The Era of the Multi-Hyphenate: An Interview With Writer and Filmmaker Mario O. Moreno [SERIES]

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

At the heart of storytelling is the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes. But empathy is a two-way street. As storytellers, we delve into new, unfamiliar worlds and minds to understand the characters we create. At the same time, we infuse every narrative with deeply personal elements—either consciously or subconsciously.

Do you want to get to know a storyteller? Have a look at their work. It reflects their inner landscape and reveals how they experience life—sometimes in very concealed ways, but still. The stories we live shape us. As storytellers, we distill parts of them, which we then mold into new, uniquely familiar narratives. How we do this depends on the story. It may work best as a screenplay, a poem, a play, a movie, a song, or a blend of the above. In the era of the multi-hyphenate, we can let each narrative tell us how it needs to be told.

When we find the right format, the story is likely to find its audience—people who recognize themselves in it. And then, something magical happens. Without having met each other, we connect. Through words, still images, moving pictures, music, or dance, we bond over universal emotions and themes. This is not only cathartic for the audience, but also for the storyteller. Both realize that in the end, we are all together in this crazy, wondrous thing called life.

“What is life and what do I want from it?”

“It’s really about empathy,” says author, screenwriter, filmmaker, and creative coach Mario O. Moreno. Some may remember him from the Writers Store in Burbank, L.A., where he was a Story Specialist for many years. Others might have read one of his books, or his contributions to Script Magazine and other publications. An advocate for storytellers and content creators, Mario has coached thousands of writers on novels, plays, and scripts. Today, he is also the product manager for Final Draft.

A few years ago, after spending lots of time navigating the industry, Mario wanted to go back to the essence of storytelling. “I started obsessing about empathy and stories that would elicit a feeling of understanding that we are not so alone—to make us give a bit more leeway to people we disagree with or don’t understand, and to have our hearts more open to each other.”

This realization, Mario explains, came after a lot of setbacks that triggered an existential question —“What is life and what do I want from it?”

“I almost felt like I was in The Truman Show”

To understand Mario’s journey as a storyteller, we need to go back in time. Elementary things were taken from him early in life—trust, peace of mind, and a sense of safety. But, as life has it, there were great moments, too. His childhood was rich in stories, wisdom, and genuine love—from his parents and the people around him.

These conflicting elements have formed the foundation for the path Mario has chosen, both as a storyteller and as a human being. He walks it confidently, with a hint of melancholy and a deep sense of gratitude. Mario is humble, kind, and sincere. He doesn’t suffer from pretense or false pride. What you see is what you get, and that philosophy has seeped into the way he tackles projects and stories. To Mario, it seems, storytelling was a necessity—his fuel for turning this life into a happy one, despite its turbulent start.

Now, in his forties, Mario feels he can be candid about it. “When I was little, my father went to prison for what turned out to be a fairly big scandal in its time,” he says. “It linked my dad’s company to the White House, and also aspects of the mob. My mother fled with me to Miami, so—almost from one day to another—I ended up in a different state, in a different house, with mostly different people around me. I didn’t know what was going on for a couple of years. When I finally went back to New York, my mom turned around one day and said, ‘You should know your dad is in prison and we’re separated. Any questions?’”

When Mario’s father got out, he was upset at him. “He took me to eat, and I think he was trying to break the ice,” Mario recalls. “We had always connected over movies, and he said, ‘Hollywood is circling this and trying to make a movie. But I don’t think they’ll ever be able to make it, because it’s too complicated and there are too many characters.’ And I just said to him, ‘Well, if they don’t make it, I will.’”

In hindsight, Mario believes this was the moment that determined his career path. But, he adds, “the storytelling was around all the time. My mother was the first storyteller I would listen to. She had her own epic story to tell, and she would also talk a lot about my dad and his adventures. I was into G.I. Joe, and then I would meet army generals who’d tell me, ‘Your dad builds the things that your G.I. Joes use.’ It was connected to this mythology that I had in my mind. And when things took this sudden turn, I almost felt like I was in The Truman Show—you know, this bizarre universe.”

“What I am underneath it all is just a storyteller”

As a child, Mario lived amid a mix of mediums. “My brothers were musicians, my mom was telling stories all the time, and my dad was a film buff,” he says. Before Mario’s father went to prison, he learned that Mario had poor scores in English. “He made it a project to help me become a better reader. When he got out, the thing we would do most often is either go to the movies or go to the bookstore. And at the bookstore, he would get me a lot of film books, but also any novels I wanted. He’d even get me poetry.”

