'She probably got 120 rejection letters.'īut Taylor loved The Help and asked her for the film rights before it was ever published. Taylor joked that Stockett's initial novel - the one she wrote before The Help - had nothing to do with maids, he said. He and Stockett began to share each other's 'bad writing,' and, in turn, they each began to share the truth about the stories they read. He began to do what he had never dreamed of doing. Over time, he fell in love with language, the words and phrases as they cascaded across the page. 'You have to keep writing loads of sh-,' he explained, to get any better. He put words on paper, but what he read failed to satisfy him. While taking a sketch comedy class, his teacher forced him to write. 'There were only so many redneck, dumb racist cop roles in Hollywood,' he said. He stopped hiding his Southern drawl and watched his acting parts dry up. The words of that genteel Southerner made the actor feel at home, even as he stood near a sea of tattoo parlors.Īfter that conversation, Taylor realized it was possible for him to stay true to his roots and succeed. Taylor had hoped to run into a casting director and snag an acting role, but instead he found himself hanging out with Foote, he said.įoote spent most of the time asking Taylor about his life and career. In the City of Angels, Taylor ran into hard knocks.īut it was there he happened to watch a play by Horton Foote, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of To Kill a Mockingbird. Stockett would keep pursuing her writing dreams, and Taylor would move to Los Angeles in hopes of getting a big break there. It was a move, she said, that horrified her parents.Īfter some time of failing to reach their goals, they decided to go their separate ways. Stockett wanted to be a writer, and she believed the Big Apple was the best place for that to happen. Taylor wanted to act on Saturday Night Live. When they were older, Taylor coaxed her to New York City, where he lived.īoth had big dreams.

She and Taylor have known each other since they were 5, attending the same preschool in Jackson. That movie made all of $8,000, Stockett joked to the crowd at a literary and film event last weekend in Natchez, Miss.

When director and childhood friend Tate Taylor first asked author Kathryn Stockett for the film rights to her yet-to-be-published novel, The Help, she said she replied, 'Hell, no!'Īt that point, the only feature-length movie Taylor had directed was the 2008 film, Pretty Ugly People, which had garnered few reviews and even fewer receipts at the box office.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett