Joe Eszterhas was the brash, high-profile screenwriter of 80s and 90s Hollywood—the king of the high-concept, perfectly engineered blockbuster. He wrote Jagged Edge, co-wrote Flashdance, and earned a then-record $3 million for his Basic Instinct script. While writers usually linger near the bottom of the industry food chain, Eszterhas flipped the script to become a boss and a brand. ABC called him a “living legend,” and Time magazine breathlessly asked, “If Shakespeare were alive today, would his name be Joe Eszterhas?”
But pride, as any seasoned writer knows, often comes before a fall—and so it did for Eszterhas, who mistook success for excess and nearly didn’t survive the business. “The coke and the booze,” he recalls. “Those weren’t helping my creativity; they were holding it back.” Ironically, his most successful years in Hollywood were also his worst.
Now 81, his voice gravelly after battling throat cancer, Eszterhas lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with his second wife, Naomi. He never really retired and recently planned a Hollywood comeback with his idea for a rebooted, re-energized Basic Instinct. He reportedly received $2 million from Amazon MGM Studios for his script and stands to make another $2 million if and when it’s filmed—which he insists will happen. “There’s a great demand for it. It’s trending all the time.”
The original 1992 film was a box office hit and a political lightning rod, equally loved and hated. It starred Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell, a bisexual seductress and potential ice-pick murderer. Eszterhas had no involvement in the poorly received 2006 sequel. His new story, he explains, blends copycat serial killers with supernatural elements.
How far along is it? Mostly done, he says. “The producers are negotiating with a really interesting director—a Brit, Emerald Fennell, who did Promising Young Woman and Wuthering Heights. Her sensibility is exactly right. She’s someone who isn’t afraid of controversy and sexuality. So I’m thrilled by that. I hope it works out.”
Sometimes, admittedly, Eszterhas gets ahead of himself. He initially hoped to bring Stone back, but the actor dismissed the idea. “There’s not going to be a Basic Instinct reboot,” she said last August. “I hate to break it to you, but Joe Eszterhas couldn’t write himself out of a Walgreens drug store.”
Screenings of Basic Instinct were famously picketed by Labia, a lesbian and bisexual activist group. The National Organization for Women called it “the most blatantly misogynistic film in recent memory.” While Eszterhas disputes that label, he has always enjoyed a good public fight. He feels today’s studio films are too sanitized, too polite, too afraid of causing offense. “People are terrified of confrontation and disagreement. That’s a communication loss. That’s a human loss.”
Fair enough. But he has also described his reboot as “anti-woke,” making it sound like a culture-war flashpoint, part of the pushback against Hollywood’s perceived liberal bias. This past year, we’ve seen Donald Trump personally advocating for Rush Hour 4 and Amazon MGM paying $40 million for the Melania documentary. So there’s a risk of Eszterhas being co-opted, lumped in, and turned into a political football.
“Yeah, there’s a danger,” he says. “But let me put it facetiously: If you move to Cleveland, live beside a little lake, and just go into your room to make stuff…”As you move up, that danger diminishes. Your work might become a political football, but you don’t have to be involved in it.
Charles Manson gave me chills. His eyes bored into my soul.
Politically, Eszterhas has swung both left and right. He briefly liked Trump but has since turned against him, citing Epstein, ICE, and the daily assault on the First Amendment. “So if Trump’s now muscling studios and directors to treat him kindly, that’s wrong,” he says. “It’s despotic and undemocratic.” Recent events, he admits, also touch on old scars. “I was involved in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. I was a refugee in America—a displaced person, a foreigner. So I have immediate sympathy with people who are bullied and discriminated against.”
Eszterhas’s life story could make a decent film script itself. It’s a harrowing, rollicking immigrant tale that whisks its hero from his birth in war-torn Hungary, through refugee camps in Allied-occupied Austria, to the U.S. Rust Belt, where he arrived at age six. As a young reporter in his twenties, Eszterhas covered the Kent State massacre. Later, as a feature writer for Rolling Stone, he wrote about labor disputes and claims to have interviewed Charles Manson in prison.
“I felt the chills go down my back,” he says. “I covered serial killers, murders, lots of ugly things. But I never felt anything like I felt with Manson. I walked into the room and there was an immediate chill. He had the most amazing eyes. They bored into my soul.”
