Shauna Cross says she spent her high school days running laps as punishment in gym class.
She wasn’t a poor athlete. She just “had to find the joke, to say something funny,” Cross recalls.
The skill proved prophetic when she strapped on the skates as Maggie Mayhem, a budding Roller Derby star and outlet for the fledgling screenwriter.
Her curious skill set came in handy when she sat down to write “Derby Girl,” the novel that inspired the film “Whip It.“
The film, directed by Drew Barrymore, hits DVD and Blu-ray shelves this week. Ellen Page stars as Bliss, an adrift teen who finds a second home when she joins the local roller derby team.
Cross tells WWTW says she originally took up roller derby for a healthy alternative to trendy workouts like Pilates.
“It was the perfect elixir,” she says. “Do some ass kicking when you’re getting your ass kicked as a screenwriter.”
She quickly found a home with her squad.
“I’m a very girly girl. I don’t have tattoos. I don’t look like a derby girl,” she says. “But that’s what I love about the sport. You can create a different persona … I was really taken with that.“
“That’s why I’m a writer,” she adds.
Ellen Page might not be the first name one thinks of when “roller derby” comes to mind, but Cross says the sport offers positions for people of all shapes and sizes.
“It’s like football,” she says. “Whatever size you are, there’s something in the sport for you. Little, tiny girls whip it fast … they squirm through.”
Tomorrow: Cross talks about working with Drew Barrymore, why she resisted calls to turn the story into a broad comedy and her reaction to the film tanking at the box office late last year.
(Photo: Screenwriter Shauna Cross, the writer of “Whip It”/Fox Searchlight)
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