60 Seconds with Florida Marlins reliever Burke Badenhop

More Preston Hanna-Barbera than Preston Sturges.

Staff writer Joe Capozzi spoke with Marlins reliever Burke Badenhop about his dreams of becoming a Hollywood screenwriter.

Tell me about your hobby.

(Marlins equipment manager) John Silverman is friends with Martin Lesak, who works for CAA (Creative Artists Agency). He is Will Ferrell’s agent. I got to talk with him when we were in Los Angeles last summer. He said, “Hey, if you’re interested in writing movie scripts, let me send you a couple of comedies and you can see what a good script looks like.” He sent me first revisions of Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, The Hangover.

What did you think?

One thing I found, movies are revised umpteen times. The script I got for The Hangover is literally nothing like the movie. The broad concept is the same but one of the main characters isn’t even remotely the same. There’s a lot of scenes in Talladega Nights that are not in the movie that made me laugh out loud. How did that not make it in?

How many scripts are you working on?

Nothing more than thoughts that pop into my head. I got a new laptop and screenwriting software for Christmas and I got a screenwriting book in the off-season. That kind of pushed stuff in the right direction.