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J.K. Rowling discusses her relationship with Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves

J.K. Rowling wrote an article for the April/May 2011 issue of the Writers Guild’s WGAW Written By magazine, detailing her relationship with Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves, from the day they met, through their collaboration on the films and their continuing friendship to this day.

http://www.snitchseeker.com/gallery/...64838/Jo~0.jpg

Here is an excerpt:

Quote:

Steve and I were introduced, in L.A., by David Heyman, the producer, and we almost immediately went into a lunchtime meeting with a big studio executive. Three things happened within a couple of hours that caused every qualm to vanish and made me adore Steve, an attitude from which I haven’t deviated in 13-odd years.

Firstly, Steve turned to me while food was being ordered and said quietly, “You know who my favorite character is?” I looked at him, red hair included, and I thought: You’re going to say Ron. Please, please don’t say Ron–Ron’s so easy to love. And he said: “Hermione.” At which point, under my standoffish, mistrusting exterior, I just melted, because if he got Hermione, he got the books. He also, to a large extent, got me.

Lunch proceeded, and the senior exec held forth, dominated conversation. It swiftly became obvious to me that in spite of all the effusive praise of the novels he was pouring forth, he hadn’t read a page of them. (A reliable source had told me later the exec had read “the coverage,” which he always felt was more useful than reading the original material.) Next, he began to suggest things that would need changing, primarily Harry’s character. “No, that won’t work,” Steve said pleasantly. When lunch was over, David, Steve, and I went off for coffee together. On the way, Steve opined that you had to tell “them” up front what would work and what wouldn’t. No point prevaricating. I was now in a state of profound admiration.

When it was time to say goodbye, I wrote my email address down for Steve on the back of a torn receipt in my wallet. He read the address, then flipped over the receipt and said, “Penny Black–what’s that?” I said: “It’s the make of the top I’m wearing.” He tucked the receipt away muttering, “I just like knowing stuff like that.” As odd names on scraps of paper are perennially fascinating to me too, that clinched my feeling that I’d met a kindred spirit.

The entire article can be read below.

SPOILER!!: When Steve Met Jo

Quote:

When Steve Met Jo
Harry Potter’s creator remembers her collaboration with Steve Kloves
Written by J.K. Rowling

I was kept informed about the people who were in the running to adapt the script, but it wasn’t my call. I heard that Warners was interested in having Steve Kloves do something for them and had been looking for a project that appealed to him. I believe he was shown a few things. He told me that Potter was the only one that interested him; I don’t think he was just being nice.

I knew he’d written and directed The Fabulous Baker Boys, which was a plus because I loved that film and everything about it. Nevertheless, I was incredibly wary before I met him. He was going to butcher my baby. He was an established screenwriter, which was just plain intimidating. He was also American, and we were meeting shortly after a review of the first Potter book in (I think) the New Yorker, which had stated that it was unlikely the British idiom would translate to an American audience. You have to remember that my first Warner Bros. meeting did not take place against a backdrop of massive American success for the novels. Although the books were already very popular in the U.K., it was still early days in the U.S., and I therefore had no real means of backing up my opinion that American fans of the book would rather not have Hagrid “translated” for the big screen, for instance.

Steve and I were introduced, in L.A., by David Heyman, the producer, and we almost immediately went into a lunchtime meeting with a big studio executive. Three things happened within a couple of hours that caused every qualm to vanish and made me adore Steve, an attitude from which I haven’t deviated in 13-odd years.

Firstly, Steve turned to me while food was being ordered and said quietly, “You know who my favorite character is?” I looked at him, red hair included, and I thought: You’re going to say Ron. Please, please don’t say Ron–Ron’s so easy to love. And he said: “Hermione.” At which point, under my standoffish, mistrusting exterior, I just melted, because if he got Hermione, he got the books. He also, to a large extent, got me.

