Comedy writer Sam Laybourne has built a successful career in television despite all the changes the industry has been through. He’s written and produced some of the most popular sitcoms on network and streaming, including Black-ish, Acapulco, DMV and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.
But with Wingmom, his recent movie spec sale to Netflix, he’s making his mark in movies, too.
The premise of Wingmom feels particularly relevant to our current obsession with tech: When a devoted single mother discovers her 25-year-old son is considering opting out of real-world romance in favor of AI companionship, she decides to become his “wingmom” and teach him how to meet women and experience the excitement of falling in love the old-fashioned way, IRL.
Laybourne says the idea grew out of his fascination with how complicated dating has become for young men. “I’ve been so fascinated with what it’s like to be a young man in your twenties right now trying to figure out how to be progressive and respectful and attractive and appealing to the opposite sex,” Laybourne says. Throw in social media, smartphones and increasingly sophisticated AI, and suddenly opting out of messy human relationships altogether doesn’t seem completely far-fetched. Laybourne wanted to take that idea seriously.
“I like the idea of trying to make that feel plausible,” he says. “Do we really need to go through all the ugliness of romance? And of course, his mom is like, ‘Yeah, you do! It’s incredible!’” That conflict gave Laybourne the comedy, but underneath the premise that seems ripped from the headlines, he discovered something more emotional.
The story ultimately becomes a love story between a mother and her son. “It’s about how do you help your kid get into the world, and then how do you have the strength to let them go?”
Finding the Movie Inside the Premise
After finishing his work on DMV in December, Laybourne began tackling the screenplay for Wingmom. Breaking the story was challenging because he wanted something grounded enough to feel emotionally truthful but big enough to deliver the comic set pieces audiences expect from a high-concept comedy. Once he had the outline, however, he says, “It was just so fun to write that it came together pretty quickly.”
The project gained momentum when producers Jeff Robinov and Tabitha Shick of Talking Pictures became involved. Robinov’s enthusiasm helped get the screenplay in front of potential stars, creating additional interest around the project before Netflix ultimately bought it.
Laybourne believes the timing also helped. Young people isolated during the pandemic are now navigating a world where so much human interaction happens on a screen. “You’re sort of able to curate the way you look and appear to the world through these tiny snippets of curated reality that you can do with social media,” he says. “And then you just sit there and talk to someone of the opposite sex, and ask them questions, and be interesting. Like, you start to think, man, it is hard!”
Laybourne can relate to the parental side of that situation, too. His 17-year-old son is beginning to navigate dating himself. “It feels like we had it easier,” he says.
Finding Yourself in Your Characters
As the father of a son and daughter, Laybourne understands the parental impulse to intervene when your children are struggling. “I know the feeling of wanting to step in and sort of quickly fix things that my son or my daughter are dealing with and how much more important it is to let them learn by experience and make their own mistakes.”
That became the emotional key to writing his wingmom character. Laybourne describes it as, “The comedy of loving someone so much that you can’t get out of their frickin’ way.” That personal connection is something he recommends other screenwriters search for in their own material. “Can you find a way to imbue the main character with some of your own life experience and perspective? Because then I think it just reads more authentically.”
For Laybourne, emotional stakes also help keep even a broad comedy grounded. “People need love,” he says. “You never have to question those stakes.”
Be Patient and Keep Writing
Laybourne says when you embark on a feature spec, try to pick an idea that is genuinely interesting to you and write it in a tone that feels consistent with your other work. Then be patient.
“You can’t really predict when you’re done with a script five months later if the reason you wrote it originally is still in the zeitgeist,” he says. He cites another spec he wrote, Wedding Exorcist.
“That one is a bit of a bigger swing. It’s a horror comedy. It engendered a lot of excitement from producers, but then for studios, because it’s a little higher budget, and it’s a little more odd, it took three years to find a buyer,” he says.
That unpredictability is precisely why he thinks writers should resist chasing the marketplace.
“You have to have patience,” Laybourne says. “It may not be that immediately people get your material, but it may be two years later someone on a whim is like, ‘I’m really looking for something like this.’”
His final advice for spec writers is simple. “Stay true to your original vision and just try to make it as 100% you as you can and then worry less about the market appetite.”
Sometimes, the screenplay that’s 100% your voice is exactly what the market was waiting for.
And yes, Laybourne wrote Wingmom using Final Draft.
“I love Final Draft,” he says. “It’s been a huge part of my life for so many years. It’s way beyond a software program that helps me do a job.”
He even has a favorite feature.
“Every time I press dual dialogue, I feel like a magician.”