Guy Ritchie wrote his best film by hand on a stack of napkins

In an interview with Alex Shin, Ritchie revealed that he suffers from “spectacular dyslexia,” which led him as a young man to write scripts in a way that, to a certain extent, only he could truly understand. As he told Shin:

“[M]When it comes to writing, my spelling hasn't improved since I was 12 years old. I know it won't improve, but there are some people who think it's an unconscious addiction to look like you can't spell. So yes. [‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’] was, I wrote on napkins and so on. And then I ended up writing it down in one of those math books, you know?”

If you've ever read a Quentin Tarantino screenplay, you know that Ritchie isn't the only one who isn't a great speller. But the transition from napkin to math book is certainly unique. Luckily for his staff, he hired “some smart people” to bring “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” into an industry-accepted screenplay format, which saved Jason Flemyng and Jason Statham from having to learn their lines with misspelled graph paper or whatever always. And Ritchie did everyone a huge favor by learning to type using the popular Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing software.

As far as spelling goes, it seems like a lost cause. “I actually type pretty well,” said Ritchie, “although I spell very badly. I can belt out words without looking at computers. That's one of those things that I'm pretty smug about, is that I can actually type.” “

If only he could write a script as good as “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” again. (In fact, Ritchie's body of work has been pretty solid throughout his career. And I have to admit, I'm a total sucker for Swept Away.)