- 4 months ago
Blockbuster Creativity Across Platforms A Conversation with Bestselling Author Harlan Coben
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00:00Welcome, everyone, and I'm very excited to be having this conversation with Harlan Coben,
00:06who is a client of United Talent Agency, a friend of mine, and one of the best-selling authors in
00:15the world.
00:16So, very excited to have you here, Harlan.
00:18Thank you.
00:21I know his work needs no introduction, but he's been at it for a long time.
00:26He wrote his first book when he was 28 years old.
00:30He's just published his 36th title, Think Twice, which is currently number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
00:37And his work has appeared on platforms and channels in theaters around the world.
00:42Once, one of his projects won four Caesar Awards, the French Oscar.
00:46Among other networks and services, Harlan has a strong relationship with Netflix,
00:50and his latest limited series, based on the book Fool Me Once, is a global phenomenon.
00:54It's been seen over a hundred million times.
00:58So, very excited to be having this conversation with Harlan.
01:02And I think the first, you know, I know so much of this conference is a discussion about AI,
01:07and we will have a very brief conversation about AI,
01:11because, you know, ultimately for Harlan, as he will say himself,
01:15you know, the key to his creativity is a mixture of things that are very, very human.
01:21How would you say, what is the secret, what gets you up in the morning, keeps you going?
01:26Well, in terms of AI, it's ignoring it.
01:28I mean, it was interesting that that last answer about taking walks and listening to AI and asking questions,
01:35I get that, but man, I need to talk to myself.
01:38I need that downtime, I need that alone time.
01:41I look at AI, actually, I'm trying to look at it as a challenge.
01:45You know, I'm not smart enough to wonder where it's going to go if I spend my time worrying about
01:49it.
01:50I just think I have to up my game.
01:52And there's always been technology challenges.
01:54I mean, when, you know, you had books, and then they said,
01:56oh, the book is going to be finished when TV came around.
01:59TV is going to be, DVDs are going to ruin it, streaming is going to ruin it.
02:02I have to compete, as opposed to the authors of another era,
02:06I got to compete with, you know, TV and your phone and all of that stuff.
02:11So it just means, for me, you have to up the game.
02:15I think the people who are trying to be generic,
02:17they're the ones that are going to be affected more by AI.
02:20But I could be wrong.
02:21I could get completely wiped out, but there's nothing I can do about it.
02:24Right.
02:24So I'm zen about it.
02:26And so when you, when, when you get started, where, where does the,
02:31I mean, you certainly don't live in the lifestyle of many of your characters.
02:35Right.
02:36So how, where does that come from?
02:37And where does that understanding of the criminal mind,
02:40the understanding of the murderer, the understanding of the investigator,
02:44how, where does that come from?
02:45It's old school.
02:46It's imagination.
02:47Imagination.
02:48I, the same way everybody here has their job.
02:51And they try to, you know, you as an agent are always trying to put together in your mind,
02:55like deals, even rough.
02:56I'm always asking, what if?
02:59I'm always trying to come up with the answer.
03:02I'm always trying to come up with a new idea.
03:04And I live that way.
03:04I'll give one quick example.
03:06I went hiking recently in New Jersey.
03:08I don't get it.
03:09All of a sudden, like hiking is really popular.
03:11I hate hiking.
03:12It's so boring.
03:13It's like you're walking and it's like, there's a tree.
03:17There's another tree.
03:18There's another tree.
03:19Fuck, there's another tree.
03:21I mean, I'm so bored.
03:22If I'm walking through the streets of Paris, it's different.
03:24I get to see faces.
03:25You get to window shop.
03:26And I'm whining like this to my kids.
03:28It's hot.
03:29It's thirsty.
03:30And I see on a path near me, a little boy, five or six years old, walking by himself.
03:36And I think to myself, what if?
03:38What if that boy came out of the woods right now and said, I've always lived here.
03:42I don't remember any life before I was here.
03:45I don't remember parents.
03:47No one knows where he came from.
03:48No one's reported him missing.
03:50And 30 years passed.
03:51We still don't know who he is.
03:53And now he matches with somebody as his father on a DNA website.
03:57And I go, oh, that'd be.
03:58So that's how my mind is constantly working.
04:01It's always asking, what if?
04:03That's the, I mean, so does most people in here in terms of their own thing.
04:08I try to just focus on what I'm doing.
04:10Right.
