FILM INTERVIEW: NICHOLAS SPARKS

Author of 'Dear John' Describes the Tranisition of Story From Book to Big Screen

By: Izumi Hasegawa

February 6, 2010

Izumi Hasegawa: Is this your fourth film adaptation? Or are there more?

Nicholas Sparks: Sixth. Time flies. Actually, I think it’ll be the fifth, but I did The Notebook, Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, and Nights in Rodanthe, and then this one. The Last Song finished filming — that comes out in April. I think they start filming The Lucky One in May. That was the novel last year.

IH: Why do you bother to write the novel? Why not just jump ahead to the screenplay?

NS: I’m a novelist at heart, and that’s how I make my living — I write novels and love. I’ve had a run of good fortune with the studios, but I’m a novelist. That could end at any time. I’ve written novels that I was sure would sell to Hollywood and would make big movies. Nope, they’re still languishing out in Neverland. But I’ve had a fairly good run.

IH: Because of that good run, has it affected how you write your novels — not with the expectation but perhaps with the anticipation that it might be one that somebody is going to want to adapt?

NS: No, in the end, it is for me. The single goal is to write the best novel I can. Whether or not it gets made or gets purchased has very little to do with it. Even, for instance, when I did The Last Song and I wrote the screenplay for that, for me, it was primarily in the conception and all of this going to be a novel. I wrote the screenplay and then they made that too. But I’m a novelist. I’m not a screenwriter, not an actor. I live in North Carolina — far away from here.

IH: Have the movies impacted the way you write novels?

NS: No, not really. They don’t necessarily impact what I write, but they do impact what I don’t write, because what I try to do, with any of my novels, is I try to make them feel very original. In this world that we live in, you have originality in literature, but you also have television. You’ve got movies. I’ll cut to the chase and make it very simple. I write love stories. I could never write a love story based on or that was set on the Titanic. That was never a novel. It would be original as a novel, but it was a very big film. So if I see an idea that’s been done in film, I try to avoid that because, again, I’m just doing my best to be original.

IH: What are some of your favorite love stories? Because I think to do a love story on film is maybe one of the hardest things because you’re always walking that line of just being ridiculous.

NS: Drama versus melodrama. It’s one of the hardest things you can do, sure.

IH: What are some love stories? Brief Encounter was one I always thought was a great one. But what are some that you think they really got it right?

NS: Well, of course I think they did a wonderful job with Dear John, and I think it was largely modeled on probably the best film love story ever made, Casablanca. If you remember that film, you’ve got Rick played by Humphrey Bogart. He’s got the tickets that will get [them out of the country]. The woman shows up with her husband and he’s in the Czechoslovakian Resistance or something along those lines — got to get out or the Nazis are going to kill him. If Rick gives them the tickets, he doesn’t get the girl. If he saves her husband’s life, he doesn’t get the girl. This is essentially that story. It’s just a modern, updated twist on that story and, of course, with its own distinct elements.

IH: You said you don’t necessarily write with a film adaptation in mind, but would you argue that some stories should be read and not necessarily seen?

NS: I would say that there are certain of my novels that I think would be very tough to adapt to film and that will probably never be adapted for that reason.

IH: Come back to that drama versus melodrama issue, because I think one of the things that characterizes your work is you don’t shy away from sentiment, which can often be perceived as sentimentality, which is sometimes poison where films are concerned.

NS: It’s poison as far as literature is concerned as well. There is a fine line I have to walk throughout the writing process in a novel, and it’s the same line that Lasse [Hallstrom] had to walk, and it is this line between drama and melodrama, and it is this line between evoking genuine emotional power and being manipulative. I would agree — that’s just about the hardest thing you can do because you are talking about stories that are very internally conflict-driven and it’s real easy to go overboard. They did not do that in this film, and that’s one of the reasons why I think people are really responding to the film.

IH: It’s funny because the context in this discussion is that melodrama is a pejorative. Do you think melodrama is another genre or is it a lesser genre? For example, William Wyler made wonderful movies with Bette Davis, all melodrama. Douglas Sirk made great movies…

NS: Sure, and that is different than what I do. I write drama.

IH: What’s your working schedule? Do you make story notes about your ideas and various events and then say, “Okay, I’m going to write from today 9:00-5:00 every Monday through Friday”?

