The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud: A Novel
Questions for Ben Sherwood AboutCharlie St. CloudQ:Did you always imagine your book becoming a movie?A:In a word...no.  I quit a great job at NBC News in New York to write this book.  It was a risky career move.   I wish I could say the road was easy, but it wasn’t.  There were major creative challenges and serious professional  setbacks.  Indeed, the route from blank page to the finished book might well be described as a near-death publishing  experience.  Perhaps that’s why I never really imagined this book becoming a movie.  Indeed, the very idea of a film  adaptation seemed farfetched.  As one of my close friends always said: "I’ll believeCharlie St. Cloudis a  movie when I’m sitting in the theater and eating popcorn."Q:How involved were you with the movie and did you write the screenplay?A:The producers and studio were generous to include me at many stages of the process but I wasn’t involved with  the movie or screenplay.  I was fortunate to visit the production twice, once on location in a cemetery and another  time on a soundstage in Vancouver.  Each time, I relished how filmmakers turned some of the book’s tiniest details into  movie reality.  For instance, Major League Baseball sent three small Red Sox mitts for Sam to use when he played catch  with Charlie.  I watched an assistant prop master carry a brand-new red mitt around all day, rubbing it constantly to  give it a well-worn appearance.On another occasion, the director showed me the closing shot of the film.  Today, words still fail to describe the  exhilarating experience of seeing Charlie and Tess literally sailing into the sunset.  Seven years earlier, in the  quiet of my little writing room, I had imagined these two young people on a boat aimed at the open ocean.  Suddenly,  they were on the screen, leaning into each other with wind tousling their hair and sails, steering a Gryphon Solo, one  of the world’s fastest fifty-foot sailboats, filmed by a camera mounted on a helicopter hovering above.Q:How does it feel to see your book turned into a movie?A:Quite simply, I’m filled with gratitude.  To create the movie version ofCharlie St. Cloud, it took  28 actors, 34 stunt people, and some 250 crew.  When I visited the set in Vancouver, I tried my best to thank every  single one, including the wrangler responsible for a noisy flock of geese, the messy bane of Charlie’s  existence.When I called my wife in Los Angeles, she asked, "How does it feel?" I thought for a moment. Then I answered: "I want  to hug every person I meet."Q:Did you imagine Zac Efron as Charlie St. Cloud?A:In candor, I never imagined Zac Efron in the role of Charlie.  Wrecked by loss and grief, Charlie was a  character who had wasted many years of his precious life.  I always imagined Charlie as much older and much sadder.   Thank goodness I’m not a movie producer.I salute the studio and producers for realizing that Efron was a perfect choice.  Young, dynamic, and charismatic, he  embodies the promise of Charlie St. Cloud without the burden and loss.  With Efron’s vibrant presence and performance,  a sometimes weighty story feels more hopeful and uplifting.  As I told Efron when we met in the cemetery in Vancouver,  I’m delighted and very thankful that he took the part and filled it with vitality.Q:How do you feel about the movie being made in Vancouver, Canada instead of Marblehead, Massachussetts,  where the novel takes place?A:I love Marblehead and the people of the town.  While researching the book, I traveled to Marblehead several  times to walk among the tombstones in Waterside Cemetery, eat breakfast with fishermen at the Driftwood before dawn,  drink beers with 'Headers at Maddie's, and compete in my first and only sailboat race.Vancouver is a country away from the wonderful town where I situated the story.  But a movie adaptation isn't supposed  to be a literal translation of a book.  It's an interpretation.  While I sincerely hoped that the film would be made in  Massachusetts--and while the filmmakers tried their best too--I understood the financial decision to pick Canada, where  production costs are significantly lower.Given this choice, the filmmakers did a great job transplanting Charlie and Sam's story to the Pacific Northwest, which  looks absolutely spectacular on film.Q:Your writing seems to focus on questions of life and death.  Why?A:Maybe it's my age or life experience but I've spent a lot of time thinking about how we overcome grief and  loss and make the most of our time on earth.  These are subjects that have come to occupy my recent work.  Over the  last few years, I wrote a nonfiction book calledThe Survivors  Club, exploring the secrets and science of the world’s most effective survivors and thrivers.  Interviewing  survivors around the world, I discovered even more proof that love is a powerful and universal survival tool.  In my  own life, falling in love with my future wife, Karen, helped unlock the stranglehold of my father’s sudden and untimely  death 17 years ago.  (That’s why I dedicated the book to both of them.)  In Charlie's case, discovering Tess helped him  break free of the cemetery and the suffocating grip of grief.Q:You have two young sons.  What do you hope they take away from this book some day?A:When I was leaving the movie set in Vancouver to fly home to Los Angeles, one of the producers generously  asked if I wanted a souvenir from the production.  I asked for one of Sam’s red mitts from Major League Baseball.  Our  two young boys can play catch with it.   Then some day when they outgrow it, the glove can sit in my office, a reminder  of the power of brotherly love and what happens when you take risks, seize life, and set your imagination free.--This text refers to an alternatePaperbackedition.