JOHN LAROCHE:
You know why I like plants?

SUSAN ORLEAN:
Nuh uh.

JOHN LAROCHE:
Because they’re so mutable. Adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world.

SUSAN ORLEAN:
[pause] Yeah but it’s easier for plants. I mean they have no memory. They just move on to whatever’s next. With a person though, adapting’s almost shameful. It’s like running away.
___

CHARLIE KAUFMAN: [voice-over]
I am pathetic, I am a loser…

ROBERT MCKEE:
So what is the substance of writing?

CHARLIE KAUFMAN: [voice-over]
I have failed, I am panicked. I’ve sold out, I am worthless, I… What the fuck am I doing here? What the fuck am I doing here? Fuck. It is my weakness, my ultimate lack of conviction that brings me here… And here I am because my jump into the abysmal well – isn’t that just a risk one takes when attempting something new? I should leave here right now. I’ll start over. I need to face this project head on and…

ROBERT MCKEE:
…and God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. That’s flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character.
___

SUSAN ORLEAN:
There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.
___

SUSAN ORLEAN:
Do you ever get lonely sometimes, Johnny?

JOHN LAROCHE:
Well, I was a weird kid. Nobody liked me. But I had this idea. If I waited long enough, someone would come around and just, you know… understand me. Like my mom, except someone else. She’d look at me and quietly say: “Yes.” Just like that. And I wouldn’t be alone anymore.
___

CHARLIE KAUFMAN:
There are no rules, Donald. And anyone who says there are is just, you know…

DONALD KAUFMAN:
Not rules, principles. McKee writes that a rule says you *must* do it this way. A principle says, this *works* and has through all remembered time.
___

JOHN LAROCHE:
Point is, what’s so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. There’s a certain orchid looks exactly like a certain insect so the insect is drawn to this flower, its double, its soul mate, and wants nothing more than to make love to it. And after the insect flies off, spots another soul-mate flower and makes love to it, thus pollinating it. And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. I mean, how could they know that because of their little dance the world lives? But it does. By simply doing what they’re designed to do, something large and magnificent happens. In this sense they show us how to live – how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can’t let anything get in your way.
___

SUSAN ORLEAN:
What I came to understand is that change is not a choice. Not for a species of plant, and not for me.
___

CHARLIE KAUFMAN:
I have to go right home. I know how to finish the script now. It ends with Kaufman driving home after his lunch with Amelia, thinking he knows how to finish the script. Shit, that’s voice-over. McKee would not approve. How else can I show his thoughts? I don’t know. Oh, who cares what McKee says? It feels right. Conclusive. I wonder who’s gonna play me. Someone not too fat. I liked that Gerard Depardieu, but can he not do the accent? Anyway, it’s done. And that’s something. So: “Kaufman drives off from his encounter with Amelia, filled for the first time with hope.” I like this. This is good.

Writing credits
Susan Orlean (book “The Orchid Thief”)
Charlie Kaufman (screenplay) and
Donald Kaufman (screenplay)

The idea to do a film adaptation of Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief dates back to 1994. Charlie Kaufman was hired to write the script, but struggled with the adaptation and writer’s block. Kaufman eventually created a script of his experience in adaptation, exaggerating events, and creating a fictional “brother” named Donald Kaufman. Kaufman put Donald Kaufman’s name on the script and dedicated the film to the fictional character. By September 1999, Kaufman had written two drafts of the script; he turned in a third draft in November 2000.

Kaufman explained: “The idea of how to write the film didn’t come to me until quite late. It was the only idea I had, I liked it, and I knew there was no way it would be approved if I pitched it. So I just wrote it and never told the people I was writing it for. I only told Spike Jonze, as we were making John Malkovich and he saw how frustrated I was. Had he said I was crazy, I don’t know what I would have done.”

In addition Kaufman stated, “I really thought I was ending my career by turning that in!”