Australian screenwriter Stuart Beattie is credited with having written the role no one ever thought they'd see Tom Cruise play: Vincent, the riveting homicidal hit man in Beattie's original screenplay, Collateral, directed by Michael Mann (The Insider, Heat). After 15 years in the business, Beattie has learned a thing or two about how to make characters and plots sing (or sting) on the page. And his long-gestating idea for a rejuvenation of the pirate movie eventually hit pay dirt with the Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, on which he has story credit. Listen in as Beattie describes what it feels like when Tom Cruise looks like he wants to kill you, where the best story ideas come from, and how to stay passionate when you can't even get your mother to read your screenplays.