Lunch proceeded, and the senior exec held forth, dominated conversation. It swiftly became obvious to me that in spite of all the effusive praise of the novels he was pouring forth, he hadn’t read a page of them. (A reliable source had told me later the exec had read “the coverage,” which he always felt was more useful than reading the original material.) Next, he began to suggest things that would need changing, primarily Harry’s character. “No, that won’t work,” Steve said pleasantly. When lunch was over, David, Steve, and I went off for coffee together. On the way, Steve opined that you had to tell “them” up front what would work and what wouldn’t. No point prevaricating. I was now in a state of profound admiration.

When it was time to say goodbye, I wrote my email address down for Steve on the back of a torn receipt in my wallet. He read the address, then flipped over the receipt and said, “Penny Black–what’s that?” I said: “It’s the make of the top I’m wearing.” He tucked the receipt away muttering, “I just like knowing stuff like that.” As odd names on scraps of paper are perennially fascinating to me too, that clinched my feeling that I’d met a kindred spirit.

The important thing to know is that I had complete confidence in him, from that one meeting in L.A. He’d said enough during those few hours together to convince me that he had a real connection to the characters. As we subsequently agreed during our decade-plus email conversation about the books, when you strip away all of the diversionary magic, the Potter novels boil down to the characters; our relationship with them and theirs with each other.

Under the Invisibility Cloak
We started emailing back and forth pretty much from the moment I got back to Scotland. We hardly ever talked on the phone; in fact, I remember calling him once from Germany, where I was on tour, about some script issue, and he sounded absolutely thrown to hear my voice. I think he’d forgotten I had one. Anyway, with a 12-hour time difference between L.A. and Edinburgh, email was a practical and successful way of collaborating.

Steve would ask me questions, sometimes about the background of the characters, sometimes on whether something he’d had one of them say or do was consistent with what had happened to them or what would happen. He very rarely took a wrong turn; in fact, I’m struggling to remember any occasion when he did. He had a phenomenal instinct about what each character was about; he always plays that down, but he made some very accurate guesses about what was coming.

Actually, I’ve just remembered the only time he did get something wrong, and it was a funny one. We were at a script read-through for Half-Blood Prince at Leavesden, so for once we were side-by-side in the same room. I hadn’t read the very latest draft, so I was hearing it for the first time. When Dumbledore started reminiscing about a beautiful girl he’d known in his youth, I scribbled DUMBLEDORE’S GAY on my script and shoved it sideways to Steve. And we both sat there smirking for a bit.

I don’t think he ever pushed to know what was coming next. Odd, really, when I look back; except that I’ve got a feeling that as a fellow writer, he understood that I needed some space. There came a point where my bins were being searched by journalists; keeping tight-lipped was a way of giving myself creative freedom. I didn’t want to be tied down by expectations I’d raised; I wanted to be at liberty to change my mind. But I did tell Steve a few things. I used to share what I was doing as I was doing it. I remember emailing him while writing Goblet of Fire and telling him that I had backstory on Hagrid that I wanted to put in, but I was wondering whether it wasn’t too much, given how big the novel was likely to be. He emailed back saying, “You can’t tell me too much about Hagrid. Put it in.” So I did.

Inevitably, things had to be cut between novel and film. It never bothered me. Steve’s a compassionate surgeon. We couldn’t make eight-hour-long films, and I’d rather have had him wielding the scalpel than anyone else.

It’s been an intense relationship, forged under very unusual circumstances. Steve has come closest to being inside the world with me–actually, he has been inside the world with me but always a year or two behind. Nobody else has come close to that. The sheer length of the collaboration has made it unique.

He’s become a great, real friend. I remember, on a subsequent visit to L.A., the two of us ended up in a bar at my hotel, sitting at the only table where we were allowed to smoke, like a pair of pariahs. I said to him: “Do you ever feel like you’ll be found out?” And he laughed and said: “All the time. All the time.” That was the same conversation when he told me Dumbledore was “burdened with knowledge.” So he might not have got Dumbledore’s sexuality right, but he understood something much more fundamental.

These days we don’t need to email for work purposes–we just do it to hang out together in cyberspace. I’m always trying to get him and the family over to Scotland. He’ll fit right in, this sardonic, freckly guy with a nice line in black humor. He tells me he works better when it’s raining; he should buy a holiday home here.

