Matt Kester, a BYU–Hawaii history professor, is taking a six-month leave of absence from teaching to be a screenwriter for ABC’s new television series Forever. He will work with professional writers and directors in Hollywood, including Matthew Miller, the former executive producer of Chuck and the head writer and creator of Forever. Kester has written for television before. He wrote several screenplays before creating one for a show he entitled “Prodigal Son,” which got him attention in Hollywood. “That got my foot in the door. It got me an agent and a manager,” says Kester.
Forever, starring Ioan Gruffudd, is about a New York City medical examiner who cannot die. “He’s around death all the time but is immortal,” explains Kester. “But it is not so much a supernatural show—it’s pretty grounded.” Kester has joined a team of ten writers for the first 20 weeks of the show, discussing characters and story lines and creating plot outlines and scripts for the show. Also, he will go to New York for filming once a month. ABC recently created the pilot episode of the show, and the trailer can be seen on YouTube.
Although he enjoys life in Hollywood and New York, he looks forward to his return to Laie after the completion of the show. “The Hollywood world is very tenuous,” says Kester. “I enjoy the creative and commercial aspects of it, but I don’t enjoy the unpredictability of it. Screenwriting is fun and great, but teaching is my passion.” Kester plans to use the knowledge gained from this experience to create and teach a screenwriting class at BYU–Hawaii when he returns January 2015. “I’ll be able to teach students some really practical skills about writing for production,” Kester says. “I hope students will sign up for the course. It’s really something that students from any major can take.”