This is a common question and I get asked this a lot. Of course, the vast majority of working screenwriters live in Los Angeles, but that is only as a percentage.
I’ve seen screenwriters working out of Europe, South America, Australia and New Zealand—sell screenplays to Hollywood.
Let me give you two real examples of people who I’ve heard of sell scripts to Hollywood without actually living in LA.
Sell a Script from Outside the US
The first example is Simon Moore.
You probably haven’t heard of him. But Simon Moore is a British screenwriter who got his break after writing the script The Quick and the Dead, starring Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman.
What’s even more interesting is that Mr. Moore wrote The Quick and the Dead while living in London. In his own words, he was writing screenplays in London and struggling to make a living.
He was talented enough, however, to attract the interest of several screenplay agents in Hollywood. And one of these agents offered him representation, although Mr. Moore was based in London.
As the story goes, one day Mr. Moore was in the pub lamenting his poverty with a group of friends when he got a call from his agent in LA.
“Guess what?” His agent said. “Sharon Stone loves your screenplay and TriStar want to buy your script for $500,000.”
Overnight, Mr. Moore was half a million dollars richer and it all started working out of a shabby apartment in London.
Sell a Script from Outside LA
My second example comes from Joe Ezsterhas
You might know him as the famous and infamous screenwriter of Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge and Showgirls.
When asked the same question, “Does a screenwriter have to live in Hollywood to make it as a screenwriter? Mr. Ezsterhas responded that once a film student living in Chicago had found one of Mr. Ezsterhas’s unproduced screenplays.
The film student had then simply crossed out Mr. Ezsterhas’s name and replaced it with his own.
The mischievous student then sent the script to an agent in Chicago who forwarded the script to a screenplay agent in Hollywood who then sold the script for $250,000.
Now, of course, the student was found out and wasn’t able to keep the money from selling Mr. Ezsterhas’s script.
A Quality Screenplay can Sell from Anywhere
But the moral of the story is this. If your script is good enough. If the writing is solid. Then a student in Chicago can get a script to a screenplay agent in Hollywood, who can then sell your script to a studio.
The same moral can be learned from the case of Mr. Moore: a screenwriter who is writing good quality screenplays outside the US can get their script to an agent in Hollywood, who can then sell their script to the powers that be.
These two examples illustrate nicely that you don’t have to be in Hollywood to sell a script. In fact, you can live anywhere in the world—the only thing that matters is that your script has to be good enough.
The other important take away from these stories is this.
You’ll need an Agent
You don’t have to be living in Hollywood to sell a script to Hollywood. But here’s the thing…
You will need to find representation with a screenplay agent located in Hollywood, or, who has strong connections to other screenwriting agencies/agents located in Hollywood.
In the case that you want to sell your script and work outside LA or indeed the States, you will need to make getting a US based (preferably LA based) agent a priority.
So, to answer the question, do you have to live in LA to make it as a screenwriter?
Short answer, no, but your agent does.
* Liz Fairbanks has worked as a reader, development assistant, and talent agent in Los Angeles over the last seven years. Liz loves traveling, reading and yoga. Liz also works as a freelance consultant for Script Mailer (a company that connects screenwriters with agents and producers in Hollywood).