04:10And let me ask you a question in terms of the genre you write, the thrillers.
04:15Have you ever been inspired to write sort of a straight romance or a straight, you know, a war movie?
04:22I mean, does your what if extend beyond the genre that you seem to be so prolific in?
04:28Yeah.
04:28Yeah, I actually think sometimes a most popular novel for the French would probably be N'est le dire person,
04:34Tell No One, which is the French film that you mentioned.
04:37And to me, Tell No One is a love story.
04:40Right.
04:40It's a story of a man whose wife dies and he can't go on with his life.
04:44He can't move on.
04:45Eight years pass.
04:46He's still broken hearted.
04:48He gets an email.
04:49He clicks a hyperlink.
04:50He sees a webcam and his dead wife walks by.
04:54That to me is a love story.
04:56We call crime or mystery genre.
04:58I think of it more as a form like haiku or sonata.
05:02And within that form, I can do anything.
05:04I can tell any kind of story.
05:05Friendship, love, redemption, all of that.
05:09But what's great about a crime story is I'm forced to tell a story.
05:13I can't just navel gaze.
05:15I can't just talk about a character.
05:17And if I challenge everyone in this room to name their favorite five novels that are over 100 years old,
05:23I guarantee you there's a crime in every one of them.
05:27I remember I was representing John Schlesinger, who is a great filmmaker,
05:32and I asked him, you know, which one of your movies?
05:36And, you know, he made some incredible movies, Midnight Cowboy, on, on.
05:42And I asked him, which one is your favorite?
05:44Do you have a favorite?
05:45And he said, every single movie I've made is my favorite.
05:48I don't have any.
05:49I love all my children equally.
05:52And do you feel the same way?
05:53Are there any of your books where you go, in retrospect, like, wow, I really, that could have been better?
05:58Actually, I'm saying, they're all my children.
06:01They all drive me crazy.
06:02Right.
06:03They're all annoying.
06:04I don't have any.
06:06What I do find is the one that's most current is the one I like best.
06:10For two reasons.
06:11One is self-serving.
06:12I'm trying to sell that book.
06:13But second, and this is probably in your true business, too.
06:16Have you ever had that essay you, like, wrote years ago when you, maybe when you were in university, and
06:21you read it now, and you thought it was great, and you read it now, and you go, wow, this
06:23is terrible?
06:24Or something, you know, a deal you made years ago you thought you were so brilliant, but you know more
06:29now.
06:30It's closer to you now.
06:31So I like the novels that are newer better.
06:34But no, there's none that, they're all, they're all, like, little moments in my life.
06:38Right.
06:38And in terms of inspiration, so when you, when you were growing up, were you a big reader when you
06:43were growing up?
06:43Was, we, was it in your mind that you were going to be a writer, and that's what you wanted
06:48to do?
06:48Where does that inspiration start for you?
06:51Well, it's yes and no.
06:52I always hate, writers say a lot of things that annoy me.
06:55The most annoying is when they go, I always knew I would be a writer.
06:59When I was a three-month-old fetus, a pen formed in my mother's womb, and I started to write,
07:05I came to it later, a little later in life.
07:08But I always loved story.
07:09I don't know any musician who doesn't listen to music.
07:12I don't know any writer who doesn't read and read a lot.
07:16So, yeah, I've always loved story.
07:18When I was younger, one of the things that I did with my family, because it was a very cheap
07:23day, we would drive into New York City.
07:25And there was a sales, a book sales annex on 18th Street in New York.
07:30And they'd give you a paper bag, and you could fill it for $5.
07:35So we would spend all day, my whole family would spend a whole day there looking at books, browsing books.
07:40And then my father would pack this bag like it was a game of Tetris, you know, maximizing every bit
07:46of space for the $5.
07:48So books have always been revered in my house.
07:51Right.
07:51We were always allowed to read, always allowed to buy books.
07:55Everybody in my family had a stack of books on the side of their bed that was tumbling over.
07:59I mean, not that this is about you, but of course I'll make it about me for a second.
08:03So when I was a kid, I got in trouble, and I got grounded.
08:10And my punishment was I was not allowed to eat with the family.
08:13I had to go to my room immediately.
08:15I would go home from school, do my chores, and I had to go immediately to my room and stay
08:19in my room.
08:19And I had to read books.
08:21And my dad gave me these three books.
08:23It was the bounty trilogy.
08:25And he said, you're going to read all these three books, and you're going to write book reports.
