do we
think that? We accept genius in
sports, in painting, as something
we cannot do, but it’s no more
likely that you can be a writer
than you can be an Olympic fucking
pole vaulter. Because what you have
to be before you try to be a pole
vaulter, is a pole vaulter.
STUDENT
You are one.
JIM
A pole vaulter?
STUDENT
A novelist.
JIM
No I’m not. For me to be a novelist
I’d have to make a deal with myself
that it was ok being a mediocrity
in a profession that died
commercially in the last century.
People do that. I’m not one of
them. If you take away nothing else
from my class, from this
experience, let it be this: If
you’re not a genius, don’t bother.
The world needs plenty of
electricians and a lot of them are
happy. I’ll be fucked if I’ll be a
midlist novelist, getting good
reviews from the people I give good
reviews to...
STUDENT (O.S.)
You’re better than—
JIM
I'm not better than anybody but the
people who suck.
(turns, points, not going
to listen to this)
Let's talk about talent. Let’s have
a look at Dexter right there.
Dexter, an ordinary-looking young
man with a size forty jacket,
regular features and decent
dentition, is the second-ranked
collegiate tennis player in the
United States.
He leans in on Dexter.
JIM (CONT’D)
How’d that come about, Dexter? You
come from a tennis family?
DEXTER
I started five years ago in high
school because the tennis guys had
the best weed.
JIM
So you started playing tennis
because the tennis guys had the
best weed. After you started
tennis, how long was it before you
and everybody else realized you
were better than everybody?
DEXTER is well brought up and doesn’t want to answer.
JIM (CONT’D)
Not very long. It was immediately,
right? Everybody knew you were
better?
DEXTER nods.
JIM (CONT’D)
What happened when you noticed you
were naturally better than
everybody? Everybody else is
lumbering around, essentially
pretending to play tennis, while
you played tennis like Jesus
raising the dead.
DEXTER
...I got interested in tennis.
JIM
Well, we're all different. My own
personal view of Jesus is that he’d
lose interest in being Jesus as
soon as he realized that he was —
and that it was easy. You
know...how many lepers can you do
without getting tired? Lazarus and
water into wine are good as oneoffs.
I personally think that the
thing to do is to one thing,
definitively, and then move on...to
something else...if, and only if...
(and he is referring to
himself)
...you can figure out what it is
that needs doing. But let’s deal
with you. Do you remember
Machiavelli? That would have been
in September.
DEXTER
I can remember September.
JIM
Is it the game, brother, or the
money? Virtu, or fama? Fame, or
virtue? You're kicking ass in
tennis. What are you after? Don’t
go modest on me. What do you want?
Money or glory?
DEXTER doesn’t know what to answer.
DEXTER
Both?
JIM
You got ambitious, yeah?
AMY is watching.
DEXTER
I realized...as I learned about the
game, and about myself in the game,
that I was in reach of the...
He doesn’t want to say it. JIM leans in and whispers:
JIM
Highest possible level.
DEXTER
The highest level. Maybe. Yeah.
That.
JIM
OK, so you're headed for the
highest level. But it's not all
roses. It’s still a gamble, isn’t
it. Things about it burn your ass?
DEXTER takes that on. Nods.
JIM (CONT’D)
People out there writing articles
about less good tennis players? You
know why that is, Dexter? They have
publicists. I've personally seen an
article that put a fake question
mark over your ability.
DEXTER smolders.
JIM (CONT’D)
Also I read somewhere that your old
high school coach got a job in
England claiming to have discovered
and created you.
DEXTER looks ready to explode thinking of that one.
JIM (CONT’D)
Dexter's old coach now coaches the
UK international team because
Dexter was good at tennis.
He used Dexter and fucked him. If
Dexter broke his leg in five places
and never played again, this guy,
this fucking liar, this expatriate
excrescence that came out of an
alcohol coma and Pomona High School
because Dexter picked up a racket
because the tennis guys had the
best weed, is probably going to end
up knighted for services to British
sport. There are two rules: first,
be a genius. Second: don’t get
fucked. You got that on board,
Dexter, yeah?
DEXTER nods.
JIM (CONT’D)
I’m a literature teacher. I can’t
write well enough to bother.
Or I just don’t bother. Whichever.
Whichever it is, there’ll be no
apotheosis around here, there'll be
no ambition here. I put my money
down anywhere else. Because if I
can't be king I won't be anybody.
