{"id":1389895,"date":"2016-06-02T12:30:50","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T16:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.sparknotes.com\/?p=1389895"},"modified":"2016-06-02T10:08:02","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T14:08:02","slug":"emilia-clarke-sam-clafin-jojo-moyes-and-thea-sharrock-on-me-before-you-pranks-and-quidditch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/emilia-clarke-sam-clafin-jojo-moyes-and-thea-sharrock-on-me-before-you-pranks-and-quidditch\/","title":{"rendered":"Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin, and MORE talk <i>Me Before You<\/i>, Garlic Breath, and Badass Female Characters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/img.sparknotes.com\/content\/sparklife\/sparktalk\/mebeforeE_LargeWide.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"701\" height=\"394\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Prior to Saturday afternoon, when I attended the junket for <em>Me Before You<\/em>, the movie adaptation of Jojo Moyes&#8217; novel of the same name, \u00a0my sole (second-hand) experience of press junkets was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-xQ5nH_-yyQ\" target=\"_blank\">the scene in <\/a><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-xQ5nH_-yyQ\" target=\"_blank\">Notting Hill<\/a> \u00a0<\/em>wherein Hugh Grant\u2014LA Looks Hair Styling Mousse \u00a0personified\u2014must pretend to be a reporter from \u00a0<em>Horse and Hound \u00a0<\/em>magazine and ask Julia Roberts questions about a sci-fi movie he has not seen.<\/p>\n<p>I had one up on Hugh (working for a non-equine publication!) but I was still pretty nervous, for the following reasons: 1. I am not so great at talking to new people! 2. Especially when the new people are Finnick Odair, the Khaleesi, a best-selling author whose books I think are wonderful, and a film director with a \u00a0devastatingly cool haircut. 3. The first two weren&#8217;t enough for you? FINE, I guess you have the social grace of Pippa Middleton and the smile of Joe Biden.<\/p>\n<p>But I am a professional (at the very least, I have business cards) and a grown-ass woman\u2014overalls notwithstanding\u2014and so I persevered.<\/p>\n<p>It didn&#8217;t hurt that \u00a0both the book and the movie were hilarious and devastating and full of sweeping shots of the British countryside and close-ups of Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke&#8217;s faces.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Eh993__rOxA\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Me Before You \u00a0<\/em>is the story of Lou (Clarke), a woman with a bright disposition and brighter shoes, who is hired as a companion\/caregiver for Will (Claflin), a former financial bigwig and man-about-town who was rendered quadriplegic when he was hit by a motorbike. As the presence of two absurdly attractive movie stars suggests, romance ensues. I won&#8217;t give anything more away, \u00a0except to say that the chemistry between Our Mother of Dragons and The Late, Lamented Finnick is as palpable as Jonathan Franzen&#8217;s distaste for women&#8217;s literature.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/img.sparknotes.com\/content\/sparklife\/sparktalk\/jojoquote_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"701\" height=\"80\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Speaking of which! I got a chance to talk to <span style=\"color: #00ccff;\"><strong>Jojo Moyes<\/strong><\/span>, author of the book as well as the screenplay, about the way the media treats so-called &#8220;chick lit&#8221; (a phrase \u00a0that &#8220;makes [her] want to kick something&#8221;):<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\">Jojo:<\/span> \u00a0My biggest problem with being called chick lit is that that to me implies something cheap and formulaic, and all the women writers I know, the last thing they want to do is turn out something formulaic. They work really hard to invest themselves and create a piece of writing that&#8217;s quality. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>[&#8230;] I just think it&#8217;s like music\u2014there&#8217;s room for everything. There are a million genres I&#8217;m willing to dip into, depending on my mood. So why can we not feel the same way about literature? It&#8217;s just all part of the same fantastic cultural rainbow that we&#8217;re lucky enough to find ourselves in.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>(At this point, I&#8217;m so excited about how the interview&#8217;s going that I say out loud\u2014but definitely mostly \u00a0to myself\u2014 &#8220;Oh, that was great!&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>Next, we talked about the relationship between Lou and Will, which was, to use the wildly inarticulate description I gave her, significantly less &#8220;eye-contact-y&#8221; and po-faced than your standard-issue star-crossed romance. (They just seem like they&#8217;re having so much \u00a0<em>fun<\/em>!)<\/p>\n<p><strong>The people I know who love each other are entirely capable in a two-hour period of bitching at each other, laughing at each other, being quite romantic with each other, challenging each other&#8230; all those things are encompassed in a relationship. Yet it&#8217;s a kind of grit that isn&#8217;t often reflected in a &#8220;romantic&#8221; film.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>[&#8230;] I like couples who joke with each other. I think the thing my husband likes best about me is that I can make him laugh. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jealous of her husband, TBH. Finally, we talked about the kind of women Jojo likes to depict, and why.