Actress and writer Ana Nogueira is set to pen the screenplay for the big-screen adaptation of the graphic novel “Dan and Sam,” THR reports. Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment has acquired the film rights to the book.
The story, THR writes, is a “a supernatural romance about a young couple who have it all, until the woman, Sam, dies unexpectedly. Dan, however, discovers that love transcends the physical world when Sam is allowed to visit him one night a year…But there’s a catch: it’s only until he falls in love again.”
As an actress, Nogueira started out in theater and has appeared on “The Vampire Diaries,” “The Michael J. Fox Show,” and “Blue Bloods.” She turned to writing, she told Women and Hollywood, after she “was exposed to, and often a part of some incredible theater written by women.” She explained, “I live in New York City so a lot of the work I do as an actress is in the theater, and while Broadway has not yet embraced the female playwright, Off-Broadway is full of daring and exciting female writers. I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of work by women that challenges me as an actress and inspires me to tell stories of my own.”
The result of her writing dive was the relationship-driven play “Empathitrax,” which premiered Off-Broadway this past fall to rave reviews. But that didn’t come without pushing herself.
“As women [in the industry], we face tons of hurdles, but I think for many of us, myself included, that hurdle starts in our own minds,” she added. “I had major impostor syndrome before I started writing, this feeling that the things I wanted to explore were thin or uninteresting. Everything I’ve ever written about has, at its core, been about relationships. I think I internalized some male criticism that that wasn’t a daring or edgy enough subject. I think taking a long hard look at how we interact with each other can gutsy as hell, there’s nothing thin about it. But it took me putting pen to paper and actually finishing a script to believe that the things that I wanted to say deserved to be heard.”
Though Nogueira is new to the Hollywood writing scene, she has a lot of hope as a female screenwriter. “So far I have seen a massive shift in the way that people embrace and encourage female writers,” she said. “It seems like people are actually starting to understand that if you want layered female characters just hire a female writer. She will deliver with one hand tied behind her back.”