What did the Emperor Vespasian say
on his deathbed?
AMY's hand writes "Vae, puto deus fio" on her notebook and
then conceals it.
JIM (CONT’D)
He said, "Dear me, I think I am
becoming a God". If I can't die
knowing that I'll be remembered, I
won't try to be remembered. One
novel and out. If you want to learn
creative writing you can go down
the hall and find seven people who
want to do it and can't.
STUDENT (O.S.)
You can.
JIM
But I won't. Because I'm not good
enough. But do you know who does
write at the highest level? When
most of us, and even I, write
barely adequately? Do you know who
it is, in this room?
The NEBBISH gets ready for coronation. JIM leans in on him
and whispers.
JIM (CONT’D)
No, it isn’t the one who talks the
most...and you really do talk shit.
You don’t know anything at all.
You’re an NPR host. Tops.
The NEBBISH freaks.
Jim indicates AMY.
JIM (CONT’D)
The literary person here is Ms
Phillips. She is the least
obstreperous in this room, the
quietest, and the only one in this
room who can have a real career in
letters. Some of you can have one
perceptually.
Only she can have one in reality.
She’s better at writing than our US
presently amateur number two is at
tennis. Let's address the
Shakespeare question. Where do you
come from, Ms Phillips?
She is blushing furiously. Almost soundlessly:
AMY
Ohio.
JIM
Parents geniuses by any chance?
Filthy rich?
She shakes her head. He rounds on her like a prosecutor,
brutal, blunt.
JIM (CONT’D)
Your Dad wasn’t the Earl of Oxford
was he?
AMY
No.
JIM
How old were you when you read?
Almost inaudibly:
Amy
I was three.
JIM
That’s early. That’s prodigious.
Any advantages? Literary home life?
She shakes her head, but is now holding his stare boldly.
JIM (CONT’D)
What was your father?
AMY
He worked in a factory.
JIM
Your mother?
AMY shakes her head. No mother, or don’t bring it up.
JIM (CONT’D)
What was your mother.
AMY finally looks up.
AMY
She was an alcoholic. She was
insane.
JIM turns to the NEBBISH.
JIM
Isn’t your Dad...
NEBBISH
I don’t see how this is pertinent.
JIM
(back on an uncomfortable
Amy)
No money, no advantages, not a peer
of the realm? You’re not the Earl
of fucking Oxford are you? No? Then
why the fuck are you better than
the rest of us?
She looks away.
JIM (CONT’D)
No, you look at me.
She does.
JIM (CONT’D)
You are better than the rest of us.
If no one’s told you yet that
you’re a genius, and an artist, let
me be the first.
She starts to cry.
WHITE DUDE IN BACK
I don’t know if you can say that
because I think it is subjective,
man. I mean we all have something
to offer.
JIM goes very close to him, and into his very ear, says:
JIM
Bullshit.
He walks on:
JIM (CONT’D)
Genius is magical, not material. If
you don’t have the magic, no amount
of wishing will make it so.
The period ends.
AMY in tears is gathering her stuff.
To DEXTER, as he slaps him on the shoulder.
JIM (CONT’D)
See you at the house, Shakespeare.
AMY rushes from the room.
We only use one classroom for Jim. It’s a big one. This one,
only half full, is still a good crowd mixed evenly along
racial and gender lines. He's a popular professor. Among the
students is (and this explains everything):
AMY, watching him, eyes tired from her night job, her laptop
open.
And another is DEXTER, a white, blonde stoner UCLA tennis
player, a good one.
Way, way, way, at the back, a ballplayer named LAMAR is
checking his cellphone while his "academic advisor" is
whispering to him fiercely.
JIM is writing on the board “A Groats-worth of Wit, Bought
with a Million of Repentance”, then, turning:
JIM
The first public notice that was
ever made of Shakespeare was from a
grub street writer Robert Greene,
who called him an “upstart crow
beautified with our feathers”.
In the book under that title on the
board. If you haven’t discovered
Robert Greene on your own at this
point, the man who wrote the novel
Pandosto, you don’t belong in this
class.
ON AMY’S SCREEN is the famous picture of the ghost of ROBERT
GREENE in his winding sheet, pen to paper at a table,
condemned to hackdom even in the afterlife. She clicks and
hides the picture.
NEBBISH
(who has no idea who
Robert Greene is)
Is the stolen feathers thing
because Greene knew Shakespeare was
the Earl of Oxford?
