Kevin Kennedy '79 pens a movie for Sean Penn

Move over Steven Spielberg, here comes Mount Michael's Kevin Kennedy - class of 1979. 

Article below from the Omaha World Herald.

This is another one of those overnight Hollywood success stories, starring a guy from Omaha. It took 20 years for overnight to arrive.

Kevin Kennedy Personals: Age 43. Single. His mom, Judy Kennedy, lives near Military and Country Club Avenues. A brother, Colin, lives a few blocks from her. Two more brothers live in the Kansas City area and Montreal. Education: Alumnus of St. Pius X Elementary School, Mount Michael High School in Elkhorn. Bachelor's in English from Stanford University. One year postgraduate work at UCLA film school. Script credits: Low-budget horror film "Curfew" went straight to video in 1989. Comedy-drama "Sam the Man" starred Fisher Stevens in 2000, screened at a few film festivals.

Kevin Kennedy, who grew up near 56th and Grant Streets, co-wrote the screenplay for "The Assassination of Richard Nixon." The movie, starring Sean Penn, opens here Friday, and some scenes were shot in Omaha in summer 2003.

Penn won the best-actor Oscar last year for "Mystic River." His performance in "Assassination" is generating late rumblings about another Oscar nomination. He's a long shot, because the movie opened late and small.

But this is the big time for Kennedy, 43, who has toiled for 20 years as a screenwriter on the West Coast. He co-wrote "Assassination" with Niels Mueller, a longtime friend making his directing debut. The film is based on an actual assassination plot hatched in 1974.

"I thought Kevin was the best writer at UCLA," Mueller said by phone as he traveled from Chicago to Milwaukee, promoting the film's opening. "Kevin is somebody who says so much subtextually in his writing. And he has always pushed me in my writing to be economical and avoid what Hollywood always

wants to provide: back story and reasons for everything.

Hollywood insider Kevin Kennedy, Alexander Payne and Niels Mueller are among seven founding members of the Wednesday Night Club, which began at UCLA as a midweek beer and talk session and still meets as schedules allow. The Wednesday Night Club met just before its members went separate directions for the 2004 holidays. Payne brought a couple of cases of wine "left over from the making of 'Sideways,'" and a good time was had by all, Mueller reports. Kennedy's mom, Judy, has a favorite memory of filming of "Assassination" scenes in Omaha: 2 a.m., outside a warehouse near 14th and Jackson Streets, between takes. Some kids walk by, and a girl bumps into Sean Penn. She turns, looks, and her jaw drops. Later that night, Penn is nursing a sore back. A scene is delayed. Judy Kennedy suddenly notices Penn lying flat on his back in the middle of the street. There is no traffic to disturb one of America's premiere actors. Penn is in nearly every frame of the film. That's because it's never a stand-in when he's shown from behind or peripherally. Penn insisted on doing those shots himself, because the other actor can do his best work reacting to Penn rather than some assistant director, Kennedy says. Penn, he says, is a great guy and a generous actor.

"It's what he leaves unsaid that I like best about his writing."

The two each wrote versions of most scenes, then combined what they liked from both to form the screenplay.

"We never dreamed we'd get anybody the caliber of Sean Penn," Kennedy said last week from his home in Los Angeles. "When we heard he wanted to read it, Niels and I left the meeting saying we hoped he wouldn't take six months to turn it down."

Penn read the script that weekend and committed to it the following Tuesday. And stayed committed for the four years it took to find funding.

Alfonso Cuarón, who directed the 2001 hit "Y tu mamá también," and Jorge Vergara, its producer, are the main financial backers of "The Assassination of Richard Nixon." Listed with Kennedy as executive producers are Leonardo DiCaprio and Alexander Payne.

Fellow Omaha filmmaker Payne ("Sideways," "About Schmidt") met Kennedy when both were freshmen at Stanford University. After graduation, both headed to UCLA film school, where Kennedy met Mueller.

Payne had already shot his second film when Mueller and Kennedy sent him their script in early 1999. Busy with his own projects, he recommended it to others, who brought it to Penn.

Such an accidental path to fruition echoes Kennedy's own fated route to screenwriting.

"I didn't know what I wanted to do when I went to college," Kennedy said. "I suspected a business career of some sort."

"He was supposed to be an actuary," laughed his mother, Judy Kennedy of Omaha, a retired certified public accountant and financial analyst. "He was a math brain. He went to Stanford on scholarship."

But at Stanford, he got a C in economics and drifted to the school's strong fiction and poetry writing program, where he became interested in theater. Stanford alumnus David Hwang, award-winning author of "M. Butterfly," came to campus to speak to students.

"I met him at lunch," remembered Kennedy. "I asked him how he survived between plays. He said get into film writing. It pays enough so you can find time to write for the theater."

Only later did a naive Kennedy realize Hwang could sell movie scripts only because he was a name author. But Kennedy headed to UCLA.

"It seemed more a practical choice than a dream," he said. "But I fell in love with the idea of making a great movie, thinking I may go back to theater some day. I still might."

He has made his living largely by writing contract scripts. Stars such as Jennifer Garner and Mickey Rourke have hired him to turn story ideas into screenplays. Like most scripts, their odds of being filmed are long.

"There were many moments over these last 20 years I thought I just couldn't do this anymore, it's just too tough." Kennedy said. "It's been mostly hand to mouth over the years. But I haven't had a civilian job since college."

"The Assassination of Richard Nixon" is big time for Kennedy but still small budget by Hollywood standards. Kennedy was drafted to appear in one scene kissing Naomi Watts, who plays Penn's estranged wife.

"I can't believe I agreed to do that," Kennedy said. "I was incredibly flustered the day it was shot." But Watts had flown in to do just that shot and had to be back on another set the next day.

And thanks partly to some video footage Kennedy shot at Eppley Airfield, Omaha's airport stands in for Baltimore-Washington International Airport in an exterior scene. Other scenes filmed in Omaha show Penn at a hardware story buying a gas can and at a toy store buying a toy gun.

Widely known former boxer Ron Stander of Omaha served as a stand-in for Jack Thompson in some scenes. Thompson was cast as Penn's boss.

The movie was shot mostly in the San Francisco Bay area. It shows the mental and spiritual breakdown of Penn's character, which leads to a plot to fly a plane into the White House.

How does Kennedy feel about the finished project, which was screened at the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals last year?

"When I'm done with a project, I see things I'd like to change," Kennedy said. "I'm real happy with it, but it was such a long process, there was never that champagne moment."

Next up: Mueller and Kennedy's pilot script for a TV drama series called "Lancaster" is being considered by CBS.

"It's set in a semicorrupt city hall, and the lead character is mayor of the town," Kennedy said.