'Black Bag' Writer David Koepp on 'Mission Impossible,' Spy Romance, and 'Jurassic Park'

Almost 30 years ago, screenwriter David Koepp was doing research for a draft of the first Mission Impossible movie and talking to a lot of real-life spies. Throughout that process, he learned that many people in the profession struggled to lead normal lives due to the level of secrecy surrounding them and ended up dating others in their field. That realization first got him thinking of the story in Black Bag, director Steven Soderbergh's slick new spy thriller in which a married couple (Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett) begin to question whether one of them is double-crossing their agency.

Koepp's script is his second collaboration with Soderbergh released this year following the haunted house thriller Presence. Both movies feature Koepp's talent for small-scale scenarios, but he's equally adroit at the other side of the equation. In 1993, Koepp's wrote the script for Steven Spielberg's groundbreaking blockbuster Jurassic Park, and the scribe returns to the franchise for the first time since then this summer with Jurassic World Rebirth.

In the interview below, Koepp -- a neighbor of the Playhouse in our Long Island community -- shares his Black Bag journey and how he writes for different audiences.