08:29It was amazing.
08:30I was like, can you just, can I have more books, please?
08:32I just want to stay in here.
08:33I don't want to sit and listen to my stepmom and daughter fight anymore.
08:37I just want to hang out in here.
08:39So it turns out to be a great, you know, and I've always loved reading.
08:42And it's such a great way to lose yourself.
08:44And it is, I mean, we're all technology people here, but you know, the nights that you put your phone
08:51down early and you read a book instead, you're always happier.
08:56Even if the book is complete crap, you're always happier.
08:59We all know this, but we still do it.
09:01If you put your phone down an hour earlier and you read, we all know we would be happier people.
09:07I'm about to go to London.
09:09Queen Camilla has this Queen's Reading Room.
09:11And what's interesting is she's talking about literacy, but they've done studies.
09:15She's taking a scientific approach to it.
09:17And the same way we're told to walk 10,000 steps, to read five fruits and vegetables, their studies have
09:23shown that even if you read a book for five minutes a day, how much it de-stresses you, how
09:28much it improves your mental health.
09:30We all know this in this room, and yet we still get stuck on the technology.
09:34I know it's a tech conference, but I just did a signing at an old school with actual books.
09:40You know, the feel of that tactile feeling of a book.
09:44And we all see smiles out in the audience.
09:45We all know what I'm talking about.
09:47So that's actually going to make you better at the tech.
09:50Because when you take a little bit of a break, when you step away, no offense to the previous panelist,
09:55but if you step away every once in a while and aren't learning every four seconds, aren't being told, I
10:00have to improve myself, I need self-care, I've got to learn about quantum physics, relax.
10:05Let your brain open up.
10:06Take a walk.
10:07You know, that's where your ideas are going to come from.
10:09When you were a kid, you played by yourself.
10:11That's what I did too.
10:12I made up stories.
10:14Now I get paid for it.
10:15Greatest job in the world, by the way.
10:17But there's something to be said for that.
10:19Taking a step back, most, you know, Albert Einstein used to take steps back.
10:23Most of the people that you know and admire aren't quite, we love the work, we do the work, you
10:29have to do that kind of thing.
10:30But you also got to look at the world at large.
10:33Between books, I go to art museums just to fill my brain back up again.
10:38When you think about, I mean, a big part of, I mean, this is also a, this is the, this
10:43is also a part of this festival or this event is about marketing.
10:48Right.
10:48And obviously marketing plays a big part, doesn't play a big part in the writing of your book, but it
10:54certainly plays a big part in the success and the selling of your book.
10:57How do you think about marketing when you're talking to your publisher about how they're going to sell the book?
11:02How involved are you?
11:04Where, where do you feel that you contribute to the marketing of your book?
11:08I mean, I try to let you do it.
11:09I mean, I try to let it, that's why, you know, you're, you're my agent and you guys are the
11:13best in the business.
11:13I try as much as I can to just focus on developing the best book.
11:19I understand the branding and I'll have comments on it and things like that.
11:23But I know in my heart of hearts that word of mouth is still the key to any business you
11:28had.
11:29You can market the hell out of it.
11:30But if it's not, ends up not being good, you know, all of you read books or hopefully you do
11:36out here.
11:36Most of the time, if I asked you how you found that book, it wasn't from an ad.
11:40It was from a friend telling you.
11:42So I know that I have to concentrate on making the product great.
11:45The product is great.
11:47You'll read it on e-book or physical book or audio or damn stone tablets like Moses brought down.
11:52You'll read it if I do my best job and I try to leave that to others.
11:57That's, you know, that said, of course, I'm involved with, I like my name being above the title on the
12:01Netflix show.
12:02I won't lie.
12:03But, you know, that has to be, I have to leave that to others.
12:06And how did the Netflix relationship develop?
12:09Where did that really come from?
12:12You know, and where do you see that relationship going?
12:15And talk a little bit also about, I mean, what's so fascinating is how many of your books start in
12:20another language and or your productions start in another language.
12:25Let's talk about one of your current productions.
12:27I think you said it was in Argentina.
12:29You have one on Netflix Argentina.
12:30I have done three TV shows, I think, in France in one movie.
12:35Most of them know the Guillaume Canet, Nez les deux personnes tell no one.
12:39I worked with Alexandra Lamy in TF1 on No Second Chance, Virginie Lou Dayan on Just One Look on TF1.
