UK Edition
Leading lady wanted: blonde supermodels need not apply, Jojo Moyes says
It has long been the staple of Hollywood: taking a novel's leading lady and casting a glamorous and bankable actress to play her.
But the days of leggy blondes snapping up the best roles could be falling behind, as British writer Jojo Moyes reveals she battled to keep them away from the star role of her new film adaptation.
Moyes, the author of Me Before You, said she had dreaded a tall, glamorous actress being cast in the role of Lou after it was turned into a blockbuster film.
Speaking at Hay Festival, sponsored by the Telegraph, she said she had championed someone who could play a "relatable girl-next-door", with the director finally settling on Emilia Clarke, star of Game of Thrones.
She told an audience she had resolved not to "interfere" in the making of the film, after adapting the screenplay herself.
But, she said, the one thing she and felt particularly strongly about was the casting of Louisa, a sweet, naive, cash-strapped carer who falls in love with her quadriplegic charge Will.
"I was most worried about Louisa, because my fear in terms of a Hollywood studio was that they would cast a supermodel," Moyes said.
"Someone tall, possibly blonde. And they did see quite a few tall beautiful blondes.
[But] when you see someone like Heidi Klum stroll onto a film set, for me that's not relatable.
"It might be someone who's aesthetically amazing to look at, but I can't put myself in her shoes because I'm never going to know what it feels like to look like that.
"But as soon as we met Emilia we knew."
Thea Sharrock, the film's director, said she had chosen Clarke out of around 300 actresses to audition arrived she arrived in a fluster, spilling coffee.
She added she had been the one actress to sound authentic in one key line, in which she proclaims she is "not built for running".
"It was really really important that we got it right, that we cast the right people," said Thurrock. "And that in many ways was the biggest challenge.
"We all know that feeling when you're reading a book you absolutely adore and you can't bear to be parted with it. And then they make a movie out of it and on one hand you think 'oh great I could revisit it'. But if you go and see that movie and it's not what you had in your mind, it's devastating.
"It's a major betrayal."
Moyes added Clarke has 'this intrinsic warmth about her and approachability which makes it really easy to put yourself in her head, and that's what really swung it for me".
"The fact that she's amazing-looking is almost off the scale, really"
Me Before You, the film, is in UK cinemas from Friday.