'A beautiful, beautiful film': Author raves about film adaptation of book on mental health struggles

Your body is nothing but a host to a massive collection of parasitic organisms. Ready to cause infection. Ready to cause infection. Ready to cause infection. You can feel them living and breathing and dying inside of you. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. About spiral. You must think I’m really crazy. No, he doesn’t. And things aren’t exactly my strong suit. I’m sort of a new thing and doing fine with me. I swear to God he’s so smitten. How do you know? Because I have eyes. How come it’s so easy for me to talk to? Maybe because our hearts are broken in the same places, being intimates, intimidating for everyone. I bet that if you guys actually kissed, you would not be thinking about 80 million microbes. ASA, for once in your life, do not overthink this. That was a look at part of the trailer from the new movie titled Turtles All The Way Down. Based on the New York Times best selling book of the same title. The film follows the life of teenager ASA Holmes as she struggles to hold together her mental health, her closest friendships and a new relationship, all while learning that a fulfilling and happy life is possible for her. Joining us now the author of Turtles All the Way Down, John Green. He also serves as executive producer on the project and the movie’s director, Hannah Marks. So great to have you both here this morning. Thank you. So John, tell us a little bit more about the back story, the origin of of the book, which of course then lend itself to this project. Well, I’ve lived with obsessive compulsive disorder for almost all of my life and had periods of intense, major depression and found it debilitating at times. And really when I was writing Turtles All the Way Down it, it was just after The Fault in Our Stars movie had come out and lots of energy around my work and it was kind of the only anything I could write about. I wasn’t doing very well. And so it was sort of it was an act for me of trying to trying to find my way through. Certainly that book touched so many, so many people. So talk to us a little bit about the decision to to really put yourself out there to talk about your your, your OCD in this in this book. Was that challenging or was it liberating? A little bit of both. A little bit of both for sure. I mean, it’s hard to talk about my own mental health in the context of fiction, but I really wanted to find some kind of like direct form or expression for the psychic pain that comes with these obsessive thoughts. So often Hollywood, frankly, no offense. Hannah has done a terrible job of portraying OCD and and books often have as well. And I really wanted to try to tell the truth about at least one person’s experience. So, Hannah, let’s let’s put that question to you. That is a yes. I represent all of Hollywood. You’re the stand in at least for this moment but but the challenge that John speaks about of trying to present you know OCDA mental health issue and do it in the right appropriate in an accurate way. Well so much of it came from John’s book which was so beautifully written. So that gave us a really great foundation. But I also struggle with very similar issues to ASA. So I connected with her as a character right away and I think we both wanted to show OCD represented as as we experience it now. Not every case is the same of course but I think this was a really good step forward. We we both talk about shows like Monk and some what we feel are less accurate representations and this this felt like the the next step. So is it about educating and also destigmatizing. I think destigmatizing I don’t think we view it as homework this movie or like a PSA. I think it’s just something that a lot of people can can relate to unfortunately especially younger generations. So tell us a little bit about about the movie itself and the plot and what what what we expect and should see. Well, it’s really cool story because it’s not just about Asas mental health. It’s also got a murder mystery component, a buddy comedy, a romance and Asas experiencing so many new things for the first time. But it’s all kind of through the lens of her journey with OCD, but it’s got a lot of genres rolled up into one. Yeah, Hannah just made such a good movie. She can’t say that, but I can’t since I didn’t have much to do with the making of it. She just made a beautiful, beautiful film that’s really funny and warm and big hearted and at the same time finds a way to tell the truth about what these experiences are really like. So let’s take a look at a clip from the film where the main characters ASA and Daisy embark on a canoe expedition. Much to asas display, this water has to be like 50% urine. That’s the good half kidding. This water is teeming with bacteria. What a day. The Suns are shining, news are floating, and we’re about to live the American dream benefiting from someone else’s misfortune. So John, let’s be clear, there’s some laughs in this too. Yeah, for sure. It’s Hannah made a really funny movie and Cree, who plays the best friend of ASA Daisy in the movie, is so, so brilliant in it. And that’s the truth. I mean, I really wanted to capture the fact that people living with serious mental illness are living with it, that they still have rich, complex lives. Like if if you take away one thing from the movie, I hope it’s that you know there is hope even when your brain tells you there isn’t and there is a lot of wonderful life left to live. Final word to you I was just going to say John is so great at writing really serious subject matters with with humor and levity and optimism. So I I agree. I hope people see it and also laugh and are moved by it. The new movie, Turtles All the Way Down, is available to stream now on Max, author and executive producer John Green, director Hannah Marks. Thank you both and we’ll be right back with more. Morning, Joe.