Awwww I loove hearing about Jo. She is such a sweet woman! :D

Dahhhh, that's pretty neat!!!!

Oh finally, something written by Jo, i missed that so much!
Brilliant!

There you go Steve Kloves haters. He pleased J.K. Rowling with his interpretations, and that's good enough for me.

[SPOILER] Quote: "Steve would ask me questions, sometimes about the background of the characters, sometimes on whether something he’d had one of them say or do was consistent with what had happened to them or what would happen. He very rarely took a wrong turn; in fact, I’m struggling to remember any occasion when he did."

and [SPOILER] Quote: "Inevitably, things had to be cut between novel and film. It never bothered me. Steve’s a compassionate surgeon. We couldn’t make eight-hour-long films, and I’d rather have had him wielding the scalpel than anyonen else."

I'm overly emotional about everything right now... but reading this article almost made me cry. It's great to read something written by Jo, it brings back all the memories from the past years. I've really missed her! Sometimes it feels like she doesn't exist anymore as we don't hear anything from her... but she likes to keep things quiet. I love her, she's my childhood. <3

I've never particularly had anything against Steve Kloves, I think he's done a great job even though I haven't always agreed on everything he's done. But he really understood the characters and the story (and Jo) on a deep level. Which is why I believe he always had good reasons for every decision he made in terms of the scripts.

I love it! This is an awesome interview. I like Kloves even more now. I never had naythign againts him,it was always Yates I dissaproved of,and maybe Heyman.
I love that part where she said about Hagrid being translated.

I will never like kloves. I love Jo, but I can't believe she said that he has great instinct about the characters. No he didn't. He made them into parodies, cariactures, stereotypes, instead of the real people we knew from the books. He completely butchered ron and hermione(his lover) especially. Screw him.

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnlocke06 (Post 10283930)

That was Heyman.

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnlocke06 (Post 10283930)

Hi johnlocke06 - I'm not trying to pick a fight with you at all, we are all entitled to our opinions. But, as they actually are Jo's characters, I have to trust her response about Kloves instinct about them. Perhaps you own instincts were the ones that were not in line with hers? That's o.k. though - that's why reading a book is so great - we get to form our own opinions and feelings about the characters. Some of his tactics did anoy me too - particularly with Hermione actually (she seems to have taken over the heroic actions from Harry and Ron far too much), but over-all, I think he did o.k.

I love J.K.R.'s writing, whether or not it's her novels or these little articles. :loved: But as for Kloves... he's alright. I suppose if she trusts/trusted him, then I should feel the same, but... something isn't right.

And yes, johnlocke06 (^^^^^^), I agree that because of his soft spot for Hermione, she turned out a little differently that I would've hoped for. And no, Heyman wasn't the one gaga for Hermione; it was Kloves. I like Heyman the best out of them all, I think.

jo is amazing!! i love the story of ron and hermione

So that's why Jo doesn't mind that Hermione gets many of Ron's most important lines in the films ("If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too." - RON WEASLEY, PoA; "We're with you whatever happens." - Ron Weasley, HBP...and yet, he doesn't say a word in that final scene in the film)....even when Ron is the one who says them in the books and would know some things over Hermione because he is a wizard and lived in the world his entire life, way before Hermione knew of it...("Mudblood" conversation from CoS)

But I digress...

I'm glad they get along so well. I think that also helps explain why some of the things happen or don't happen or are changed in the films; if she does consider him a kindred spirit, someone who gets the books, then she trusts him with the films. She's a more forgiving soul than I...

I still respect the heck out of Kloves; his job isn't an easy one. But what he did to Ron, particularly in the third and fourth movies, still irritates me. But DH Part 1 was brilliant. Hope the last does it justice.

Shannon :hello:

I think Hermione and all the other characters are different from the books mainly because of the actors playing them. They bring their own interpretations which aren't exactly going to match the book versions. I mean people complain how Hermione is so in Prisoner of Azkaban but she pretty much does what she does in the book. Same thing with Ron in Chamber Of Secrets. Chris Columbus(who I like) chose however to have Ron make those faces and act really scared for comedy reasons which continued for the next few films. The example I always think about is the script for the pilot of UK "The Office". They used the exact same script for the first episode of the American version but the actors were different and that made the characters different.