NS: Oh, wouldn’t that be nice? No, it doesn’t work like that for me. I am very clear on the story before I sit down to write. I know the beginning. I know the end. I know the major elements. I know the turning points here and there within the novels. And that, for me, is usually enough to get me started. Then a typical week would probably be I’ll write four days out of seven, and let’s say from 9:30 til 3:30 with a break — a half-hour for lunch, or something like that. When I sit down to write, my goal is to write 2,000 words, and that’s what I try to do.

IH: Do you hate happy endings?

NS: I’ve had happy endings. [Laughs] Happy endings are easy. Tragic endings are easy. What you have here with Dear John is a bittersweet ending. This is just about the hardest thing to pull off. You can’t hate him. You can’t hate her. They just can’t be together. [Laughs]

IH: Nowadays, it’s nice to see a love story that’s more realistic. I feel like one of the biggest problems — and one of the biggest risks you take as a writer — is… A lot of kids compare their own relationships to the one on screen. It’s not exactly putting the greatest idea in their heads. This was a great realistic ending.

NS: I was very pleased. I thought Channing [Tatum] did a great job. I thought Amanda [Seyfried] did a great job, and I was very pleased with the way Lasse handled the script. The screenwriter did a very good job too, in adapting it. It’s not, of course, exactly the same as the novel, but the changes they made I think really improved it as a film. I’m okay with that. Films are very different mediums than literature. One is a story told in words; one is a story told in pictures. Some things work better in some; other things work better in the other. As long as you capture the spirit of the characters and the spirit and the intent of the film and the basic journey, I’m pretty okay with that.

IH: Did you have a say in the casting as well?

NS: I have no say in anything big. [Laughs] I have no say in anything interesting for you guys. I’ve got nothing for you.

IH: Do you want more control?

NS: No, I don’t. I’m very happy. I’m a novelist and I live in a small town in the South. I’ve got five children. That’s my life and that’s what I do.

IH: Do you even go to set, or do you just go, “I sold it. Move onto the next book…”?

NS: I went to the set for a day and that was it.

IH: I remember when we had the interviews for Cider House Rules, John Irving sat in a chair similar to what you’re doing and he said, “If you take the check and allow them to adapt your book, you have no business complaining what they do with it because once you’ve cashed the check…”

NS: Of course. That’s exactly right. I’m in a fortunate position, compared to a lot of writers, that I can pick and choose who I work with, for the most part, because there might be two or three producers, for instance, that are interested in a project of mine. I pick people that I like and I pick people that I think understand what I’m trying to do. Not everybody does, whether it’s a director or a producer or whatever. But I’ve been very fortunate.

IH: That idea of risk that came up a moment ago, I think, is intriguing because another risk I think you take is putting situations that people can directly identify with. I’m thinking of using the autism and Asberger’s [syndrome] as elements of the story where it is now clear that a lot of people are dealing with it in their real lives which could take them out of your story and put them in their own life. Is that okay with you?

NS: Of course. My second son has some of these issues. I don’t know what his exact diagnosis is. It’s a big long spectrum. He’s somewhere in that spectrum, and once you’re in the spectrum, you can move up or down or get better or worse and all of these things. For me, that was one of the great elements in that film. I thought the relationship between John and his father was important to the film, and I thought Richard Jenkins and Channing did a good job. There are some very moving moments between those two – whether he’s getting on the bus and his dad doesn’t even know how to hug him, to he’s in the hospital and he says, “Dad, I wrote you a letter. Read it later. But Dad, just lock into I have to do something now.” So Channing reads it to Richard. It’s one of the great scenes.

IH: I think it’s fascinating to see the emotion coming out in you reliving something that you created.

NS: It’s nice. They did a very good job.

IH: You wrote with a vision, obviously. Going back to what we were saying, once you sell your screenplay, all bets are off? Is it difficult to then see that this director has another vision of something you’ve written?

NS: Sometimes. I suppose that would be an issue. I tend to have adaptations that are fairly close, unlike let’s say John Irving. You read a John Irving book, it’s 900 pages and there’s what, 15, 20 characters sometimes? Or, at least let’s say six to eight. I write two to three-character stories and they’re smaller, so you can capture most of what I have in my novel in the course of a film.

