JANE I think what they did to you was evil. PHILOMENA No I don’t like that word. MARTIN No — evil’s good. (They stare at him) Story wise. You can read Philomena: A Screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, based on the book by Martin Sixsmith, on the Weinstein Company website here. As with most published screenplays, there are some discrepancies between this and the final film.  We’re extremely excited to be welcoming Steve Coogan at our next Seriously Entertaining event, “This Is Not A Man”, on February 24 (tickets on sale here), and delighted to be able to congratulate him on his Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination for Philomena! Here we take a look at his award-winning work on the movie. Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope’s screenplay for Philomena (dir. Stephen Frears, The Weinstein Company, 2013), was adapted from Martin Sixsmith‘s nonfiction book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee (Macmillan, 2009). It’s one of six Best Picture nominees at this year’s Academy Awards based on true events but one of only two (the other being The Wolf of Wall Street) that actively interrogates its “real-life” nature. Indeed, I’d argue that what makes Coogan and Pope’s screenplay so powerful is the tension between the simple “human interest” story Sixsmith sets out to […]