Clare Sladden on Going All In: Building a Global Screenwriting Career from Australia
Posted on: Sep 18, 2025
Photo Credit: Tahlia Norrish and Clare SladdenClare Sladden has quietly built an impressive filmmaking career from her Meanjin (Brisbane, Australia) base. In just the past two years, Sladden has worked as the showrunner’s attachment on Good Cop/Bad Cop (Roku, Stan, and The CW), scored writing credits on NCIS: Sydney (Paramount+, Network 10) and the upcoming Sunny Nights (Stan), and was selected to take part in the prestigious 2025 Talent Gateway program (Australians in Film and Screen Australia).
The multi-hyphenate, represented by Lisa Mann Creative Management in Australia and CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in the United States, has carved out a specialty in female-driven stories that can travel well beyond Australia’s borders. From developing projects in writers’ rooms with seasoned U.S. showrunners, to seeing her own work take flight, Sladden’s trajectory offers a master class in strategic career building for emerging filmmakers navigating the global marketplace.
Here we talk to Sladden about going all in, career steps you can take this week, and more.
Key Insights
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Building a career in screenwriting often requires a moment of radical commitment — Sladden quit a stable career and restructured her life to fully pursue writing.
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Mentorship from seasoned showrunners like Bradford Winters (Pathological) and John Quaintance (Good Cop/Bad Cop) provided Sladden with practical lessons in tone, structure, and creative leadership.
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International success is possible while remaining based in Australia, but it requires consistently generating strong material and being strategic about timing representation.
Can you walk us through the moment you realized filmmaking could be more than a dream? What was happening in your life, and what concrete steps did you take next?
Back in 2015, I was working in sales in the bathroom industry. I’d been in the same job for almost seven years. I enjoyed it and was very good at it. I’d also been writing screenplays on the side for a couple of years, entering competitions, and I’d started to place in a few of them. But I wasn’t quite ready to take the leap and quit my job. My plan was to keep writing on the side until I could segue seamlessly from my career in the bathroom industry to a career in the Australian film and television industry. Because that’s such a well-trodden career path!
I think if I’d continued with that plan, I’d still be working my old job, because it’s difficult to segue into this industry, especially when you’re working full time. Luckily, my plan was disrupted in late 2015, when I found myself navigating a very stressful situation at work. This situation was frustrating and disappointing, but it brought everything into focus for me to the point where, after a breakfast meeting with my boss, I experienced an overwhelming moment of clarity. The finite nature of my time, and the importance of how I spend it, became very apparent. Choices that I’d previously made were no longer acceptable. I had an absolute sense of certainty that if I put everything into pursuing my dream [of] being a screenwriter, I would achieve it. After that moment of clarity, I felt as though I had changed on a cellular level. I couldn’t go back to my old way of thinking or being.
I quit my job. I had savings and knew I could afford to take time off. I’d been working in sales, project management, marketing and strategy. I knew the importance of having proof of my abilities as a screenwriter — basically, I needed a “product.” And I wanted to ensure the product was good. So, I started treating screenwriting like a job. I wrote daily to elevate my craft as quickly as possible, and in parallel, I began to write, direct and produce short films, which I then entered into film festivals.
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Wow, what a story! You had the opportunity to work with Bradford Winters on your drama series, Pathological, in 2021. Any standout takeaways from that experience?
Working with Brad was amazing. He was a very generous mentor. The biggest standout was that he taught me how to achieve a consistent tone on the page. Pathological is a crime thriller told through a comedic lens, and creating a unified tone across the pilot episode and series was incredibly important. Brad helped me understand, in a practical way, how to stabilize my tone and strike my own unique tonal balance. Most of the time, it wasn’t about taking a sledgehammer to the work — it was about being precise. Word choice is so important. Often, it was a matter of identifying and changing a handful of words or phrases that were spiking my tone. Honestly, it was one of the best lessons in craft I’ve received.
Any equally pivotal takeaways from working with American showrunner John Quaintance on Good Cop/Bad Cop?
Working on Good Cop/Bad Cop was a formative step in my career. John is such an experienced comedy writer and showrunner. I felt like I received a real-time primary class in how to protect and elevate a creative vision while being generous and inclusive. It was the second procedural I worked on [the first being NCIS: Sydney], and it was such a joy to apply my structural skills to a show so full of humor and heart.
Good Cop/Bad Cop Trailer (2025) Leighton Meester
You’re now represented by Lisa Mann Creative Management in Australia and CAA in the U.S. What was your strategy for getting international representation?
