Today we’d like to introduce you to Xander Vitolic-Bernstein.
Hi Xander, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
I started my path as a writer with a bungled TV adaptation of a YA novel series called Animorphs when I was 12. I thought, “No one has made this yet, so why don’t I?” Growing up in Maryland, it’s not like I was exposed to a lot of film and TV folks, so I spent a lot of hours on the floor of Barnes & Noble reading how-to books like Save the Cat! and The Screenwriter’s Bible, as well as whatever shooting scripts they decided to publish back then. The screenplay I wrote was garbage, but I finished it, which was the really incredible thing. Then I wrote another, and another after that. I never stopped and even picked up a few awards along the way. In 2021, I started co-writing with my wife, Dunja, an Emmy-winning producer who currently works at Netflix. Our first script together, Temporal, won Grand Prize in the Save the Cat! Screenplay Contest, which got us some very exciting meetings. Our spec episode of Severance was a second-rounder at Austin Film Festival, and now we’re excited to have just finished another awesome sci-fi pilot and starting work on a feature film.
So that’s the screenwriting portion, but there’s a lot more. As a kid, I spent summers working in my dad’s laboratory, and since my college didn’t have a film program, I studied microbiology and military history instead. After a stint assisting the producer on a documentary, I found myself working as a microbiologist and then as a neurobiologist. From 2014-2020, I managed a neuroscience lab at UCLA, working on cures for spinal cord injury and depression. It was a fascinating, intellectually challenging journey, but in the back of my mind, I always knew it wasn’t my path. That’s why I kept writing screenplays and volunteering as a PA for whatever low-budget indie set would have me.
In 2020, I left UCLA and got a job writing podcasts for the now-defunct Parcast Network (formerly part of Spotify). I wrote over two dozen episodes across four different shows on everything from Bigfoot to bubonic plague and missing nuclear submarines. When that dried up, I jumped over to the company where I am now – creating healthy cookbooks and producing live Amazon shows and podcasts.
I also spend a lot of time volunteering. I am co-President of the Junior Hollywood Radio & TV Society (an organization for young Hollywood professionals), and a Congressional Liaison with the non-partisan Citizens’ Climate Lobby. I run lobby meetings with elected representatives, organize events, and lead a workshop teaching folks how to write effective Letters to the Editor. And once a month, Dunja and I make and distribute lunch bags to our unhoused neighbors. I’ve learned that service isn’t just a nice thing to do – it’s essential food for the better parts of our nature.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Writing, especially screenwriting, is a torturous profession. You have to be able to handle constant rejection and find the inner fire to keep going. For someone like me who is prone to cycles of depression, it can be absolutely debilitating to look at the years dedicated to becoming a screenwriter and still feel like that dream is so far away. I’ve won reputable contests, and every script I’ve written in the past 10 years has been at least a quarterfinalist somewhere, but I’m still not repped, not pitching, not optioned, and not staffed on a TV show. And what’s more, I know that when those things happen, it will only be the start. I have friends who have sold projects, who have staffed on popular shows, who are still struggling to find work or get their stuff made. It’s a brutal industry, and it won’t get easier. Which means that the real battle is inside – how to find strength, joy, and fulfillment even when things are tough, and I want to throw in the towel. That’s not a Hollywood thing – that’s a human thing.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
“The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” – James Baldwin.
Let’s be honest – Hollywood has a LOT of screenwriters. There are many writers out there with more skill, who are more prolific and have greater diversity of experiences. True, not many screenwriters have a background in neuroscience (although there’s another very talented former neuroscientist in my writers’ group!) But what really sets me apart is my philosophical approach to life. I’m obsessed with the bigger questions: why are we here? What gives life meaning? What makes us human? As we enter an age of AI-generated illusion and distraction, I think the role of the artist is to act as an anchor, a mirror, and a guide. As artists, it is our responsibility to remind people what sets us apart from the machines we depend on. And as filmmakers, we have to do it in an engaging, entertaining way.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you, and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Covid was a powerful teacher, but I think everyone got a different lesson plan. What really surprised me was that we had this terrifying global event that should have brought humanity together against a common enemy. But that’s not what happened at all. The cracks in our society just got wider as we staked out our ideological turfs. As a country, we have plenty of obstacles to overcome. Climate change, inequality, injustice, mass shootings… the list goes on. But if we look deeper, we see that most of it comes from disconnection. We wall ourselves off in algorithmically generated castles and throw spears at the castle next door. We are a society of increasingly isolated, lonely humans who don’t feel a connection to the Earth we walk on, the food we eat, or the people we encounter.
Gandhi said, “If you don’t find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for Him further.” If society is sick, then this is the cure. And it’s not something you can read, nod along with, and then go about your day. You have to remind yourself over and over again. It has to inform the way you act, the way you talk to people. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary.
Contact Info:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/xander.bernstein
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xander-bernstein-741b734b/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/XanderBernstein
