More questions about the usage of real names, scenarios and places...

KISS

I would attempt to stay away from real personalities.
It complicates your script as Laywers go through scripts in the reading phase.
They would be very much inclined to nix anything that smells offbeat.

Keep It Simple Screenwriting

All of your examples are just fine. A fictional character's negative opinion of someone's acting ability, for instance, is not "defamatory" in any way--especially if that character is an actor herself.

As for the stuff about having your character be on the New England Patriots or working as a high-level manager at Microsoft, that's fine too, as long as your character is clearly fictional and can't be mistaken for any real-life football player or high-tech executive.

[Note: my expertise on this is based on my experience as co-author of a book that took place at a very famous public place, in which very famous real-life people were named in passing. We got a long and detailed memo from the Big New York Publishers' attorneys about this stuff.]

Now, the question of whether these are the best writing choices, in terms of creating character, is a different one. To me, the passages you cite here (especially the last one) seem a bit over-energetic in the name-dropping.

Empress nailed it.

The one thing I would caution you, and it has nothing to do with legalities, is to make sure you're not dropping in names for realism when you actually might just be distracting the reader.

Is there a reason to say Bill Belicheck, when you could just say coach? By using the real name, you're dating your writing a bit, and adding the name doesn't really propel the narrative in any meaningful way.

KrystalR said:

Could I say something like my character dated Brad Pitt before he married Jen Aniston?

Click to expand...

Yes, as long as your character can't be confused with any of Brad Pitt's actual girlfriends of that era.

To be on the safe side, don't use real people as characters in your novel, unless they're dead, and preferably long dead (see, e.g., The Difference Engine [by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson] or Mortal Love [by Elizabeth Hand]: those novels use real historical figures from the 19th century as characters). In general, the right to privacy ends at death... but there may be other rights implicated by using real characters, so to be on the safe side, limit your use of real people as characters to people who are either long-dead public/historical figures or deceased members of your own family.

However, I don't see a problem with your character saying "I even lost a role to Jessica Simpson." Your character can have opinions--even obnoxious opinions--about real people and real things. And I think you could probably have a FICTIONAL character (not a real name AND not modeled too closely on any real, living person) who talks about socializing with Bill and Melinda Gates or whatever other famous person, as long as the living famous people (the Gateses, etc.) are just very minor peripheral figures--like, if you just mention that your character socialized with them, that should be fine, but if you say "XYZ thing happened and Bill Gates said X and then he slept with my wife" etc. etc. etc., you could be in trouble. (Another example of what's okay: Elizabeth Hand's Generation Loss has as its main character a fictional photographer who talks about hanging out with various real people from the 1970s New York art scene, and she has opinions about real photographers. If one of that character's opinions was that a real photographer had, say, plagiarized something, then Hand might be risking a defamation suit--but she doesn't go that far).

I've been asking myself similar questions so I'm glad I've come across this thread