John Harrison began his career
directing rock videos and working as 1st Ass't Director for famed horror
director, George Romero (Night of the Living Dead/ Creepshow).
Harrison wrote and directed multiple episodes of Romero's classic TV series, Tales
From The Darkside before helming Tales From the Darkside, The Movie
for Producer Richard Rubinstein and Paramount Pictures which won Harrison the
Grand Prix du Festival at Avoriaz, France.
Harrison has written and directed
episodes of Tales From The Crypt (HBO), Earth 2 (NBC), Profiler
(NBC), and Leverage (TNT). He has written and directed world premier
movies for the USA Network and Starz/Encore.
Harrison’s six-hour miniseries
adaptation of Frank Herbert's monumental bestseller, Dune, which he also
directed, was an Emmy-winning success in the U.S., then internationally both in
its broadcast premieres and subsequently in home video.
Harrison’s children of Dune,
another six-hour mini-series encompassing the next two novels of Frank
Herbert's mythic adventure series which he wrote and co-produced, was another
Emmy winner for the SyFy Channel.
Harrison co-wrote the animated
feature, dinosaur for Disney. He also wrote the adaptation of Clive
Barker’s fantasy novels, Abarat, also for Disney. In the Fall of ’06,
Harrison reunited with mentor George Romero to produce Romero’s film Diary
of the Dead. His action suspense thriller, Blank Slate, for producer
Dean Devlin, which Harrison wrote and directed, aired as twenty episode
micro-series on TNT in the Fall of ’08. Clive Barker’s Book of Blood,
which he wrote and directed, was released in 2009.
Between 2010 and 2012, Harrison has
continued his relationship with TNT directing episodes of the series Leverage
and, most recently, with his adaptation of the Cornell Woolrich story, Rear
Window, for Executive Producer Michael Douglas.
Harrison has written screenplays for
Robert Zemeckis , Richard Donner, Will Smith and Dean Devlin among others, and
he has directed such diverse talent as William Hurt, Julianne Moore, Tim Roth,
Annabella Sciorra, Peter Fonda, Debbie Harry, Steve Buscemi, Eric Stoltz and
many others.
He is currently in the U.K. filming
the webseries Residue.
Destiny Gardens is his first novel.
KT: You’re a successful television and
screenwriter/director/composer--what made you decide to write a novel? Is this
a story that’s been percolating for a while?
JH: Like many moments in my career, the decision to embark upon
this new endeavor called Destiny Gardens was as much accidental as
deliberate. For example, I never intended to write music for movies, but I was
the guy with the piano. So when my partners and I needed a score for our first
film, that job fell to me. That led to my doing the music for several of George
Romero’s films, and some of my own. I never intended to be a screenwriter, but
when I came to Hollywood I quickly realized that the only way I might get
directing assignments was to write my way into them. So I learned the craft of
screenwriting.
Destiny Gardens took an equally circuitous route. It was a story I had been
carrying around for a long time. Certainly not as fully developed as the novel
is now, but a story with themes and characters and moments that are all there
in the novel. I originally tried to develop it as a TV series with two producer
friends of mine, Robert Heath (Hot In Cleveland, Mad About You, About Jim)
and Mark Waxman (Beakman’s World, Sweet Justice). We never got it off
the ground, so I decided to write a screenplay and mount it as a low-budget
independent film. That, too, fell by the wayside as other work intruded.
Finally, while directing Leverage
episodes for producer Dean Devlin and TNT, I was searching for a new
project of my own to start. I kept coming back to DG. Every writer has a story
he or she can’t shake, and this one was mine. So I decided to use my time off
between Leverage episodes to see if I could finally get the entire story down.
I began by writing what I thought was a traditional film treatment but soon
realized I was, in fact, novelizing it. So I decided to keep going. Got about a
third into it before, once again, other work intruded. Some screenplay
assignments and more Leverage episodes. Work on DG was fitful.
During the Summer of 2012, though, I
finally hunkered down, and between directing gigs I finished it.
I admit it. When it comes to Shakespeare, I am a fan girl. If you know a like-minded person, there are a lot of terrific presents that celebrate the bard, items that go far beyond the ubiquitous quotation t-shirts and mugs. (Not that you can't always use another t-shirt or
mug.) My favorite Shakespeare-themed gift this season is the Shakespeare
flash drive ($25) available on theBroadway Cares site. This fundraising organization now funds more than 450 groups and has raised $225 million to fight AIDS. So you can give a double gift when you buy anything from their online store.
