to a young person watching it.' It felt quite special somehow. What was it? The story? The character? The subject matter? It's true, I think there's so much made about this period in people's lives; when you come of age or when you're in high school, there's so many teenage TV series and movies and whatever else that people would be sick of hearing about this one felt to me really honest and authentic, and it didn't glamourise the situation, it didn't patronise it or sensationalise it. It was amazing, I'd look at Steve and go 'you remember so clearly what it was like to be this age, it's kind of amazing'. And just the honestly, and that it isn't afraid to touch on subjects that are difficult, I think that was one of the difficultties in getting the film made, was that the film deals with things that people would rather not talk about, almost like taboo subjects. It's one of the most banned books in America, many State libraries will not stock this book, so that was fascinating to me because I had the privilege of having a background where I had a much more open minded and accepting background, that was a real shock and it was a shock that no one wanted to make it. I had to sort of bang on people's doors to get it made, so it's interesting. While making the film, did you ever feel you missed out on anything? It made