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I have a teenage daughter, and I have a little filter in my head whenever I&#8217;m writing anything, which is &#8220;What would she take from this story?&#8221; I&#8217;m interested in women who do things, rather than buy things. I&#8217;m interested in women who learn something about themselves and can put something out there, rather than just fixating on a man. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not just saying this because the free brownies at the junket put me in a good mood: Jojo Moyes is a straight-up delight. She even got my \u00a0<em>Horse and Hound \u00a0<\/em>reference!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/img.sparknotes.com\/content\/sparklife\/sparktalk\/jojoquote_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"701\" height=\"80\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And speaking of delightful women (and men!) who do things, I got to talk to \u00a0<span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>Emilia Clarke <\/strong><\/span>and<strong><span style=\"color: #800080;\"> Sam Claflin<\/span> \u00a0<\/strong>next. Full disclosure: this was a round-table interview, which means I was able to sit silently startstruck while the girl from \u00a0<em>Us Weekly \u00a0<\/em>asked questions from a fancy typed-up dossier, and movie blogger \u00a0stole some hotel napkins.<\/p>\n<p>Sam and Emilia told us the beautiful story of their first meeting&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Emilia: \u00a0<\/span>I \u00a0had just finished doing \u00a0<em>Terminator<\/em>, \u00a0so I wanted to clean my body out of guns and protein powder, so I was on this weird cleanse. I was just eating raw bulbs of garlic. So the day of our chemistry read\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #800080;\">Sam:<\/span> \u00a0\u2014it was the first thing she said. &#8220;Sorry, Sam. I can&#8217;t say hello properly. I&#8217;ve just had some garlic.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;but the hands-down best thing I learned from this interview was that Emilia Clarke LOVES pranks.<\/p>\n<p>When asked whether he was a \u00a0<em>Game of Thrones \u00a0<\/em>fan, Sam began to respond in the affirmative when a fight broke out:<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008000;\">E:<\/span> \u00a0You&#8217;re such a fan that you STOLE my\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #800080;\">S: \u00a0<\/span>\u2014I didn&#8217;t steal your \u00a0<em>Game of Thrones<\/em> \u00a0doll! She&#8217;d got this little Daenerys Targaryen doll, and you&#8217;d lost it. And you came onto set and said, &#8220;Sam stole my doll!&#8221; And I thought, &#8220;How&#8217;s this working out?&#8221; So all the crew thought I was a thief. And then you found it, and hid it in my bag.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008000;\">E:<\/span> \u00a0I only just remembered that I did that. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/img.sparknotes.com\/content\/sparklife\/sparktalk\/emiliaquote_3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"701\" height=\"80\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Finally, I got to speak to <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>Thea Sharrock<\/strong><\/span>, \u00a0badass director. This was Thea&#8217;s first feature film; she&#8217;s a veteran theater director (with no fear of Shakespeare)&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Thea:<\/span> \u00a0<span style=\"color: #333333;\">When you&#8217;re doing Shakespeare, your trying to make it as accessible as possible. I&#8217;m never interested in trying to cut down my audience members. \u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">&#8230;and, it turns out, unabashed Potterhead. Matthew &#8220;Longbottom&#8221; Lewis plays Lou&#8217;s boyfriend (well, initial boyfriend, SORRY) in the film, which lead us to&#8230; \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #333333;\">He is such a hunk these days, COME. ON.<\/span> <\/strong><strong>[&#8230;] He was phenomenal. An absolute joy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I asked the inevitable question\u2014sort yourself)\u2014and found out that Thea identifies as Gryffindor (checks out).<\/p>\n<p><strong>And I would want to play Quidditch. Without a shadow of a doubt. I think I&#8217;d just want to go straight out and be a chaser. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And there you have it: Thea Sharrock, built to chase.<\/p>\n<p>Me Before You \u00a0<em>opens in theaters tomorrow, June 3rd. See it! Bring Kleenex! \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prior to Saturday afternoon, when I attended the junket for Me Before You, the movie adaptation of Jojo Moyes&#8217; novel of the same name, \u00a0my sole (second-hand) experience of press junkets was the scene in   <a class=\"continue-reading\" href=\"#\"><span class=\"continue-text\">continue reading<\/span><svg class=\"continue-icon\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" alt=\"\">\n    <path fill=\"#007acd\" fill-rule=\"nonzero\" d=\"M13.442 5.558L19.885 12l-6.443 6.442-.884-.884 4.934-4.934L4 12.625v-1.25l13.492-.001-4.934-4.932.884-.884z\"><\/path>\n  <\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":369,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[22309,6272,22313],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389895"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/369"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1389895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1389895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1389895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1389895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}