IH: Last time I interviewed you, you talked about how you first met your wife at the beach and then I saw this movie. It’s kind of based on your true experiences in the book and it’s now in the movie. How do you feel?

NS: That’s okay. I met my wife on Spring Break when I was in college. I was at the University of Notre Dame. She was at the University of New Hampshire. I bumped into her in Florida and told her the next day that I was going to marry her, and 20 years later, here we are.

IH: What did she say to that?

NS: She laughed at me. [Laughs] I’m on Spring Break. But she’s a great person and she’s my best friend. So if I write a story in which let’s say these two characters are together for a couple of weeks, some people say, “Oh, you can’t have real depth in that.” It’s been a long time for me. I met my wife and I was only with her for four or five days before we both went back to our respective universities.

IH: But real life and movies — you take the dog that was flown across country and got back home…that happens in real life, but you put that in a movie, it’s bullshit. Real life doesn’t work in movies very often.

NS: Not always. I think it depends on the story, and then it depends on the director and how the director handles these elements. Sometimes real life works well. But again, you’re working that line between drama and melodrama, evoking genuine emotion or being manipulative, and it’s a tough line to walk.

IH: Can I ask you about putting him in a uniform? Because, for me, we’re seeing a lot of guys in uniforms in movies. If you don’t agree with the war, that’s going to cast… He chooses to go fight the wrong war against the wrong enemy over this girl. If you think about it, what does this say about this character? It shades the whole thing in a whole other way. I know obviously you don’t want people to watch the movie or read the book with that in mind.

NS: Of course, I wrote the novel in 2004 or something like that, so it was a while ago. Also, people forget the feelings in this country in the weeks following 9/11. In the couple weeks following 9/11, all the flags were flying out front. People were enlisting in droves. Whether or not it was the right war at that time. That’s what happened to my cousin. The exact same thing that happened to John happened to my cousin. He was with the Strykers. He was out of Fort Hood in Washington. His name is Todd Vance. In fact, if you read Colby Buzzle’s My War, Todd Vance is his sergeant, my cousin Todd. He’s in the Army for four years, ready to get out, looking forward to it. He’s getting out in October. 9/11 hits and he says, “I’m a sergeant. These are my friends. I have to watch out for them. They’re gonna go. I gotta go. I gotta take care of them.” That’s what you do. So, to me, there’s very little anything to do with politics about that or whether or not it was the right war, the right place, the right time. It was simply a reflection of the reality after 9/11.

IH: It’s always interesting to me to see pendulum swings, and we get certain things that are either acceptable or become part of the popular culture, and I think that’s spirituality right now. Like Blindside. Certainly you can’t watch that film and not see all the Christian themes woven throughout it. You’ve got the Denzel Washington film, The Book of Eli, with a lot of spiritual themes. That’s another thing you haven’t shied away from. I don’t know whether it’s editors or people who are looking at it who say, “Can you tone down the Christianity?”

NS: No, my editor never tones anything down, and I certainly don’t shy away from a spiritual element within the novels or anything like that. However, I don’t do it for the sake of doing it. I’m not doing it to proselytize. If it’s important to the story, I put it in. In this case, it was important for Savannah because you look at all the choices she ends up making. This is a good young lady. So the last song has a spiritual element, “A Walk to Remember.” Those are probably my heaviest. But if you look at something like The Lucky One, which is again going to be a film, it isn’t there because it wasn’t central to that particular character or the story.

IH: How do you collect your ideas?

NS: I’ve got a tree in the backyard. [Laughs] I just pick a new idea when I run out. A lot of different places. Really good original ideas are very hard to come up with. Good ideas – easy. Really good, original ideas – it can take months. The novel I’m working on now, which will be out in the Fall, called Saying Goodbye probably took me four months simply to think up the idea.

IH: You’re just sitting in the chair? You just walk around?

NS: And I’m muttering under my breath, then moping and whining and hating my life, and mentally watching my career go up in flames because I can’t get a new idea…it’s not something you can bottle up. You can go to all the schools in the world. Creativity is… If I knew where it came from, I’d probably be a lot less stressed about coming up with new stories.

IH: You’ve got to have a rollicking comedy in you with nobody having any disease and nobody dying…

NS: Yeah, maybe. [Laughs]