Quote:

So that's why Jo doesn't mind that Hermione gets many of Ron's most important lines in the films ("If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too." - RON WEASLEY, PoA;

Well on that one I can say that it reads great in the book but is impossible to do in a movie because Ron's foot is injured. There is no way to stage that bit in real time. Try it. Try to do exactly what it says in the book with Ron standing up to say that line and hold Harry back from going after Sirius. It can't be done.

Also Ron explaining what a "Mudblood" is while vomiting slugs isn't great way to learn that info in a film. I liked that Hagrid was mainly the one to explain it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by r+h4ever1 (Post 10284002)

^ I totally agree!

Hmm... because he is the writer of the movie, the script is mostly his interpretation of the book. As such, his bias is prominent, and it has really come to annoy me, because i've always thought it throws off the balance of the trio. It seems like he pushes Hermione into the forefront with Harry, and shoves Ron into the background. Yeah, I know the actors also have a part to play, literally, but the fact of the matter is, Emma isn't just stealing Rupert's lines... Steve Kloves is giving them to her. I'm into writing, and I believe that when it comes to making movies, the writer has the most power. They kind of drive the movie, and the director oversees that along with all the art production. I've never had that much of a problem with Yates or anyone else, I just think Kloves is what causes most of the triumphs and failures. I'm not saying there weren't triumphs (Slughorn's confession, anyone???), I'm just saying that I consider the whole trio relationships to be a bit of a failure and it annoys me.

I'm glad that they get along so well. But...I have to agree with almost everyone on here about the Hermione issue. My guy hates to read, so I read him the books all the time and whenever we watch one of the movies, he always asks, "Didn't Ron or Harry say that?" In my opinion, it always seems like Harry and Ron look to be stupid because Hermione is the one that always comes up with the ideas that we originally Ron or Harry's. It is, indeed, annoying. But...I digress, lol.

I just love to hear about JK Rowling. :loved: I wish Steve Kloves could of kept some R/Hr moments in the HP movies rather than H/Hr.

Quote:

Yeah, I know the actors also have a part to play, literally, but the fact of the matter is, Emma isn't just stealing Rupert's lines... Steve Kloves is giving them to her. I'm into writing, and I believe that when it comes to making movies, the writer has the most power. They kind of drive the movie, and the director oversees that along with all the art production.

I can hear the sound of William Goldman laughing at someone saying how powerful a writer is in movies.

I think a good script is the most important thing but I think a director has the final say of what goes up on the screen. Filmmaking is a laborious task and a director doesn't shoot what he doesn't want to shoot. I also think most directors would take advantage of Ron's comedic skills and Emma's star quality to liven a scene.

Another thing, one of a screenwriter's main priorities is to write to an actor's particular strengths. Tom Mankiewicz, who wrote a few of the James Bond movies, said he wrote the character differently when Roger Moore took over from Sean Connery. There were things Sean could say and do but wouldn't be right for Roger and vice versa. I think over time Dan, Rupert and Emma each developed at their own pace as actors. Ron definitely got great as a dramatic actor recently and the script of the latest movie reflects that. The scene where Ron talks Harry out of leaving is a really great scene that wasn't in the book.

there is an awful lot of emoting going on here.....i trust the author of her own characters.....i may not agree with them all, but i am entitled to my own opinion....that said, they are all Jo's babies.

What a great excerpt. I love hearing from Jo. And I also loved that he picked Hermione. :)

Ugh.. Just proof positive that she has to defend the man who tweaked the screenplay. People, this is propaganda. I know it and she (JKR, knows it too).. Only a guilty person who go all out to defend him.
Trust me, there is no way they are ever going to win for best screenplay..
She gave up a lot of the rights & its a lesson she should have learned from George Lucas, NEVER give em up.
Lessons to be taken from Peter Jackson.. THAT is the way to go.
I am sooo not fooled.

I just love the article's title. ^_^