Actually, he says, it was Hunter S. Thompson who first recommended him for the Rolling Stone job. “Hunter was my running buddy. It was the alcohol that destroyed Hunter. The alcohol and the drugs. When he needed surgery, he had booze fed to him through his IV drip.”
He shakes his head and recalls a memory. “The only time I did acid was on a beach in San Francisco. Hunter was there, and I really flipped out. All the refugee camp stuff came back. It was Hunter who held on to me for an hour and settled me down. That’s ironic, given the man’s reputation. But he was a calming influence on me that day.”
Eszterhas brought the air of gonzo journalism to Hollywood. He looked like a roadie and wrote like a demon. Years of journalism had taught him the value of a good hook, tight structure, and a sensational splash. Flashdance, the story he co-wrote about a welder who dreams of being a ballerina, earned its budget back nearly 30 times over. Jagged Edge created the template for the neo-noir legal thriller. Even 1995’s Showgirls—a laughable flop on first release—has since been reframed as a gaudy cult classic.
As for Eszterhas, though, he wasn’t faring too well. He says, “I had an issue with drinking. I had an issue with drugs. I discovered cocaine. I was endlessly unfaithful to my first wife. And I have a semi-alibi for all that, which was that the countercultural revolution was still going on. Rolling Stone and Hollywood were at the vortex of all that. And I’d come from Cleveland, which was at the vortex of nothing. I was in California looking for heavenly bliss, and it was all there, it was all happening.”
Possibly he never fit in. Even when he was an insider, he felt like an outsider. He had married Naomi by this point; they eventually had four sons together. “When the boys were little, they’d go to these Hollywood parties. Will Smith would bring in fake snow. Kids would show up with their fathers’ Oscars. And Nick Nolte and Gary Busey would be standing out…”Naomi and I are both from Ohio. Neither of us wanted to raise our kids in that setting.
Cleveland is his home, which is why he eventually returned. As a writer, he says, you can live anywhere. He still writes film treatments and occasionally lands a big deal. But he has also written a 750-page memoir, Hollywood Animal, and shared his Hollywood war stories on a recent multi-part podcast called Ugly, Irresponsible, & Childish. He has been clean and sober for decades, and his sons are fully grown. Mostly, his past lives on in the corny scenes of old movies.
Just last month, for instance, one of his sons made a big announcement: he was moving to LA to try to make it as a rock star. So Eszterhas did what any respectable parent would do. He explained that LA is a tough town, that rock music is a gamble, and that his son should at least have a solid profession to fall back on. “And he looked straight at me and said, ‘Didn’t you write a line in Flashdance that says, If you give up on your dreams, you die?‘”
Hoist with his own petard, as Shakespeare wrote. But Eszterhas is his own man and speaks his own language. “Wow,” he says. “What a fucking checkmate.”
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs Joe Eszterhas on Creativity Sobriety and Rebooting Basic Instinct
Beginner Definition Questions
Q Who is Joe Eszterhas and why is he in the news
A Hes a famous Hollywood screenwriter known for movies like Basic Instinct and Showgirls Hes in the news because hes writing a new supernatural reboot of Basic Instinct and gave an interview reflecting on his famously wild substancefueled past
Q What does he mean by Coke and alcohol didnt boost my creativity
A Hes stating that despite the myth of the tortured artist using drugs and alcohol to create his own experience was the opposite He believes those substances ultimately hindered not helped his creative work and life
Q What is the antiwoke part about
A In the interview Eszterhas criticizes what he sees as current Hollywood trends of excessive political correctness and wokeness saying his new Basic Instinct reboot will deliberately push against those norms
Advanced Reflective Questions
Q If substances didnt help what fueled his creativity during his peak years
A Based on his reflections it was raw ambition instinct and a deep understanding of provocative storytelling and audience desirenot the substances that accompanied that lifestyle He now suggests real creativity comes from a clearer more disciplined mind
Q Whats the main difference between his original Basic Instinct and the planned reboot
A The original was a steamy erotic thriller The reboot as described will incorporate supernatural elements while maintaining the core of dangerous sexuality and transgression but framed as a direct reaction to todays more cautious cultural climate
Q Is he saying all artists should be sober
A Not necessarily for everyone but he is giving a strong personal testimony Hes arguing that the romantic link between addiction and art is a destructive lie and that his best work might have come sooner or been better without the personal chaos
Q What common problem is he highlighting about the creative industries
