Award winner offers own kidney to write 'Star Wars'

• Five screenwriters were honored as winners of the 2012 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting.
• James DiLapo said during his speech he'd give a kidney to write the new 'Star Wars'

LOS ANGELES -- James DiLapo might have won a prestigious Academy Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting on Thursday night, but he wants his next job real bad.

The New York University film school graduate even offered to give up a kidney (or a key internal organ) to write the screenplay for the next Star Wars movie.

DiLapo made the humorous plea to the companies making the new Star Wars film while accepting the his Nicholl Fellowship Thursday night at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel

"If anyone from Disney, or LucasArts is here or is going to see this online," said DiLapo, "If you bring me in to even talk about Star Wars, just to even discuss working on the screenplay - you can pick, a kidney or bone marrow. Any internal organ. Just pick one."

The comment caused the audience at the awards program to break out into laughter.

(DiLapo appears to be out of luck, on Friday night Lucasfilms confirmed that screenwriter Michael Arndt who wrote Little Miss Sunshine would write Star Wars: Episode VII.)

Four other writers besides DiLapo were honored as winners of the 2012 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition. Each received a $35,000 prize.

Fellowships are awarded with the understanding that the recipients will each complete a feature-length screenplay during the year.

This year's winners included:

Nikole Beckwith, Brooklyn, NY, Stockholm, Pennsylvania

Sean Robert Daniels, Laezonia, Gauteng, South Africa, Killers

James DiLapo, New York, NY, Devils at Play

Allan Durand, Lafayette, LA, Willie Francis Must Die Again

Michael Werwie, Los Angeles, CA, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile

The winners were selected from a record 7,197 scripts submitted. This is the first time entries from Louisiana and South Africa have been selected as winners.