Um, yes, I've become a bit Van Houten-y about it, actually. John: Haha, a lot, um, yeah, quite a bit right now. And, you know, through our friendship, I didn't feel confident, I guess, about telling the story. It was really important to me not to appropriate anyone's story, and Esther's life is very different from the story in the novel, but, um, I just couldn't not write about it anymore, so I did.Ĭhris: We see in the film how much fan mail that Van Houten gets. John: Well, I was really good friends with a young woman named Esther, um, who died of cancer in 2010, when she was 16. But yeah, I wanted to get the, you know- Isaac's a teenager who cares about the way he looks just like any other teenager, so no matter if he's sick or not, he wants to look good.Ĭhris: John, I read that you were, at first, intimidated about taking on this story.
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Nat: Yeah, I mean, I had to be actually blind, so it was gonna black out, um, whatever sunglasses I wore so I couldn't actually see. We talked a little bit about this last night, but that was like a big process, picking out the right pair of sunglasses. just feel lucky to get to be a part of that project, and, you know, get to play such a great, funny, but also, you know, a character with depth, and it's exciting.Ĭhris: You wear sunglasses the whole film. John: I don't think they're crazy I think they're awesome. At the end of the book, I was like, John Green really gets me, you know, and I feel like that's how all those crazy people in that picture on the cover of the newspaper feel. How did this come together for you, like, and what was the timeline like that? But in this movie, no, they're just regular teenagers with flaws, and they happen to have, you know, extraordinarily awful circumstance.Ĭhris: So, Nat, set this up for me.
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I mean, 'cause the stereotypical cancer character is that they're perfect besides their cancer. Nat: Yeah, and the characters' flaws have nothing to do with their illness. And I just wanted to take the healthy people out of it, and argue that everybody's life has meaning, and the meaning of your life is not about other people all the time. John: But they're all living with disability, and it was important to me that all of the characters in the movie, uh, be living with disability and with illness, because a lot of times in these stories, um, it's about, you know, some healthy person learning lessons from sick people. John: Yeah, but I wouldn't say it's a flaw, but they're all. They all have some sort of inherent flaw that, you know, stays with them for the whole film.
NAT WOLFF IN THE FAULT IN OUR STARS MOVIE
Um, it's not easy to make a movie in Hollywood where the main character has tubes in her nose for the entire movie, um, but they did it, and they kept their promise to stay faithful to the book.Ĭhris: And it's not just Hazel's character it's every single one of these characters. But the producers, Wyck and Isaac, just made a very compelling case that they were gonna make a really faithful adaptation. John: Yes, particularly quick considering that I didn't let anyone read it before it came out and I did not want to sell the rights. Can you kind of walk me through how that happened? Like, your book came out, and then within that month, you had already signed the movie deal. They really honored my book, and I just feel really lucky.Ĭhris: The turnaround here is really quick. I mean, I could never have imagined this this has just been an amazing experience, and I'm just so grateful to everyone who made the movie.
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It was amazing.Ĭhris: When you were writing this book, John, did you ever, you know, think that it would turn into something like this? I mean, Cleveland welcomed us so wonderfully. They're wearing "Okay? Okay." shirts, which means that they. John: And then, I hope that these people are okay. Or if he was there for us, that's awesome, too. Um, 'cause I suspect he's probably there for one of his kids, and he's just- that's great parenting. This is the front page of The Plain Dealer, the newspaper here in Cleveland.Ĭhris: Perhaps we could, you know, just take a look at some of the stuff that's going on here. Yeah.Ĭhris: I'm still trying to recover my, uh, you know, hearing here. I mean, the level of, uh, the screaming was uh. Chris: John, Nat, good to see you guys again.