Mario fondly recalls a ‘Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits’ hardcover book, which he loved to take to fourth grade with him. “All this stuff was always there together,” he says. “In high school, I ended up taking photography and theater as electives. I always saw all these endeavors as related, and really part of a greater thing—storytelling. What I am underneath it all is just a storyteller.”

In college, Mario continued to develop his skills across mediums. He gained experience writing, producing, directing, and editing short films. In the last semester of film school, he collaborated on two scripts with a friend. Both works ended up in the hands of an L.A.-based industry professional, who was impressed and told the two writing partners they should move out to L.A. Shortly after, they packed their bags and jumped on a plane.

By the time they left the parking lot at LAX, they had a manager. But they still had to get day jobs. “I had the idea we would sell a script at the airport—I brought it under my arm just in case,” Mario says with a smile. “Then I realized that that’s not how L.A. is. But we were able to keep creating writing samples, get meetings, get an agent, take out some pitches, and get an assignment in Argentina.”

“It took a long time to forgive or understand 23-year-old me”

After six and a half years of co-writing scripts, Mario decided to go solo. But the two friends kept the door open to future collaborations, since they had written 10 screenplays together—properties they co-owned. What Mario didn’t know was that the second major setback of his life was about to hit him.

One day, he told someone about an animated story he and his friend had written. He googled the Wikipedia page, but instead, a YouTube video came up. It was the trailer of the movie, which had been made without Mario’s knowledge.

“I thought they ripped us off,” he says. But another Google search led him to a harsh truth. “The poster had my partner’s name on it, but not my name. It was the day before my 30^th birthday. I was at work at the Writers Store. Some of the people that worked there saw me and still remember the moment. They witnessed me seeing it, and it was some sort of double take I did.”

Mario’s manager and agent still represented his friend, too, so he contacted them to ask what happened. They didn’t know. And, as it turned out, no one was able to reach Mario’s former writing partner.

“I felt like I’d been jacked,” Mario says. “I felt like a fool for having gone into it without a contract. One of the big lessons was to get it all in writing. We hadn’t done that. I had not listened to advice from a lot of people close to me that said, ‘You don’t need a writing partner. You should be writing by yourself.’ So, I blamed myself for it, and it took a long time to forgive or understand 23-year-old me, who made that choice.”

Ultimately, Mario found a lawyer who agreed to look at the case. It turned out to be complicated. They were dealing with an international production, and Mario felt he was getting stonewalled by the distributor (which he describes as a legitimate company). He says nothing happened, even though he had plenty of evidence in writing—drafts of the script and the book he adapted it from, as well as emails about the project. About one year later, he saw an online ad for a screening of the movie in L.A. “I was at work at the Writers Store, and I thought I was hallucinating,” he says. At the advice of a co-worker, he created a Facebook page and wrote a straightforward post to share his story with the world. “It was probably the hardest post I’ve ever had to do—to say, ‘I messed up, and this is what’s going on.’”

But it was enough to block the distribution of the movie in the U.S. for a good while—although today, it is available for streaming.

“It was just like I’d been erased from history”

Mario was at the end of his rope. “I thought of quitting,” he says. “It was the loudest thing—like, you gave it your shot, you’re about to be 30, and this is a big sign that it’s not meant to be.”

But he persisted—not despite, but thanks to that other setback he’d dealt with in childhood. “What kept me going was that I was working on the story about my parents,” he explains. “It was the first time I was actually trying to write it, because I’d wanted to write at least 10 scripts first. That had always been part of my plan.”

Ultimately, it was his love of storytelling that stopped him from switching careers. “I was thinking, What else am I going to do? This is the thing I love. So, it’s like—just go back to it.”

As it turned out, he needed to hold on to that thought. One year later, he discovered that his former writing partner had turned another of their co-written scripts into a movie abroad. He recalls watching footage of the premiere, where elements of the story were being discussed on the red carpet. “I was like, Wait—those are things I suggested,” he says. “It was just like I’d been erased from history. But those other stories kept me going. And at that point, there was also a community of writers and filmmakers I’d gotten to know, and I liked being a part of it.”

