Film Courage: You say Andy Dufresne is not the protagonist in The Shawshank Redemption?
Brooks Elms, Screenwriter/Filmmaker: That’s correct. Technically the helpful way to think about the protagonist is the one who changes the most and has the most agency and impact on the change. In that story Andy [Tim Robbins] for sure drives the narrative. I mean he is a freight train of hope all the way through that movie. He hopes right in the beginning, he hopes in the middle and he hopes at the end and he has a little bit of a doubt here and there but for the most part he’s non-stop hope. He dug himself out of that damn prison with like a spoon or something, you know? Ridiculous or I guess a rock hammer. Red [Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding] the Morgan Freeman character it’s not just that he’s narrating but it’s also significant that he’s narrating because he starts in despair and he says and they get to the middle and he’s kind of picking up that this guy Andy (and they’ve already been there 15 years at that point) picking up he’s this guy Andy’s all about hope and he goes Hope? You can’t hope in here, it’ll get you killed in here. Right? That’s that part of us that considers hope versus despair…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
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