I wasn’t specifically looking for U.S. representation. It all happened fairly organically. I have a friend who is repped by CAA, and she mentioned me to her agent. That agent then read my work and wanted to chat, and it all went from there. I had always wanted U.S. representation, but I didn’t want to shoot my shot too early. You get one chance to make a first impression, and I didn’t want to chase something I wasn’t ready for. The way it all happened felt like a good and natural fit.
Relatedly, how have you approached advancing your career internationally while remaining based in Australia?
I think it’s about making sure I have material for my U.S. agents to send out — that I’m giving them the tools to “sell me.” Which can be a struggle, because if you’re working on other people’s shows while creating your own shows or features to sell here and in the U.S., that’s a lot of work. There are obviously going to be times when you’re prioritizing paid gigs over developing original material, but I think that’s just the balance you have to strike if you’re creating your own material and/or you have representation in multiple territories.
Are there any financial or tactical-practical realities you wished you’d been better prepared for when you were starting out?
I think I was uniquely prepared for the practical and financial realities of what I was undertaking because I was going all in. I was 100% committed to forging a sustainable screenwriting career, so I essentially restructured my life in a way that helped achieve that sustainability. From a practical perspective, that meant keeping my costs down. I don’t have kids. I don’t have a mortgage. Those two things have allowed me to be very flexible with my movements and choices. My thinking is always: How can I save the most money? How can I give myself the biggest buffer so that if I don’t work for a while, I’ll be fine? I have a 2009 Mazda2. It’s a [crappy], but reliable car. I would love a new car, but I don’t need a new car. And I’m not going to buy a new car until this one falls apart. I really hope I haven’t jinxed myself with this declaration …
If someone reading this has a completed screenplay sitting on their laptop right now, what are three high-leverage actions they could take this week?
- Get good notes. When I was starting out, my definition of a “completed” screenplay was very different from my current definition. Screenwriting is innately iterative, and it often takes more drafts than you’d think to reveal the best version of the story. The best drafts I write come after receiving great notes. So, the first thing I would do is get a set of industry-quality notes. Decide which notes resonate with the story you want to tell. Then rewrite from those notes. Then repeat that process. Multiple times.
- Strategize. Make a list of every screenwriting competition and/or fellowship you want to enter. Make a list of every initiative and funding opportunity you’re eligible for. In Australia, we have opportunities on a local, state and federal level. To apply for these programs, you need supporting documentation. Do you have a logline? A one-page synopsis? A pitch document? A personal creative statement? As a side note, writing the supporting documentation for these kinds of submissions makes you examine your work in new ways. Even if your application isn’t successful, the work will have been worth it for the discoveries you make during the process.
- Start working on your next project. The chances of someone reading your screenplay and wanting to make it are incredibly low. Having a slate of projects increases the chances of something getting made. It also increases the chances of your work being good. The lessons you learn writing one project, transfer to and elevate your next project. The more you write, the better you get.
Finally, any films or series you’ve watched and loved recently?
Not surprisingly, I watch a lot of TV. Over the last few months, I’ve really enjoyed The Pitt, Dept. Q, Apple Cider Vinegar, Thou Shalt Not Steal, The Studio, Murderbot, High Potential, The White Lotus season 3, and The Residence. In the feature space, I tend to watch a lot of horror at the cinema. I really enjoyed Final Destination Bloodlines, and 28 Years Later. I also loved the New Zealand film, Tinā, and can’t wait to see Together and The Naked Gun at the cinema. Also, just to note, I haven’t watched Severance season 2 yet, which is crazy. After I’m done with Severance, it’ll be Hacks season 4 and Platonic season 2.
Special thanks to Clare Sladden for her time. Check out her website for the latest news on her current and upcoming projects.
Tahlia Norrish is an Aussie-Brit actor, writer and current MPhil Candidate at the University of Queensland’s School of Sport Sciences. After graduating from both The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (Distinction, Acting & Musical Theatre) and Rose Bruford College (First Class Hons, Acting), Tahlia founded The Actor’s Dojo — a coaching program pioneering peak performance and holistic well-being for actors.
Takeaways for Emerging Filmmakers
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Treat screenwriting like a profession from day one: write daily, produce proof of ability, and invest in multiple projects.
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Seek quality feedback, embrace iterative rewrites, and leverage competitions, fellowships, and funding programs to sharpen both craft and pitch materials.
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Keep overhead low and flexibility high so you can weather the financial ups and downs of the industry.