ABSTRACT

Here are the choices made by Jeffrey Wigand and the good things that motivated them:

• He faxes 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman, telling him he can’t talk to him, and then faxes him again. (Motivator: politeness and curiosity)

• He goes to meet Bergman and asks about the consulting job. (Motivator: money for his family)

• In his nervousness, he lets slip that the report Bergman wants him to analyze is “just a drop in the bucket” and tells Bergman that he knows more than he’s allowed to tell because of a confidentiality agreement he signed as head of research and development for a major tobacco company. (Motivator: honesty, integrity, and sincerity)

• He is threatened by his former boss but refuses to sign an extended confidentiality agreement. (Motivator: courage, sense of fair play, and righteous indignation)

• He moves into a smaller house and takes a job as a high school teacher to keep a low profile. (Motivator: care for family and caution)

• He talks to Bergman again after Bergman tells him he didn’t sell Wigand out to his former employer. (Motivator: contrition at having been too quick to blame)

• Because he finds a footprint in his yard and thinks he’s being watched, Wigand goes to meet Bergman to tell him what he knows. (Motivator: righteous indignation, courage)

• We discover why Wigand los this job: He refused to go along with the company’s decision to leave a known carcinogen in its cigarettes because that chemical enhanced the nicotine delivery system that would continue to addict consumers. We realize what a really good guy he has been all along. (Motivator: integrity, commitment to right)

• He receives death threats and struggles with the choice to go public on 60 Minutes. (Motivator: worry for his family and their safety)

• He agrees to appear on 60 Minutes. (Motivator: sees importance of truth to public health)

• He doesn’t tell his wife what he plans to do and when she finds out and objects, he still does the interview because he knows they won’t air it until they are sure it’s legal to do so. (Motivator: misplaced loyalty to his word to network)

• He agrees to give a deposition in a legal battle in Mississippi because it might get him out of his confidentiality agreement and allow the interview to be aired. (Motivator: worry about legal repercussions and the effects they may have on his family)

• Even though his wife tells him “I can’t do this anymore,” he still refuses to discuss it until he gets back from testifying. He seems to believe that testifying is more important than his marriage. (Motivator: desire to honor the promise he made to testify)

• He testifies even though he is told he might have to go to jail when he leaves Mississippi and re-enters Kentucky. (Motivator: belief in his cause)

• He continues to answer questions even though he is warned by a Kentucky lawyer not to. (Motivator: belief in his cause)

• When he gets home, he discovers that his wife and children are gone and yet he still wants his interview to air. (Motivator: wants to show his family what he did)

3. Write down the flaws your good character will have to overcome to solve the central problem of the film or to deliver its essential message and to achieve a satisfactory character arc.