‘A love story like you’ve never seen’: Screenwriter Zach Dean shares the real-life inspiration behind his forthcoming film ‘The Gorge’
Dean reflects on his formative time at Interlochen, processing life through writing, and how the COVID-19 lockdowns sparked one of the most generative periods of his career.
In early 2020, screenwriter and Interlochen Arts Academy alumnus Zach Dean (IAC/NMC 82-87, IAA 88-92) found himself grappling with the personal and professional uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Director and actor Sydney Pollack once said, ‘A love story is only as good as it keeps them apart,’ and I kept thinking about how all of us were at that point,” Dean says. “So many of us couldn’t be near the people we loved. You couldn’t go anywhere, you couldn’t see people, you couldn’t touch people. Everyone was afraid to go within six feet of each other.”
Faced with what he describes as a “sense of mortal fear,” Dean turned to writing to help him process this unprecedented moment. The result was the spec script for The Gorge: a soon-to-be-released, Scott Derrickson-directed action film starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy as snipers stationed on opposite sides of a mysterious chasm. The film will premiere on Apple TV+ on Feb. 14, 2025.
Watch the trailer for The Gorge
“I’m really pleased with how The Gorge turned out, and I’m really excited for people to see it,” Dean says. “I think it’s great that it’s coming out on Valentine’s Day. It’s a really twisted date movie—it’s a love story like you’ve never seen—but I’m really proud of it.”
Cultivating a creative practice
Dean’s career as a screenwriter is the latest chapter in a lifelong creative practice that was nurtured at Interlochen. The son of two former Interlochen Arts Academy faculty members—Instructor of History Scott Dean and Instructor of Visual Arts Lina Dean—Dean was immersed in the Interlochen community from an early age.
“When I was a little kid, I would go to see readings at Interlochen,” he says. “I remember seeing Jack Driscoll read a lot; when I heard the short stories that Jack was writing, I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”
Dean spent several summers as a camper before enrolling at Interlochen Arts Academy.
“I grew up on Green Lake, so it was more than just a high school experience,” he says. “We had lovely, amazing faculty members at the time. A lot of the friends I made there I am still very close to today.”
During his time at the Academy, Dean studied with Nick Bozanic, Terry Caszatt, Mike Delp, and Jack Driscoll and writer-in-residence Debra Allbery. Although he primarily focused on poetry and short stories at the Academy, Dean got his first introduction to screenwriting in one of Caszatt’s classes.
“There really wasn’t a formalized film department then, but there were some film classes you could take through the creative writing division,” he says. “Terry taught a class, and I loved it: We not only wrote the shorts, but also shot them. It was terrific.”
Dean’s path after Interlochen included stints as a carpenter, casino dealer, and bartender—but through it all, he kept writing.
“My way of processing life is to write stories,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking about making a living: I was just trying to put all my baggage into my works. The process of writing has to help you process your life, your reality, your emotions, your struggle, your fear—that’s the art. That’s one of the great things I learned, or maybe helped hone, at Interlochen.”
Finding a silver lining
In his early 20s, Dean wrote his first full-length screenplay and immediately realized he’d found his niche.
“Most of my short stories were basically extended scenes; I found with screenplay that I could build up a whole bunch of scenes to tell a larger story,” he says. “I loved the form from the very beginning—it was just the right form for me.”
Dean’s debut as a professional screenwriter was the 2012 heist drama Deadfall. His other credits include Fast X, the 2017 thriller 24 Hours to Live, and the 2021 sci-fi action film The Tomorrow War.
When the film industry shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dean decided to use the pause as an opportunity to focus on original screenplays.
“The one thing I felt confident about was that people were going to need to be entertained, because they were going to have a lot of time on their hands to think about things that are difficult to think about,” he says. “After freaking out for a couple of days, I said, ‘Alright. I’m going to do the one thing that I know I can do and that I have control over: I can write specs.’”
“I had a lot of ideas that I hadn’t had a chance to get to because I was working on hired projects,” he continues. “So I said, ‘I’m just going to start writing these things, and I’m going to write one after the other.’ The period between April 2020 and September 2020 was one of the most prolific periods of my entire writing career. It was really a silver lining.”
The first screenplay Dean worked on during this period was Day Drinker—which will begin production in Spain this April. Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz will star in the film.
“When I was almost done with Day Drinker, I was so in the zone,” Dean says. “I didn’t want to stop: I was afraid if I stopped writing, I was going to lose the edge I had. I thought, ‘I have to figure out what I’m going write next.’”
Inspired by the pandemic era’s pervasive sense of distance and danger, Dean developed the concept for The Gorge.
“I remember the night I came up with The Gorge,” he says. “I literally drew a gorge on a dry erase board, and I put a tower on one side, and a tower on the other side. And I put a symbol for a man on one side, and a symbol for a woman on the other side.”
“The Gorge is about the relationship between two people who fall in love, but can’t be near each other,” he continues. “They have this vast, literal abyss between them—this gorge—and the bottom of it is covered in fog. They have no idea what’s down there, but it’s horrible.”
As The Gorge approaches its premiere, Dean is eager to see how audiences will react to the film’s unique combination of romance, action, and science fiction.
“I hope people dig it,” he says. “It’s supposed to be a lot of things, but first and foremost, it’s a love story. I hope people find that to be compelling.”
Telling more stories
With the film industry now back in full swing, Dean is in demand for both original specs and franchise projects.
In addition to doing some pre-production rewrites for Day Drinker, Dean is writing a new spec and working on the latest installment of the Fast & Furious series. He also recently completed the sequel to The Tomorrow War.
“It’s been a very busy period, and I’m very, very grateful,” he said.
But despite his many works-in-progress, Dean still has plenty of ideas to explore.
“I’m one of those people,” he says. “I feel like I’m always going to have more stories to tell.”
