We were lucky to catch up with Paul Ingoldsby recently and have shared our conversation below.
Paul, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
For me, there has to be a certain amount of give and take when it comes to being creative. You know, I grew up around farms, and sometimes you gotta let a field lie fallow for a while. If you’re constantly be expending and producing, you’re gonna need to recover and let those nutrients return. When I fail to do that, it’s easy to feel creatively spent.
In those times, I revisit art that excites me. I’m in this career first and foremost because I love film and TV, so I go back to the media that inspired me to follow this path in the first place. But I also make sure to seek out something new, too, that’s totally unrelated to whatever I’m working on. Pretty soon after absorbing some great art and some new ideas, I find I can’t wait to get back to writing.
That said, sometimes you just have to push through it. If you always wait until you felt sufficiently inspired, you won’t get far. A mentor of mine always says “I never had writer’s block, I had a mortgage.” That’s kind of how I feel, too. When it’s your career on the line, you don’t necessarily have the luxury of waiting around for inspiration to strike. And very often, creativity begets creativity — if you force yourself to sit down and create, pretty soon those gears will start turning again.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m a repped Irish screenwriter who specializes in adapting true events into compelling stories for the screen.
I’ve always felt that real life holds more excitement, intrigue, and insight into the human condition than fiction ever could, and that the stories we tell have the power to shape our understanding of the world. To that end, my work frequently explores themes of power, success, and the American Dream, all through a uniquely Irish lens.
My career began in Ireland, where I worked in film and TV development on several award-winning international coproductions for Park Films. These included Son (2021), an Irish-American horror feature that won multiple awards across Europe, and The Vanishing Triangle (2023), a true crime miniseries based on a spate of unexplained disappearances of Irish and American women in 1990s Ireland. At the same time, I wrote my first script, Trouble, a spy thriller set against the backdrop of Irish political violence, which won the $60,000 Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship Award from the University of California Riverside.
Since then, my work’s been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, having twice been an Academy Nicholl Fellowship semifinalist, including for my tech thriller Analytica in 2023.
Most recently, my thriller feature Leech was optioned in January by an independent producer known for collaborations with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Aside from the obvious prerequisites — like talent — I think the ability to tolerate uncertainty is one of the most important qualities for a writer. It takes a lot of faith to work on a project for months, even years, with no guarantee that it will go anywhere. Every project is a risk, and you can never get that time back. And even after you reach certain milestones — getting a manager or agent, getting your first paid writing job — that uncertainty doesn’t goes away. Maybe it gets delayed for a few months, but it’s always waiting for you. You just have to be okay with it. I’m not sure that’s something that can be cultivated, it’s probably more of a personality thing. So if you’re the kind of person who needs predictable hours, predictable income, and predictable career progression, maybe take up coding instead.
Aside from that, I’d also say the ability to separate your self-worth from your work is essential. It’s something a lot of writers understandably struggle with. For me, it’s useful to remember that writing isn’t my identity, it’s just what I do for a living. That makes taking on board criticism much easier, because I know it’s not criticism of me personally. Of course, I’m still disappointed if work isn’t received well, but my wellbeing isn’t tied to other people’s tastes. Writing can be an emotionally bruising career if you let it, but maintaining that distance has allowed me to overcome setbacks, and helped make me a better collaborator.
Lastly, and maybe controversially, I think you need a healthy dose of arrogance. Not too much, obviously. But I mean, you have to be at least a little bit deluded to think you’re good enough to do this as a career, right? And if you don’t back yourself, you’ll never know how good you really are. Finding that core of unshakeable self-belief, and holding onto it no matter what, is key.
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
It’s such a great question. I think as a creative, there can be a lot of pressure to wear many hats early in your career. If you’re a writer, you should be directing your own shorts — otherwise how will your work be seen? Better take an improv class too, so that you understand acting and dialogue. If you’re a director, what are you doing if not writing your own material? Same goes for actors. And don’t forget, it’ll all be pointless unless you market your work, so you better know how to leverage Instagram too. It’s easy to get sucked into covering every conceivable base, all of which diverts you away from what you actually want to do.
And on some level, I get it. Filmmaking’s incredibly complex. Understanding how its different components work together can be to your advantage — up to a point.
Because here’s the thing: most people are perfectly fine at a lot of things. Very few ever excel at anything. But to have a creative career, you have to be exceptional — and that means playing to your strengths.
You don’t want to be the Cheesecake Factory that serves 100 forgettable dishes, you want to be the Michelin-starred restaurant that’s perfected a small number of specialities.
And if you look across the board, almost nobody is a world class writer, actor, director, and editor. Even generational talents like Tarantino — he’s a phenomenal writer and director, but I’m not sure how many people are clamoring to cast him in their projects, you know? He might be waiting a while for that acting Oscar.
Playing to your strengths is also helpful when it comes to personal branding. Some creatives are overly worried about being pigeonholed, when really it’s a huge advantage if others know exactly what you offer.
So all that to say, covering some weaknesses might be a necessary evil at the start of your career. But trying to be a fully rounded creative who can be everything to everyone is ultimately a trap. As soon as you can afford to, specialize, specialize, specialize.
Contact Info:
- Website: paulingoldsby.com
