“I
know that for every reader who has lost the habit or can't find the time, there
are people who've never enjoyed reading and question the value of literature,
either as entertainment or education, or believe that a love of books, and of
fiction in particular, is sentimental or frivolous.”
– David Nicholls
Nicholls, born in England on this
day in 1966, is primarily a screenwriter (his latest, Bridget Jones’ Baby is on the screen right now), but he didn’t
start out to be one. Instead, he was
going to be an actor, and he was quite successful at it for many years. After
studying acting at both Bristol University in England and at the American
Musical and Drama Academy in New York, he was in both movies and television
productions for most of 10 years. But,
he had the gnawing feeling that he really was intended to put down the words
that other actors were going to say, and thus he graduated into writing,
particularly for the screen.
Not that screenwriting is his only
forte’. Nicholls has had 
good success
with his fiction, too, including a number of novels. One of his best is The Understudy, which puts us – the readers – squarely into the
heart of what it’s like to be an actor in modern-day films. And, with a protagonist named Stephen
McQueen, how can you go wrong? He also
has won awards and a movie contract for One
Day (starring Anne Hathaway), and a UK Author of the Year Award for Us (in 2014).
“I think I became a writer because I
used to write letters to my friends, and I used to love writing them,” he
said. “I loved the idea that you can put marks on a
page and send it off, and two days later, someone laughs somewhere else in the
world.”
Share A Writer’s
Moment with a friend by clicking the g+1 button below.
No comments:
Post a Comment