12:47And I did Gone for Good, a French show for Netflix.
12:50I love this country so much.
12:52I've had so much fun here over the years.
12:54My very first production was Tell No One.
12:57And what I learned, no offense to Hollywood, it's a lot more fun to do it over in Europe where
13:02Hollywood and those notes and all those people will leave me alone a little bit more.
13:07And after the success of some of the ones that we had over here, Netflix kind of noticed, I sell
13:13more books out of the United States than in the United States.
13:17And they said, let's do shows all over.
13:18So I've done a Netflix Spain, The Innocent.
13:21I've done Netflix Poland.
13:22I've done four English-speaking ones.
13:25And it's a joy.
13:26And also, that hybrid of my American story and these locales means I can do, I've done eight shows for
13:34Netflix in the last three years.
13:35I think there'll be three on next year.
13:38But they're not all going to be the same.
13:39They're not all going to feel because of the different locations and locales.
13:42I think that helps.
13:43Right.
13:44And when you're writing one of those, are you writing for a locale?
13:48I mean, are you thinking...
13:49Never.
13:49Never.
13:50I think the biggest kiss of death as a novelist is to write a book thinking, ooh, it's going to
13:55make a great TV show or a movie.
13:57Right.
13:57Movies and TV are very different from books.
14:00The great James Cain, who wrote The Postman, Rings Twice, and Double Indemnity, he was once asked, don't you hate
14:06what Hollywood has done to your books?
14:08He said, they've done nothing to my books.
14:10They're right there on the shelf.
14:12And it's the same with me.
14:13If you don't like the TV show, that's fine.
14:16The book doesn't have to be the same.
14:17I think the worst adaptations are the ones that stay slavishly devoted to the text, where you're more concerned about
14:26being true to the book.
14:28Quick example, we made The Stranger on Netflix.
14:32In the book, the character of The Stranger was a computer nerd male.
14:38And when we tried to cast the early scene when that computer nerd is dropping a bomb on Richard Armitage's
14:45life,
14:46it just wasn't working for me.
14:48I said, we need a cool-looking woman instead.
14:50So I just completely switched the gender right before we went to filming.
14:55And it worked, because some things are visual and some things are in your mind.
14:59Now, did the people who loved that book, did you get feedback from the people who loved that book about
15:06the fact that you'd made a change in it?
15:09Yeah, they whine.
15:10I'm like, shut up.
15:11Seriously.
15:12I mean, the book's the book and the TV.
15:13So, you know, it's always a weird whine to me, but I'm always sort of like, yeah, okay, I'm glad.
15:18When people will say to me, oh, you know what, the books are better than TV shows, that's not an
15:22insult for me.
15:23Right.
15:24I want you to love both, but it was a better TV show because of it.
15:29And I can't worry that I'm not being, I'm going to please, you know, one person or whatever.
15:35I'm always like, what's going to be the best story?
15:38What's going, and I don't worry about anything else when I'm writing.
15:42Every moment of every day.
15:43My very favorite quote on writing comes from the great Elmore Leonard who said,
15:48I try to cut out all the parts you'd normally skip, which is genius when you think about it.
15:54And that's how I write.
15:55I write like there's a knife against my throat and if I bore you, I'm dead.
15:58Or we're cavemen around a fire and I'm boring you, this guy's picking up a stone and whacking me over
16:05the head.
16:06I want to write with that kind of energy.
16:08I want to stir your mind, stir your pulse, but also stir your heart.
16:12If at the end of this new book, think twice, you're not shedding a little tear.
16:16If you end up fooling me once on Netflix, you didn't feel for what Maya went through, I didn't do
16:21my job.
16:22I'll fool you all day long, but I have to also try to move you.
16:25It's not enough to just have the same trick and trick the audience.
16:29You have to capture them.
16:30They have to care about the characters.
16:32They have to be on the journey with your characters along the way.
16:35Otherwise, it won't work.
16:36I mean, just because the story has a great twist in it, if you don't care about the characters, it's
16:41not going to work.
16:41You're not coming back.
16:42And who did you read as a young man growing up?
16:45Who were the things you read and who are you reading right now?
16:49Well, as a child, Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a great big book for me.
16:54And what I remember about that book, and you guys probably all know the story, is remember how much you
16:58wanted Charlie to get that damn ticket?
17:01That's what I mean about heart.
17:03It wasn't just about plot.
17:04You so badly wanted that kid.
