From Satire to Myth: Screenwriter Will Tracy Talks Greek Storytelling in 'Bugonia'

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Will Tracy, Bugonia centers on two conspiracy-theory obsessed cousins, Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aiden Delbis), who emerge from their online rabbit holes to kidnap Michelle (Emma Stone), the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth. 

The film is a dark comedy about belief, connection and what happens when two people are forced to really talk to each other face-to-face in our modern fractured political climate where even facts are up for debate.  

For screenwriters, Tracy’s path to Bugonia is a masterclass in trusting your voice, remaking IP without losing yourself, and learning when to stop explaining and let symbolism do the work.

Tracy started his career writing satirical news stories at The Onion, eventually becoming editor-in-chief. But he didn’t want to stay there forever.

“Most people at that time, when they were leaving The Onion, the path was: you go to one of the late-night comedy shows,” he says. He followed the conventional wisdom and joined Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, where he wrote for four seasons. 

“It is a really good show and I was treated well, but I kind of knew week one, oh boy, it’s just not a perfect fit for me. I knew I wanted to write stories and characters for one-hour shows.”

The problem was getting TV execs to see him as a writer capable of generating character-driven storylines.

“All those shows were looking for hardcore drama writers or playwrights. They weren’t looking for a late-night comedy writer.” Succession proved different.

“Succession was a one-hour drama show that was written primarily by comedy writers,” he says, citing creator Jesse Armstrong and the accomplished British TV writers on the show. “What Armstrong wanted was an American who was funny and who understood politics, media and business. Because of The Onion and John Oliver, I knew that world,” Tracy says. “So it ended up just being a really good fit for both of us. And it went from there into movies, which is really what I wanted to do from when I was a kid.”

Just before the pandemic, producer Ari Aster sent Tracy a low-res file of the 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet! and said he thought some of its themes could apply to current times.

“I had never seen or even heard of it,” Tracy says. “But I saw immediately what he meant.”

The original movie’s concept – a man convinced a corporate executive is an alien – felt ripe for a new interpretation. But he didn’t want to do a straight remake.

“I took the premise and a few of the big story beats, but then created whole new scenes and dialogue and characters around that.”

He outlined the script and planned to write it during a break from Succession around March 2020. “And it just so happened that we all had a very long break ahead of us,” he says with a laugh.

Now in lockdown due to Covid, Tracy found himself in a tiny New York apartment with his wife and their newborn baby. Space was tight. The world felt small.

“Because I had nothing else to do, I wrote it very, very quickly, in about three weeks.”

The feeling of being isolated and claustrophobic fed directly into the script: two people confined in a basement, talking, arguing, trying to understand each other, while doom is creeping in.

Early on in the film, the audience assumes Teddy and Don have lost their minds because they’ve kidnapped someone they believe is an alien. But Tracy never approached them as caricatures.

“As a writer, I never found Teddy to be particularly crazy,” he says. “I think he’s quite extreme and emotional, and that leads him to some very unsound methods. And he’s not right about everything. But he sure ends up being right about a whole hell of a lot.”

More importantly, Teddy’s fears spring from very human feelings: dealing with his dying mother, being left behind, feeling like the future belongs to other people.

“He’s someone who feels quite alienated and isolated, doesn’t believe he has a life, doesn’t believe he has a future,” Tracy says. “He sees it in his family, in his community, in his workplace.”

That empathy keeps the film from becoming cynical. Tracy never fully endorses Teddy’s methods, but he understands where Teddy’s pain comes from – and that’s the key to great character writing.

As accomplished as Tracy is (he’s won six Emmys), he says he still had a lot to learn from working with Yorgos Lanthimos on the script. Tracy says the director encouraged him to be less literal in his writing and embrace more dreamlike sequences, especially in the flashbacks and the film’s finale. 

“Yorgos said it's okay, at certain points in the film, for there not to be a clear answer, and it's okay for parts of the film to feel abstract, surreal or absurd.”

Basically, he encouraged Tracy to lean into mythic storytelling, which is literally in Lanthimos’ Greek DNA.

“I think he denies it, but I think it’s there,” Tracy says, laughing. “I think the Greeks can’t help it. I think it’s in everything. I’ve always said to him, I would love to see you do a great tragedy or a Greek myth. I’d love to see you do a movie about Perseus or something.”

According to Tracy, Lanthimos insists he isn’t interested in Greek epics, even though he’s constantly thinking in mythic terms.

“He says, ‘Oh, no, no, no, I’m not interested in that.’ But he is, of course, interested in that.”

In fact, the most mythic decision Lanthimos made was choosing the title Bugonia.

“That was the first thing he suggested,” Tracy says. “I had no title. But Bugonia is a Greek myth: a colony of bees spontaneously arising from the corpse of a cow or an ox. Leave it to Yorgos, though, to find the connection.”

For emerging writers, Tracy’s advice is both practical and personal.

“There’s quite a lot of doom and gloom about the industry,” he says. “I would just say: ignore that as much as you can. Don’t write what you think people are buying right now. Write what is writable for you. Not like, ‘Oh shit, I think people want a movie that's sort of like a K-Pop Demon Hunters, and so maybe I can write a kind of manga-y thing.’ I would say avoid that.” 

Instead of chasing trends, he suggests paying attention to your own obsessions. “I like to tell myself every time I write a script that I, and I alone, can write this script,” he says. “It’s never true. But I do think you have to believe that.”

How do you find that story only you can write? “There's a cliche, write what you know. But it is kind of true. You don't have to have lived it but write about what you’re obsessed with. With The Menu, restaurants were that for me,” he says. “While I was trying to write other things, I’d take a break and watch YouTube clips about chefs and restaurants. Only much later did I realize, ‘Oh, I should be writing about the thing that I can’t stop researching or thinking about!’”

Whether that’s about bees, billionaires or fine dining, Tracy says writing about your own obsessions will put you on the best path.

Bugonia is currently playing in theaters.