JIM puts his head on the blackboard. Not again.
JIM
Listen. The Earl of Oxford
published poetry. It wasn’t any
good. Had Oxford been able to get a
play put on, he would have broken a
leg to do it. Can you think of any
human being that would for any
reason not put his name on
“Hamlet”?
BLANK faces look at him.
JIM (CONT’D)
The Oxfordian thing, the antiStrafordian
thing...what pisses
people off about Shakespeare...
What lies behind every controversy
about Shakespeare...is rage. Rage
over the nature, and unequal
distribution, of talent. Rage that
genius appears where it appears for
no material reason at all. Desiring
a thing...
He passes AMY, walking...
JIM (CONT’D)
...cannot make you have it.
He drifts through the room, talking.
JIM (CONT’D)
The trouble with writing, if I may
bring it up here in the English
Department...instead of allowing
you all to talk about sexual
politics all fucking day long...is
that we all do a little of it from
time to time, writing, and some of
us start to think, delusionally,
that well, maybe with a little
time, a little peace, a little
money in the bank, maybe if we left
the old lady and the kids, maybe if
we had that room of our own, we
might be writers, too. Why do we
think that? We accept genius in
sports, in painting, as something
we cannot do, but it’s no more
likely that you can be a writer
than you can be an Olympic fucking
pole vaulter. Because what you have
to be before you try to be a pole
vaulter, is a pole vaulter.
STUDENT
You are one.
JIM
A pole vaulter?
STUDENT
A novelist.
JIM
No I’m not. For me to be a novelist
I’d have to make a deal with myself
that it was ok being a mediocrity
in a profession that died
commercially in the last century.
People do that. I’m not one of
them. If you take away nothing else
from my class, from this
experience, let it be this: If
you’re not a genius, don’t bother.
The world needs plenty of
electricians and a lot of them are
happy. I’ll be fucked if I’ll be a
midlist novelist, getting good
reviews from the people I give good
reviews to...
STUDENT (O.S.)
You’re better than—
JIM
I'm not better than anybody but the
people who suck.
(turns, points, not going
to listen to this)
Let's talk about talent. Let’s have
a look at Dexter right there.
Dexter, an ordinary-looking young
man with a size forty jacket,
regular features and decent
dentition, is the second-ranked
collegiate tennis player in the
United States.
He leans in on Dexter.
JIM (CONT’D)
How’d that come about, Dexter? You
come from a tennis family?
DEXTER
I started five years ago in high
school because the tennis guys had
the best weed.
JIM
So you started playing tennis
because the tennis guys had the
best weed. After you started
tennis, how long was it before you
and everybody else realized you
were better than everybody?
DEXTER is well brought up and doesn’t want to answer.
JIM (CONT’D)
Not very long. It was immediately,
right? Everybody knew you were
better?
DEXTER nods.
JIM (CONT’D)
What happened when you noticed you
were naturally better than
everybody? Everybody else is
lumbering around, essentially
pretending to play tennis, while
you played tennis like Jesus
raising the dead.
DEXTER
...I got interested in tennis.
JIM
Well, we're all different. My own
personal view of Jesus is that he’d
lose interest in being Jesus as
soon as he realized that he was —
and that it was easy. You
know...how many lepers can you do
without getting tired? Lazarus and
water into wine are good as oneoffs.
I personally think that the
thing to do is to one thing,
definitively, and then move on...to
something else...if, and only if...
(and he is referring to
himself)
...you can figure out what it is
that needs doing. But let’s deal
with you. Do you remember
Machiavelli? That would have been
in September.
DEXTER
I can remember September.
JIM
Is it the game, brother, or the
money? Virtu, or fama? Fame, or
virtue? You're kicking ass in
tennis. What are you after? Don’t
go modest on me. What do you want?
Money or glory?
DEXTER doesn’t know what to answer.
DEXTER
Both?
JIM
You got ambitious, yeah?
AMY is watching.
DEXTER
I realized...as I learned about the
game, and about myself in the game,
that I was in reach of the...
He doesn’t want to say it. JIM leans in and whispers:
JIM
Highest possible level.
DEXTER
The highest level. Maybe. Yeah.
That.
JIM
OK, so you're headed for the
highest level. But it's not all
roses. It’s still a gamble, isn’t
it. Things about it burn your ass?
DEXTER takes that on. Nods.
