The Fault In Our Stars: Q&A with screenwriters Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber

Based on the John Green novel, the movie version of The Fault in Our Stars is creating quite a buzz in social media as it approaches its opening in theaters in North America this weekend. So I reached out to the film’s screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber to see if they would let me ask them 10 questions about the project. They agreed.

I was going to write up a nifty introduction, but a recent feature on the writing duo in the New York Times did a bang-up job, so here it is:

Mr. Neustadter, 37, and Mr. Weber, 36, got their start in 2006 by shopping an original script about a guy who gets his heart smashed after falling for an aloof girl — something that had really happened to Mr. Neustadter. The resulting movie, “(500) Days of Summer,” was Fox Searchlight’s biggest hit of 2009. Last year came “The Spectacular Now,” an indie about love and alcoholism in high school. Adapted from Tim Tharp’s novel of the same name, “The Spectacular Now” was a critical home run, sealing their standing as Hollywood’s go-to channelers of tender teenage angst.

Their fans now include none other than Cameron Crowe, the writer-director behind “Say Anything,” “Almost Famous” and “Jerry Maguire.” “They write characters that are completely free of stereotypes,” Mr. Crowe said in an email. “Their stuff emits a high-pitched signal that says: This is authentic. And funny, too.”

“The Fault in Our Stars,” one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year, arrives from 20th Century Fox on Friday. Adapted from John Green’s best-selling novel, the film is a bittersweet story about two wickedly witty teenagers and their runaway romance. The punch-to-the-gut twist: Hazel and Gus, played by Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, both have cancer.

Here is the interview in its entirety:

How did you get involved with The Fault in Our Stars? Was it something you sought out or were you approached by the producers to write it?

Scott: The very week the book was published, my Dad died of pancreatic cancer. We were super close and the whole thing was just tremendously awful and as much as I wanted to keep writing and working, there wasn’t much chance of that happening for a while.

At the same time, sensing the phenomenon it would later become, Temple Hill and Fox 2000 optioned the book and began looking for someone to adapt it. Weber and I had written a project for Fox 2000 (our upside down Romeo and Juliet comedy “Rosaline”) and they thought we might be a good fit for “Fault.” They didn’t know about my Dad situation or they might not have bothered.

In any case, a few weeks after the funeral, I remember our manager (Sean Perrone) calling to “pitch” me the book, doing his best high-wire act to gently reference the fact that, oh yeah, everyone in this thing has some form of cancer. But that was fine with me. For the past year all I did was think about cancer. And that’s all I was doing then too. This at least would feel like “working” again.

So, of course, we read it, we loved it, we lobbied hard to adapt it. We were up against a whole host of far more experienced and talented screenwriters but we knew, if given the chance, we could do a great job.

I still don’t know why they went with us. Probably because we promised them a script in two weeks. (Which they got in ten days.)

Did you have any conversations with the book’s author John Green and if so, were there any themes or narrative content you zeroed in on with him in terms of your adaptation? Did you do any additional or specific research to write this adaptation?

Weber: The truth is we had no contact with John until after we’d finished the adaptation. And we did no research before we started writing. Given the excellence of the book and what Scott and his family had just been through we didn’t need any extra preparation.

Our first draft, which turned out to be nearly identical to the shooting draft, was shown to John by the producers. He sent them an email that was forwarded back to us. The first paragraph said, “It’s the best adaptation of my work I’ve ever read.” Also, that our small modulations to the beginning and ending “are brilliant — genuinely better than the book.” His approval of our script meant the world to us.

Weeks later we finally met John. First Scott broke bread with him in LA and then I met John at Book Expo in NYC. Throughout this process he’s been nothing but warm and gracious to us. And now we’re all working together again on “Paper Towns”. Structurally, it’s a trickier adaptation than TFIOS, so we’ve been in frequent consultation with John over our choices. Hopefully it will be another movie we’re all really proud of.

The Fault in Our Stars is the first of your movies to feature a female protagonist (Hazel). As writers, what was that experience like working from a female perspective and voice?

Weber: The Fault In Our Stars is our first produced movie with a female protagonist but not the first we’ve written. There were actually a few before TFIOS; most notably Rosaline, our upside down retelling of Romeo & Juliet told from the point-of-view of Romeo’s ex-girlfriend. (Hopefully going into production later this year, with Felicity Jones as the title role.) And since TFIOS we’ve almost exclusively written female protagonists; adapting the novels Where’d You Go Bernadette, Me Before You and Rules of Civility.

When you read John Green’s book, what were some of the key themes you definitely knew you wanted to explore in your script adaptation?

