This movie is based on a beloved book by John Green. Has he seen the film and how does he feel about it?
Godfrey: He saw it very early on and was involved in the production, and loved it, thank god. But I think he knew all along from the screenplay to the casting that we were putting together a team that loved the book as deeply as its fans and that we were going to pay honor to it in whatever way we could.
Can you describe your approach to adapting the novel, and to making the story so cinematic?
Sarah Polley: I think I always thought of the story as somewhat of an epic.
The letter’s from a five year old boy and it says, “Dear Mr. Rogers, are you for real? Are you for real or not?”
It was fascinating to learn that you had already been in the process of making a film about wildfires when the camp and woolsey fires occurred. Can you tell us about that?
Lucy Walker: That’s right. The reason I was able to really embed, and I knew what I was looking at and could just jump in, and start asking the right questions was because I’d actually been working on the film already for about a year at that point.
Maya, I understand that the seed of the idea for this film originated with you?
Maya Lasker-Wallfisch: Yes: I wrote a book, which was apparently interesting! And one of the things I wrote about in the book were two themes that really interested Daniela. And so Daniela and I were connected through a mutual person that we both knew.