NYWIFT Blog

By Joyce Hills

Let’s welcome screenwriter, script supervisor, and playwright Sophia Baldassari to NYWIFT!

She was most recently an Associate Producer on the Radio Silence thriller LOSER, directed by Colleen McGuinness (30 Rock, Ramy) and starring Angourie Rice, Lukas Gage, and Julia Fox, having held the same role on the short film of the same name which screened at HollyShorts and the Oscar-qualifying Hamptons International Film Festival.

Her plays and pilots have been developed/produced at Luna Stage, George Street Playhouse, the McCarter Theatre Center, Haddonfield Plays and Players, and Manhattan Repertory Theatre, and have received accolades from the O’Neill Center Young Playwrights, Theatremania Young Playwrights, Beardance International Playwriting Festival, the Neil LaBute New Theatre Festival, the Austin Film Festival, among others.

She’s studied Writing at Sarah Lawrence and Egyptology at the University of Oxford, an experience she used to write a buddy comedy about the mummy of a Pharaoh’s 29th Favorite wife.

Sophia worked as a PA/Intern on the upcoming feature Paper Tiger, Saturday Night Live, My Favorite Murder for HBO, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Problem with Jon Stewart, the Broadway musical Mr. Saturday Night and, worst for her self-confidence, was once a stand-in for Louis C.K.

She is a member of the Writers Guild of America East, The New York Script Supervisors Network, and IATSE Local 111.

In our interview, we discussed uniting accessible and female driven stories with comedy and surrealism, the structural switches between playwriting and screenwriting, and the unexpected comedy of life in ancient Egypt. Let’s dive in!

Welcome to NYWIFT! Could you give our readers a brief introduction to yourself?

Hi! My name is Sophia Baldassari – I’m a 24-year-old filmmaker and playwright from Hoboken, NJ. I focus on character-driven comedies with a slightly biting, surreal edge.

I’ve been learning a ton working in production and Script/continuity and am developing my portfolio as a screenwriter. So far, I’ve written for both stage and screen, and I’m especially drawn to female-lead stories that feel smart but accessible – and hopefully leave audiences feeling seen.

What brought you to NYWIFT?

I became interested in NYWIFT because of its commitment to supporting women at every stage of their careers. Writing can often feel like such a solitary pursuit, so I was drawn to a community that champions mentorship, collaboration, and supporting female creators through their whole careers, rather than just a single project.

You are an accomplished screenwriter and playwright. What are your favorite similarities and differences between those storytelling techniques and opportunities?

At their core, both mediums are about character, voice, and conflict – if the audience doesn’t feel in response to the writing, then it’s not working. Period.

The biggest difference for me is the organization of ideas. There’s a saying, “screenwriting is structure.” For me, the exciting part of screenwriting is figuring out how to be creative and solve problems within the confines of the hero’s journey. Playwriting, on the other hand, can feel like the Wild West in terms of structure, but forces you to be a lot more in-depth and intimate with the characters since there’s not necessarily a three-act structure to hide behind.

I love moving between the two because each sharpens the other: playwriting strengthens my dialogue and characters, while screenwriting pushes me to think about how to organize these ideas to tell the most effective story.

You studied Egyptology at Oxford (so cool!!) and wrote a buddy comedy about the mummy of a Pharaoh’s 29th favorite wife. Tell us more about your academic learnings, experience, and how it inspired this project! 

Thank you for asking! One of the reasons why I wanted to study Egyptology was to gain experience in a topic that seemingly had nothing to do with film or screenwriting. But unexpectedly, I got to see that strange, human, and surprisingly funny history can be.

Ancient Egypt is often presented as this epic and serious civilization, but then you might stumble upon a tablet about one guy complaining that his neighbor is super annoying. If you’re looking for it, you’ll find plenty of petty rivalries, bureaucracy, and comedy in the past. Egyptology was a great exercise in terms of learning to tap into a character emotionally with whom I had nothing in common.

Do you have a formative “I want to be a writer!” story or early memory you can share?

I don’t remember a single lightning-bolt moment so much as a slow realization that writing was the thing that made sense to me. I was the kid constantly making up stories in elementary school, and would walk out of a movie immediately thinking how I would do it differently. At some point, I realized I wasn’t just consuming stories – I was constantly trying to get under the hood like a mechanic to figure out how they worked.

What has been the most fulfilling project you’ve worked on so far? How did it shape your passion for your work?

The most fulfilling project so far has been as an Associate Producer on LOSER, a project directed and written by Colleen McGuinness (30 Rock, Ramy). I first came onboard the project as a PA in 2023 when it was a short, then Colleen asked me back for the feature-length adaptation, which wrapped last December in NJ.

In both cases, I was grateful to be trusted to rise through the ranks quickly (I was still in college during the short!). I had to learn on the job all about gap loans, incentives, and about a million different kinds of tax forms. Seeing a project move from an early draft to a room full of collaborators – actors, directors, audiences – has continually reinforced my passion for the work and made me excited for the day when it can be based on my own words.

Tell us about a dream project you want to work on next!

Right now, I’m working on a handful of exciting spec scripts, and pilots. I also recently qualified to join the Writers Guild of America East and have been using their resources to polish up some scripts and get them out there.

My dream project would probably be a character-driven comedy that blends emotional realism with heightened, slightly absurd storytelling – something that feels grounded but takes big swings. I’m especially excited by stories about women navigating ambition, friendship, and identity in ways that are messy, funny, and unapologetically specific.

Connect with Sophia’s work at her IMDb page and on Instagram @sophiabaldassari! 

(All images courtesy of Sophia Baldassari)