JIM (CONT’D)
People out there writing articles
about less good tennis players? You
know why that is, Dexter? They have
publicists. I've personally seen an
article that put a fake question
mark over your ability.
DEXTER smolders.
JIM (CONT’D)
Also I read somewhere that your old
high school coach got a job in
England claiming to have discovered
and created you.
DEXTER looks ready to explode thinking of that one.
JIM (CONT’D)
Dexter's old coach now coaches the
UK international team because
Dexter was good at tennis.
He used Dexter and fucked him. If
Dexter broke his leg in five places
and never played again, this guy,
this fucking liar, this expatriate
excrescence that came out of an
alcohol coma and Pomona High School
because Dexter picked up a racket
because the tennis guys had the
best weed, is probably going to end
up knighted for services to British
sport. There are two rules: first,
be a genius. Second: don’t get
fucked. You got that on board,
Dexter, yeah?
DEXTER nods.
JIM (CONT’D)
I’m a literature teacher. I can’t
write well enough to bother.
Or I just don’t bother. Whichever.
Whichever it is, there’ll be no
apotheosis around here, there'll be
no ambition here. I put my money
down anywhere else. Because if I
can't be king I won't be anybody.
What did the Emperor Vespasian say
on his deathbed?
AMY's hand writes "Vae, puto deus fio" on her notebook and
then conceals it.
JIM (CONT’D)
He said, "Dear me, I think I am
becoming a God". If I can't die
knowing that I'll be remembered, I
won't try to be remembered. One
novel and out. If you want to learn
creative writing you can go down
the hall and find seven people who
want to do it and can't.
STUDENT (O.S.)
You can.
JIM
But I won't. Because I'm not good
enough. But do you know who does
write at the highest level? When
most of us, and even I, write
barely adequately? Do you know who
it is, in this room?
The NEBBISH gets ready for coronation. JIM leans in on him
and whispers.
JIM (CONT’D)
No, it isn’t the one who talks the
most...and you really do talk shit.
You don’t know anything at all.
You’re an NPR host. Tops.
The NEBBISH freaks.
Jim indicates AMY.
JIM (CONT’D)
The literary person here is Ms
Phillips. She is the least
obstreperous in this room, the
quietest, and the only one in this
room who can have a real career in
letters. Some of you can have one
perceptually.
Only she can have one in reality.
She’s better at writing than our US
presently amateur number two is at
tennis. Let's address the
Shakespeare question. Where do you
come from, Ms Phillips?
She is blushing furiously. Almost soundlessly:
AMY
Ohio.
JIM
Parents geniuses by any chance?
Filthy rich?
She shakes her head. He rounds on her like a prosecutor,
brutal, blunt.
JIM (CONT’D)
Your Dad wasn’t the Earl of Oxford
was he?
AMY
No.
JIM
How old were you when you read?
Almost inaudibly:
Amy
I was three.
JIM
That’s early. That’s prodigious.
Any advantages? Literary home life?
She shakes her head, but is now holding his stare boldly.
JIM (CONT’D)
What was your father?
AMY
He worked in a factory.
JIM
Your mother?
AMY shakes her head. No mother, or don’t bring it up.
JIM (CONT’D)
What was your mother.
AMY finally looks up.
AMY
She was an alcoholic. She was
insane.
JIM turns to the NEBBISH.
JIM
Isn’t your Dad...
NEBBISH
I don’t see how this is pertinent.
JIM
(back on an uncomfortable
Amy)
No money, no advantages, not a peer
of the realm? You’re not the Earl
of fucking Oxford are you? No? Then
why the fuck are you better than
the rest of us?
She looks away.
JIM (CONT’D)
No, you look at me.
She does.
JIM (CONT’D)
You are better than the rest of us.
If no one’s told you yet that
you’re a genius, and an artist, let
me be the first.
She starts to cry.
WHITE DUDE IN BACK
I don’t know if you can say that
because I think it is subjective,
man. I mean we all have something
to offer.
JIM goes very close to him, and into his very ear, says:
JIM
Bullshit.
He walks on:
JIM (CONT’D)
Genius is magical, not material. If
you don’t have the magic, no amount
of wishing will make it so.
The period ends.
AMY in tears is gathering her stuff.
To DEXTER, as he slaps him on the shoulder.
JIM (CONT’D)
See you at the house, Shakespeare.
AMY rushes from the room.