Patrick Radden Keefe Is Hollywood’s New Favorite Author

Screenwriters secretly envy the intellectual reputation and creative control of book authors, and writers secretly dream of working in Hollywood. Few writers straddle both worlds like Patrick Radden Keefe. To help him understand, he looked for ideas for his new book. london fallingWhile on set for FX’s adaptation of his 2018 smash bestseller, don’t say anythingOn the question of Northern Ireland.

Or maybe the idea found him. Keefe, the series executive producer, was sitting in the director’s chair between a set of Scotland Yard replicas in London when the episode’s director’s guest started a conversation with him. The man told Keefe about a family he knew whose 19-year-old son had jumped to his death in the Thames under mysterious circumstances, and that after his death they discovered he had been pretending to be the son of a Russian tycoon and associating with notorious members of the London underworld.

Keefe was hooked. He believed this tragedy could be a lens through which to tell the story of how London, the city he loved and lived in, had changed so dramatically in recent years that it had become a magnet for dirty money and a stage for reinvention.

When Keefe returned home that night, he Googled the incident. There was no trace of it on the Internet. It was just how much he liked it. “I knew if my family agreed, this would be my next thing,” he says. “I’m going to clear the deck.”

Rachel and Matthew Brettler, parents of Jack Brettler, the boy who jumped, were hesitant at first. But an investigation by the London police yielded no results. They decided that Keefe had the sensitivity needed to tell the story and the insight to uncover details that junior detectives had missed. His track record speaks for itself.

As an author, Keefe specialized in unraveling shadowy networks, including the Provisional IRA or the Sackler family, which played a role in the opioid crisis through its ownership of Purdue Pharma. empire of pain. In 2021, he will serve as the executive producer of the Netflix miniseries with the best-selling book. analgesicAnd more importantly, it contributed to the Sacklers having to pay $7.4 billion in settlements to victims. Keefe’s 2022 journalism collection is subtitled: thiefIt would be a good idea to have “The True Story of a Crook, Murderer, Rebel, and Conman” printed on his business cards.

london falling Started out like most of his six books: As an article New YorkerKeefe has been a staff writer since 2012. And this is how his last two books ended up as TV series. In March, ahead of the book’s April 7 publication, A24 won after fierce competition for the adaptation rights. At Keefe’s insistence, all serious suits expanded with the Brettlers. “We plan to proceed with active consultation as well as the blessing of the family,” Keefe said.

At age 49, the Dorchester, Massachusetts, native joins the sadly dwindling ranks of high-profile investigative journalists. He is so well-known that he was cast as himself in the final scene of an HBO drama. industry. He said, “It was so much fun to act.” “I was joking with a friend who works at FX. don’t say anything “I’m going to give him a headshot.” All he has to do is hand it to a friend to see him in J.Crew’s 2025 campaign wearing a trench coat and suit, coffee cup in hand.

As the music died down in the suburban New York coffee shop where we met, Keef’s voice dropped to a whisper. It’s unclear whether this was a consideration for fellow customers or just the person listening. Considering his profession and the unsavory people he writes about, he’d better be careful. For this reason, he doesn’t want to reveal which New York suburb his family calls home.

“When I was writing the Sackler book, we had a private investigator parked in front of my house,” he says. Keefe also received legal threats and learned to ignore them. “At a certain point, you get enough from them that you start to get a little more easily intimidated. In fact, sometimes you feel like you’re not doing your job if you’re not being threatened with the law.”

kief’s New Yorker Colleague David Grann, author bet and Flower Moon Killers“He’s just an incredible reporter, and that’s why he’s able to get the minute details about the people and events he’s writing about, bring them to life, and make them feel real.”

Keefe downplays all the research and is careful not to weigh down a good story. “His books are incredibly cinematic,” says showrunner Eric Newman. Narcos A few years ago he collaborated with Keefe on a project about organized crime in Asia’s Golden Triangle, which has since been abandoned. “I remember reading the opening. don’t say anythingWhen these men come into this house and drag this woman out in front of her children, he really has a gift for captivating the viewer.” (The scene was recreated almost to the beat in the FX adaptation.) london falling It starts out just as dramatically. But Keefe says he doesn’t think ahead about potential screen adaptations when he writes journalism. Rather, the impact goes in the other direction. Years of occasional work as a screenwriter on unproduced projects, including Jo Nesbo’s adaptation of Channing Tatum, taught me the value of narrative economy.

“One of the things I learned from screenwriting was how to turn 300 pages of court transcripts into two great paragraphs. You have to pick the best ones and condense them into one page,” he says. Having grown up in the 1990s, which he calls the “golden age of cinema,” he is just as likely to find inspiration in movies as his non-fiction predecessors. Take the start page. empire of painOn the testimony of one of the Sacklers: “Is there anything more boring than a bunch of lawyers sitting at a table?” Keefe recalls thinking. “How can we bring a real sense of drama to this? And I found the answer in the opening scene of the film. Michael Clayton,” the lawyer suffers a mental breakdown.

Despite his commitment to the realism of nonfiction, Keefe has proven more flexible in adapting his works to the scripted screen. “He’s also an amazing screenwriter,” says Nina Jacobson, who produced with Brad Simpson. don’t say anything“So it was easy for him to say, ‘I want to adapt it myself.’ But my respect for Patrick as a producer grew even more when I saw how quickly he could step back and encourage someone else’s work.”

Even as I continue to write New Yorker Dispatch — I caught him between trips to New Orleans, the setting for his latest investigation — Keefe is delving deeper into Hollywood. Jacobson and Simpson achieved success with: love storyWe’re teaming up with Keefe again for a series inspired by his work. and with British production company Bad Wolf. industryKeefe is adapting. everything that sparklesHBO’s non-fiction book about art world con artists.

He’s still getting used to his dual identity. “I find screenwriting quite painful compared to nonfiction writing,” he says. “When you adapt something, it feels like you’re creating something completely new. It feels like anything can happen to the point where you sit down and think, ‘I am God.’ I find that quite difficult.”

This story appeared in the April 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.