Screenwriter Mike White wrote and starred in the independent film Chuck & Buck and earlier wrote for the TV shows Dawson's Creek and Freaks and Geeks.

White's latest film is The Good Girl, which stars Jennifer Aniston as a thirtysomething woman who feels trapped in her small Texas town — but sees no way out. Jake Gyllenhaal co-stars as Aniston's love interest, a younger man who calls himself Holden, and White appears in the movie as well, playing a retail-store security guard with an evangelical bent.

White talks to Fresh Air host Terry Gross about the dramatic possibilities in alienated characters — and about how his life changed when his religious-ghostwriter father, Mel White, came out of the closet when Mike was an adolescent.

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