Tackling AMERICAN PSYCHE
Alumns Dr. Vinita Mehta and Richard Nguyen Explain Their Approach to Delving Into Character
By Robert Delaney
Screenwriter and Clinical Psychologist Dr. Vinita Mehta
SAGindie Fellows at our recent Sidewalk Narrative Lab, Dr. Vinita Mehta and Richard Nguyen brought the script for their TV Drama, AMERICAN PSYCHE, and it brought down the house.
Logline: “A devoted psychologist to Washington DC’s political elite forges an intimate bond with an unstable US senator, but risks compromising her family and career after they become embroiled in drug abuse and a sex scandal.”
In addition to winning a fellowship to attend the Stowe August Sidewalk Lab and Stowe Palm Springs Writers’ Retreat, the team won the CAPE New Writers Fellowship, were finalists for the HUMANITAS New Voices program, made the Tracking Board Top 100 Pilots and won the Tracking Board Mentorship Prize. In addition, Richard and Vinita are currently WarnerMedia Access Writing Program Fellows. They are repped by Industry Entertainment
Vinita and Richard both have backgrounds in psychology, which adds a fascinating layer to their work. Vinita is a licensed clinical psychologist working in Washington D.C, and Richard studied psychology at Harvard University. As Vinita explains: “For me the formal training really does help. When Richard and I talk about our characters, I can’t help but talk about them in a clinical way at some point. What kind of clinical profile they would essentially have.” For Richard, learning about psychology is vital to understanding the emotional complexity of characters: “When I was learning and going through psychology in academia, the way I thought about it was that this is an amazing way to learn about all the ways in which humans can go wrong. We all have an assumption for how we would behave logically, and in all these studies we were learning about, it’s like, no actually we’re way more horrible than you’d think! It’s also a question and study of why? I’ve heard professors say it’s almost like applied philosophy as it comes to human behavior. That’s applying to our characters. What are the ways in which our characters would behave emotionally or illogically, and how can we also explain why? And how can we also find them a better way out of it?”
Screenwriter and Student of Psychology Richard Nguyen
In AMERICAN PSYCHE, they paired their deep knowledge of psychology with the world of politics. Richard explains here: “The whole premise started the one night we met. Vinita was telling me that she had an idea for a series just based on this one concept, ‘What if President Trump were sitting across from me in my therapy room?’ What things would be said? What would be explored? We have changed it in a lot of ways, we don’t have a President Trump yet in the series. I think we realized there was crossover in a lot of ways. The world of politics is run by a game of psychology. When it comes to one side versus another or pitting yourself intellectually and politically against a running opponent.” Practicing in D.C. Vinita has first hand knowledge of the crossover between politics and psychology: “I think that being a psychologist in DC allowed me to have a window into what it was like for people working, on both sides of the aisle, all the departments, in the Trump Administration. It was wild! I think that provided a lot of inspiration for how we handled politics in AMERICAN PSYCHE. Asking questions about race, power, gender, even using some of these time honored monuments as visual motifs. The idea of the Washington Monument being this symbol of power but really, whose power? Who does it symbolically represent? At a time when our culture was asking a lot of questions about power and privilege we wanted to bring all of that into our work.”
Another main theme in their work is intergenerational trauma. Vinita and Richard both come from immigrant families and refugees: Vinita’s family moved during the Partition of India, and Richard’s during the Vietnam War. As Vinita explains: “This is part of our bond actually. That we come from families that experienced intergenerational trauma. Part of it we discussed and part of it we learned about each other when we were working on AMERICAN PSYCHE. The emotional bond with that deepened as we worked together.” This discussion of trauma extends directly to the arcs of their characters as Vinita explains further: “We envisioned for each one of these characters what would it take to be whole again?” The process of coping with trauma also connects to one of the core questions Richard posed to Vinita when they first met: “I asked her this question, something I’ve always thought about, did she believe all of her patients were capable of change?”
Vinita and Richard were positive forces at our August Sidewalk Narrative Lab. “Everyone was nice and understanding and I think that reflects the tenor of Stowe,” Vinita explained. “Of it being a safe and supportive environment where you could really show who you are and be accepted as a writer and as a whole person. It was a really great experience.” Richard added, “I agree with that. In the months leading up to the program, David Rocchio was hyping up one of the most consistently valuable things that other writers take away in the past, the peer and mentor meetings. Every single day when we came together, just to echo that, it was such a safe space we felt bold to try out and fail in front of our peers and not be worried about how they felt or thought because they all understood, ‘hey we’re all in this together. We’re not here just to criticize you, we’re here because we care.’ I think that just speaks to what Stowe has done so well. Collecting and curating this amazing cohort of people.”
Vinita and Richard brought a complex, layered, bold perspective to our program, rooted in a deep understanding of the wide range of human experience. Their work speaks on some vitally important topics, and we are excited to help push the work out into the world.
Robert Delany is an Academic Intern with Stowe Story Labs. He graduated in 2020 with an MA in cinema studies from NYU and was a Program Associate for the 2020 Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, where he now conducts interviews for their “Filmmaker Spotlight Series”. Robert also writes for Split Tooth Media, an independent film and music publication based in Portland, Oregon. He is currently acting as a researcher on the film ASCO: WITHOUT PERMISSION, directed by Travis Gutierrez Senger and produced by North of Now. He was also an Office Assistant at Senger’s production company, Asa Nisi Masa Films, where he focused on the development of numerous projects. Robert graduated in 2018 with a BS in film and TV from Boston University’s School of Communication. Robert Delany was selected for this academic internship to focus on interviews and other writing for The Story Board, Stowe Story Labs’ bi-monthly newsletter. He will also assist in the establishment of a curated short film platform for Stowe Alumni.
