Monday, August 08, 2005
Meant to be
Yesterday afternoon, I was watching the Rosanna Arquette documentary Searching for Debra Winger, and one of the actresses she interviewed was talking about the lack of female writers and directors in Hollywood. Naturally, this led me to daydream about how awesome it would be if my novel were optioned as a screenplay. (I realize that for this to happen, more people than just my friends and friends of friends would have to read it, but whatever. Indulge me.)
Truth be told, this is not the first time I’ve thought about the novel being made into a movie or, more specifically, who I’d want cast in the movie. I’ve always thought Katie Holmes would have the right look and spunky personality to play Julia, but I’d be wary of comparisons to First Daughter. (And believe me, I want to distance myself from that movie as much as possible.) Plus, I’m not too jazzed about the thought of Crazy Cruise hanging around the set, stealing my leading lady away for make-out photo ops every five minutes. No, Katie Holmes clearly wouldn’t work.
So I turned to my second choice: Rachel Bilson, who, when you think about it, is really just the Katie Holmes for a new generation. Brunette? Check. Spunky? Check. Rose to prominence playing an adorable girl next door on teen melodrama? Check. And her boyfriend, while rumored to be somewhat of an ass in real life, still possesses the promising trait of not being completely insane. Perfect.
Later that night, I happened to be leafing through the latest issue of QuizFest (thank you, Anne) and came across a sidebar about Rachel Bilson in which she says that she would like her choices of movie roles to be similar to Katie Holmes’. Is that fate or what? Not only that, but she also reveals that she’s a huge Jeff Buckley fan, which means she would probably greatly appreciate the prominence of the song “Hallelujah” in my story. (Even though Julia technically favors the Leonard Cohen version, but whatever. Rachel is an actress. She can act like she prefers the Leonard Cohen version.) And she’s currently filming a movie with Zach Braff, which means maybe we could convince him to direct the movie. And then, of course, he would fall madly in love with me and dump Mandy Moore, and we would live happily ever after.
Now if I can just find a studio exec who will read my novel, want to turn it into a movie, and give me full reign to choose both the cast and director. Shouldn’t be too hard.
The story about Peter Jennings you won’t hear anywhere else
In the next few days, I imagine we’ll probably all hear lots of stories about the (now) late great Peter Jennings. But there’s one story you’re probably not going to hear elsewhere, unless you happen to be talking to my friend Cara. This is the story of how Peter Jennings learned about the Backstreet Boys.
During the summer of 2001, Cara’s internship at World News Tonight coincided with Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean’s admission into rehab. ABC planned to run a short piece about it during the evening newscast, but there was one problem: Peter Jennings, who, according to Cara, knew pretty much everything, admitted that he had no idea who the Backstreet Boys were. So Cara, being the teen pop aficionado that she is, explained to him the finer points of boy bands. However, I’m not sure Cara’s love of the genre quite transferred to Peter Jennings, because apparently, during the newscast, he said something along the lines of, “A.J. McLean, member of the boy band—yes, folks, that’s what they actually call them—the Backstreet Boys…”
Still, I think we can all take solace in the fact that Peter Jennings died knowing who the Backstreet Boys were, even if he never really learned to appreciate them.
Yesterday afternoon, I was watching the Rosanna Arquette documentary Searching for Debra Winger, and one of the actresses she interviewed was talking about the lack of female writers and directors in Hollywood. Naturally, this led me to daydream about how awesome it would be if my novel were optioned as a screenplay. (I realize that for this to happen, more people than just my friends and friends of friends would have to read it, but whatever. Indulge me.)
Truth be told, this is not the first time I’ve thought about the novel being made into a movie or, more specifically, who I’d want cast in the movie. I’ve always thought Katie Holmes would have the right look and spunky personality to play Julia, but I’d be wary of comparisons to First Daughter. (And believe me, I want to distance myself from that movie as much as possible.) Plus, I’m not too jazzed about the thought of Crazy Cruise hanging around the set, stealing my leading lady away for make-out photo ops every five minutes. No, Katie Holmes clearly wouldn’t work.
So I turned to my second choice: Rachel Bilson, who, when you think about it, is really just the Katie Holmes for a new generation. Brunette? Check. Spunky? Check. Rose to prominence playing an adorable girl next door on teen melodrama? Check. And her boyfriend, while rumored to be somewhat of an ass in real life, still possesses the promising trait of not being completely insane. Perfect.
Later that night, I happened to be leafing through the latest issue of QuizFest (thank you, Anne) and came across a sidebar about Rachel Bilson in which she says that she would like her choices of movie roles to be similar to Katie Holmes’. Is that fate or what? Not only that, but she also reveals that she’s a huge Jeff Buckley fan, which means she would probably greatly appreciate the prominence of the song “Hallelujah” in my story. (Even though Julia technically favors the Leonard Cohen version, but whatever. Rachel is an actress. She can act like she prefers the Leonard Cohen version.) And she’s currently filming a movie with Zach Braff, which means maybe we could convince him to direct the movie. And then, of course, he would fall madly in love with me and dump Mandy Moore, and we would live happily ever after.
Now if I can just find a studio exec who will read my novel, want to turn it into a movie, and give me full reign to choose both the cast and director. Shouldn’t be too hard.
The story about Peter Jennings you won’t hear anywhere else
In the next few days, I imagine we’ll probably all hear lots of stories about the (now) late great Peter Jennings. But there’s one story you’re probably not going to hear elsewhere, unless you happen to be talking to my friend Cara. This is the story of how Peter Jennings learned about the Backstreet Boys.
During the summer of 2001, Cara’s internship at World News Tonight coincided with Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean’s admission into rehab. ABC planned to run a short piece about it during the evening newscast, but there was one problem: Peter Jennings, who, according to Cara, knew pretty much everything, admitted that he had no idea who the Backstreet Boys were. So Cara, being the teen pop aficionado that she is, explained to him the finer points of boy bands. However, I’m not sure Cara’s love of the genre quite transferred to Peter Jennings, because apparently, during the newscast, he said something along the lines of, “A.J. McLean, member of the boy band—yes, folks, that’s what they actually call them—the Backstreet Boys…”
Still, I think we can all take solace in the fact that Peter Jennings died knowing who the Backstreet Boys were, even if he never really learned to appreciate them.
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