“You make plans in life, and then life tells you what it’s really going to be”

Then, finally, life took a turn for the better. Mario got hired by another multi-hyphenate to adapt a book into a screenplay. He wrote, directed, and co-edited a music video. For Sony’s Columbia Pictures, he wrote an original feature-length script. In addition, Mario and Anthony Grieco co-authored The Pocket Screenwriting Guide, a hands-on book that contains 120 tips for getting to FADE OUT. Meanwhile, Mario still worked as a Story Specialist at the Writers Store, as he needed a day job to pay the bills. But he also discovered that he genuinely enjoyed helping other writers.

Looking back, Mario feels several pieces were falling into place. “You make plans in life, and then life tells you what it’s really going to be,” he says. “It kind of evolved. I never thought I would coach for more than a year. I never thought we would write The Pocket Screenwriting Guide. All of that just happened. And the next thing I knew, I’d been teaching for over 10 years and had been doing all these projects.”

With such versatile creative endeavors, Mario wanted to make sure he maintained focus. Back in film school, he thought his main activity would be directing. Now, he decided it should be writing. “All the other things have to be extensions of it,” he says. “I could control the writing. I could write whatever came to mind, even if it was something really expensive I couldn’t shoot.”

He also believed being a better writer would make him a better director. “Directing can become all about showing off and lens selection, which might have some merits. You can find a way to direct and stay out of the way of the story. And then you could still create beautiful camera moves and transitions. But at the end of the day, it’s all storytelling—from the blocking of the actors to staging.”

And that, he says, is where the writing comes in. “You could put a camera in my hands and tell me to direct something, and I could. I would just zoom out internally first and say, ‘What’s the story?’ Writers have the building blocks of the story.”

“I had a writing rebirth”

In 2017, the Writers Store closed its doors, prompting Mario to have a close look at where he stood in life. As a creative, he was in a good place. He developed projects, worked on assignments, and had gotten into the Writers Guild of America. He worked in the industry and knew the drill. But he wasn’t sure that he still liked it. “You’re juggling all these projects,” he says. “You’re hoping they all move forward. It’s possible none of them do. For a while, I thought I was living a part of my dream. I’m writing professionally in L.A. I’m getting to work with people I respect. These projects are interesting to me. Then I realized I hadn’t worked on anything I was passionate about for a few years. The stories I’d written—the calling cards that had helped me get to this position—weren’t being pushed forward. They weren’t the projects that had a package built around them.”

This created a sense of emptiness in Mario. “I started feeling a lack of fulfillment and missed the freedom the Writers Store had given me—the freedom of working on what I wanted because I didn’t have to worry about where healthcare would come from, or things like that.”

During this phase of his life, Mario got into meditation. He wanted to figure out what real fulfillment entailed for him. “I’d been at the premieres,” he says. “I’d talk to Oscar-winning screenwriters a couple of days after the Oscars. And the most constant thing was that people would say, ‘What are you working on next?’ So, you could be a writer who spent 30 years writing your passion project, and it’s already, like, ‘What are you working on next?’ And none of them seem that happy.”

This observation resulted in a big decision—Mario no longer wanted to be an assignment writer for the studios. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but it didn’t feel right for me anymore,” he explains. “I wanted to find something that would allow me to focus on writing, and specifically on adapting some scripts I was excited about into books.” This idea sprang from something he heard over and over again in the industry—‘If only this project were based on pre-existing material.’ So, Mario thought, why not create some pre-existing material?

Once he had roughly outlined his goals, he got a job at Final Draft. Little did he know it would nurture his creativity in unexpected ways. After having worked the phone for a few months, he got promoted. In the QA Department, he got to test the program. His role involved writing, and he loved it. “I had a writing rebirth in that period,” he says. “I was so dried out from the other stuff that I’d lost my passion, even for watching movies, for a while. In this phase, I was suddenly inspired again.”

His momentum continued when the then product manager got promoted and recommended Mario for the role. Mario believes it’s the greatest job at the company because his tasks resemble those of a movie director, who breathes life into a story while dealing with the studio, producers, writers, and actors. At Final Draft, he explains, “the actors are, in a sense, the QAs, the writers are the engineers, and there are all these other departments you have to consider—marketing, sales, and tech. But you’re trying to have a vision and help the team see it. And then you build towards this new vision.”

“I always think our subconscious is a better storyteller than we are”

Mario’s own vision as a storyteller became increasingly clear to him. “I wanted something tangible that I could share,” he says. “What mattered to me the most was being able to connect with an audience—to write something, have them experience it, and maybe hear their feelings about it. That would be more valuable to me than a movie premiere or anything else.”

