We seem to be in a period of diminishing returns for big-screen adaptations of Young Adult fiction. The genre enjoyed early highlights such as the Twilight saga and the Hunger Games movies, but more recently has generated flops including the in-limbo Maze Runner series and The Fifth Wave.
Undeterred, Hollywood is persisting. The latest to get the treatment is Jay Asher's best-selling novel 13 Reasons Why, which has been adapted as a 13-episode TV series by Netflix.
Before rolling your eyes and writing it off as yet another production-line YA adaptation, it is worth noting that Tom McCarthy, the director of Oscar-winning movie Spotlight and TV hit The Wire, is behind the camera for the first two episodes, which perhaps gives it a better-than-average chance of bucking the recent trend of failure in the genre. In addition, teen idol Selena Gomez – once cast in the lead role of an aborted movie adaptation – is an executive producer.
“It’s funny, I know exactly what you mean about YA adaptations, and normally I might agree with you,” says Dylan Minette, who plays the male lead, Clay Jensen.
“But on paper, I could just see it was going to do great things. When I saw Netflix were doing it, then the fact that Tom McCarthy was directing it, [screenwriter and co-showrunner] Brian Yorkey is a Pulitzer Prizewinner, Selina Gomez producing, I was just like ‘OK – the people making this are not going to make something bad’.
“The pedigree that they’re hiring just showed that this was going to be of a higher standing than some of the other adaptations right now, and I stand by that, now we’ve made it.”
The show tells the story of high-school student Clay, who receives a mysterious box containing a tape recording made by his former classmate and crush Hannah Baker, played by newcomer Katherine Langford, who has recently taken her own life.
Led by cryptic clues on the tape, Clay sets off on a journey to attempt to solve the mystery of Hannah’s death.
The series marks the screen debut of Langford. The young Australian actress made the trip to the United States to shoot the series, and admits it wasn’t all plain sailing.
“It was ridiculous, but in such a great way,” says Langford. “I had my first screen-acting class in March 2015 and I was, like, 18, turning 19, so it’s a risk trying to get into acting when you’re that ‘old’, in inverted commas.
“I’d just come back from a month in London and the States, where I’d been testing for some roles that I gave up drama school for, that I didn’t end up getting. So I was back home in Australia with no job, no drama school, wondering what I was going to do, and my manager just sent the audition for this through. Next thing I know, I’m testing on Skype with Tom McCarthy – and two days later, I got it.”
Even in pre-President Trump days of 2015, an aspiring foreign actress who had just landed a role in a major new show had to jump through a few hoops before being allowed into the US to work.
“Then it was like – OK, you’ve got 10 days to get your work visa – it usually takes eight to 10 weeks,” Langford says.
“But I’d never done anything before. Luckily, the stars aligned. The projects I’d previously tested for and not got, the directors and writers that I’d worked with on those projects wrote me letters of recommendation.
“If I hadn’t had those failed auditions, I probably wouldn’t have ever been able to do this job. I guess life’s funny like that sometimes.”
• All episodes of 13 Reasons Why are available from March 31 on Netflix
cnewbould@thenational.ae