Scott: The projects we gravitate towards are almost always about the same thing — complicated relationships between two people that exist in the real world. In “The Fault in Our Stars,” everyone has cancer. Yes. But this is a cancer movie the way “Field of Dreams” is about baseball or “Remains of the Day” is about a house. “Fault” is a love story, a really beautiful one, but what makes it unique, is that the two people who meet and fall in love are acutely aware of the one thing you and I never think about — how much time is left. That was something that really appealed to us. None of us like to think about the fact that, just like Hazel, we’re all terminal. But it might be worth remembering from time to time.

Adaptations are a real challenge in part because some of the toughest issues are not so much what to use from the original source material, but what to omit. In that vein, was there one scene or story element present in the book that you really wanted to include in the script, but couldn’t find a way to justify it in the final draft?

Scott: We’ve gotten a lot of responses on social media from fans of the book who have seen the film saying “thank you so much for not changing anything.” Which is a huge compliment cause it sure ain’t true. But that was always our goal — to create the illusion that this is “Fault in Our Stars” in Final Draft form. Like you said, with any book adaptation certain liberties are taken: scenes get cut, lines are repurposed, characters become composites or disappear altogether. John’s voice is so strong and distinctive, the fans of his writing so rabid and passionate, the last thing we’d ever want to do is draw attention to the differences. So the fact that they’ve gone unnoticed (or, at worst, are being forgiven!) is the best praise we as adapters can get.

I know you both are big fans of John Hughes, especially his teen movies like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Pretty in Pink. Apart from the fact the two lead characters in The Fault in Our Stars are adolescents, were there other elements in the story that resonated with your inner John Hughes?

Weber: Our inner John Hughes connects to almost everything we do! First and foremost, The Fault In Our Stars doesn’t talk down to young people. It treats them like the thoughtful, maturing young adults they are. Also, like many of the best Hughes movies, it’s about a time in your life when you discover the world is a much larger place. And as you are trying to figure out who you are in that world, it also seems to be the time of your life in which you care about music and books and movies with a passion and intensity that is unrivaled by later periods in life. Hazel’s love of An Imperial Affliction is a huge component of TFIOS — and the way she uses the book to make sense of her emotions and the world around her harkens back to John Hughes.

The novel upon which the movie is based has a huge following of ardent fans, mostly young adults, but also older readers. How did you handle the pressure of knowing millions of them were out there hoping the filmmakers did a good job in translating the book into a movie?

Weber: We didn’t have to. Fortunately for us we were able to adapt the book soon after it’s publication. By the time it became a worldwide phenomenon our work was done. This may worry the hardcore fans, as if we won’t understand their passion. But the thing to remember is we were fans first. We love the book as much as everyone else and approached the job from a place of respect and zealous affection.

In two of your previous movies, (500) Days of Summer and The Spectacular Now, you dealt with death in a more symbolic way: In (500) Days, there is the ‘death’ of Tom’s romance with Summer; in Spectacular Now there is the ‘death’ of Sutter’s belief he can always live in the present. However in The Fault in Our Stars, the story is about a looming and literal death of a primary character. Did writing a story with such a visceral sense of death differ from ones you’ve written with a more metaphorical exploration of death, and if so, how?

Scott: The undercurrent, if you ask me, is actually less about death than it is about loss — losing something/someone you’re not sure you can live without. Tom and Sutter are thinking wholly of themselves — if I lose this thing, what do I have? What will I be? Me Me Me. And that’s their problem. Hazel, on the other hand, is thinking ONLY of others. When I’M gone, when I’M the thing that’s been lost, how can I mitigate the misery of those around me? That was a very intriguing switch in perspective for us.

Why do you think audiences are attracted to see sad movies?

Scott: I think all entertainment is only successful if it makes you feel something. That’s what we’re paying for, right? — to laugh, cry, be terrified, learn something. But it’s actually quite difficult to achieve. Audiences don’t just pay to be depressed. They’ve no interest in wallowing in abject misery for 90 minutes. So if you think about it, the promise of a “sad movie” isn’t just that it will make you cry. The real promise is that it will recognize that life — your life, my life, all of life — is filled with a shitload of terribly sad things — but that none of those things are strong enough to destroy us.

Finally what feelings and thoughts are you hoping moviegoers will have after they see The Fault in Our Stars?

Weber: If they’re fans of the book hopefully it will rival if not enhance what they felt from the read. And if they’re new to the story, we want the movie to be a complex yet satisfying emotional journey. It’s not merely a “sad story.” There are of course moments of deep sorrow. But the movie should make you smile, laugh and think. A mixture of happy and sad is always our favorite combination.

Both the book and the movie contain the line, “pain demands to be felt.” It’s an idea that’s at the very core of the story. At the same time, both versions demand you appreciate the joys of life, however long or short they may be. Hopefully people leave the theater and want to talk about these feelings.

Scott and Michael are repped by CAA and Kaplan/Perrone.

You may follow Scott and Michael on Twitter: Scott (@iamthepuma), Michael (@thisisweber).

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