A long time ago, he had adapted one of his scripts into a book. It had been collecting dust for years, but now he was drawn back to it—not just by an inner voice, but also by his wife and friends, who encouraged him to write the book he’d always wanted to write. “There was a chorus saying, ‘You should do this,’” Mario explains. “It was just my fear of stepping into the unknown and then sharing that with the world, and potentially having everyone say, ‘Why did you do this?’”

Ultimately, the inner critic lost the battle. Mario decided to write the book and go down the self-publishing road. By now, he had learned a lot about project management at Final Draft—knowledge he applied to his writing routine. For a while, he diligently worked as a product manager during the day and a soon-to-be self-published author at night.

Killa: A Mixtape Novella was released in February 2023. Set in the world of music and told in the style of an epic rap (in certain places, it feels like a present-day version of Homer’s Odyssey), it combines two defining aspects of Mario’s creative life—writing and music. “I was the frustrated musician—my brothers are musicians and my sister is now a musical artist,” he says. “I always wanted to jam with them.”

But there was another, more profound reason why he picked this style. Many years ago, Mario’s father had collected descriptions of classic literary works in a spiral binder. “When he was going to prison, he thought he could only have two books the entire time he was there,” Mario explains. “He had misread this—it was, like, You can only have two books at a time. But he did all this research to find out what would be the best two books in the world to have while you’re away.” Mario discovered the binder when he was about 10 years old. He absorbed information about The Odyssey, The Iliad, and The Divine Comedy. It seems that these works seeped into his subconscious, only to inform the style of his book much later in life.

“I always think our subconscious is a better storyteller than we are,” he says. “So, I trust it to guide me at certain points.”

“Be passionate about it”

Mario has been through the spectrum of emotions that make up a human life. He hit rock bottom and experienced true moments of joy. He carefully stored the associated feelings in his emotional archive, so he could apply them to his characters. Yet, he doesn’t feel that storytellers should just be built off of their suffering. He admires authors such as Ray Bradbury and Elmore Leonard, who wrote into old age and were still visibly excited by it. Mario hopes that a few decades from now, he will feel a similar childlike enthusiasm about writing.

If he could give storytellers one piece of craft advice, it would be, “Be passionate about it.” He recommends that they keep asking themselves what sparked their desire to tell a story and what they want the audience to feel at the end. “Only put the energy where you really feel there’s something that you’re compelled to dedicate your energy to—above all other things,” he says. “It’s so hard to complete any of this stuff and make it resonate with other people, even if it’s technically solid. I think the intangible layer is our passion—and the life force that we’re channeling towards this thing.”

“That piece moves through the world without us”

Being a multi-hyphenate has made Mario’s life richer. “It’s let me see it from one camera that has adjustable lenses,” he says. “I could put different prime lenses on it. Or, there’s a zoom lens I can use sometimes.”

When working on creative projects, Mario can look beyond a word, semicolon, or scene. He sees the bigger picture—a skill he attributes to his love of art in general. For example, he regularly visits galleries to marvel at the works of painters. He likes to delve into different eras of painting, admire brush strokes, and study textures. He explains, “I think it makes our lives richer to just absorb the wonders and the beauty people made in their fleeting time here, and how that can brighten your day. Sometimes you see the right painting, hear the right song, or watch a film, and it shifts your perception of something. And having it be so many—it feels like this buffet of exciting possibilities.”

That said, the storyteller’s life can be a complex one. But as long as your intrinsic motivation is the driving force behind your work, Mario believes it’s worth it. “It’s this connected sequence of events,” he says, comparing it to a three-act structure. “One is the completion of the creative act; two is the sharing of that completed work; and three is any sort of sense that it’s even reached one person. Those three things together are what lead me to come back—whether it’s releasing the book, sending a script to some contact in L.A., or releasing a new version of Final Draft. It’s that experience, again and again, of putting something together, sharing it, and feeling that connection—which is the thing underneath. In stories, characters are either moving toward or away from connection. And so, I find that that piece moves through the world without us. You’re connecting with people beyond remotely.”

This idea instills a sense of wonder in him. “At some point we will be gone, but—the work might still be there? That fills me with joy.”

Watch the interview below. This video has been edited for length and clarity.