17:06And then remember his grandparents all lived in beds?
17:09Oh, yeah.
17:09That sounds appealing to me now.
17:11You know, in that day, those were kind of like an evil thing.
17:13That sounds sort of appealing to me now.
17:15Yeah, so Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, Madeline L'Engale's Wrinkle in Time.
17:21I read a tremendous amount of stuff.
17:23Right now, I just read, my pal George Stephanopoulos has a new non-fiction book out called The Situation Room.
17:29And I read a book by Taffy Brodesser-Ackner, who wrote Fleischman's in Trouble.
17:33Her new book, Long Island Compromise, is fantastic.
17:35So there's a few.
17:36Right.
17:37And when you are in the debate about, I don't even know if it is a debate, the debate about
17:43literary fiction, fiction, literary fiction, you know, where the emphasis is.
17:49I mean, do you pay attention to that?
17:50Do you think about, you know, reading literary fiction?
17:54Does that matter to you?
17:56Well, my favorite author is Philip Roth.
17:59So, you know, we have both New Jersey boys together.
18:04I read everything.
18:06I personally don't worry what is counseled.
18:09That's arguments for other people.
18:11I have a lot of readers all over in different categories, different parts of the world.
18:15If I start worrying about that sort of thing, you just get caught up in it.
18:19All that matters to me, again, is telling a great story.
18:22But a great story has to be also well-written.
18:24It has to have themes.
18:26It has to have descriptions.
18:27Just all of them have to be gripping in their own way.
18:30I can't spend, I'm not going to spend 20 pages describing a sunset.
18:34That's just not what I do.
18:35I want to twist and turn you.
18:37I want my book to be the book, tonight you take the bed at 10 o'clock or 11 o
18:40'clock, and
18:41you say, I'm only going to read for 10 minutes.
18:43And the next thing you know, it's 4 in the morning, and you got completely lost and immersed
18:47in the story.
18:48And I want the same thing on Netflix.
18:50I want you to keep, I want you to smash that next episode button.
18:55I want all eight episodes to be done in a day.
18:58I don't want you to think of anything else.
18:59That's what I like to do.
19:01Right.
19:01And when you're thinking about Netflix and how, sort of, and what that relationship's
19:11like, are there other ways that you feel like, wow, I'd like to expand this relationship?
19:15This is a, there's other things I really want to do with Netflix or Amazon or whoever
19:19your TV partner is.
19:21Is there more to be done with them in your mind?
19:24I'm always looking.
19:25I mean, we're working on a lot of shows, as you know, together right now.
19:29So I'm not sure how much more, I also want to make sure they all are of a quality.
19:33I don't want to just throw anything up on, on screen.
19:37So trying to get that balance where I can still write my book, do the TV shows and make
19:42sure that they're still good and worthy.
19:45I care a lot.
19:46I mean, it sounds really corny, but so you walk into a bookstore, there's a thousand,
19:51five thousand books, 10,000 books in there.
19:53Here, the fact that you might choose mine, that's a real honor and a privilege.
19:57I take that responsibility really seriously.
20:01If you're disappointed by whatever work I do, that's where I get bummed.
20:05That's where I really do care.
20:07I don't care how many books you write.
20:09That never goes away.
20:10That fear that you won't like this book or this TV show really does terrify me and keep
20:16me up at night.
20:16So I need to make sure it's the best thing I can possibly do.
20:20You've been called the publishing Jerry Lewis of France because your books are so tremendously
20:28successful here in France.
20:30Do you have any sense of the why of that?
20:33Is there some sort of element of them, consistent element that makes them work so well in France?
20:39I just think the French people are smarter.
20:42There you go.
20:42They're better read.
20:43That's all.
20:44They're more intelligent.
20:44That's all.
20:46That's my explanation for it.
20:48I actually think it's the hard thing.
20:50The French do not settle for a story that just solves a crime.
20:54Until no one being our first love affair between myself and the French, they really loved the
20:59idea of how Francois Cluzet was falling in love with Marie-Joel Croce.
21:04And I think that that caring, again, you wanted him to reconcile with her so much in that movie
21:11that Guillaume Canet directed, that I think that was a wonderful start to my relationship
21:16with the French.
21:17And I'm super grateful.
21:18I used to come to Paris three or four times a year, but since COVID, I haven't been back.
21:23This is my first time back, and I'm just so thrilled to be here with everybody.
21:26It's been great.
21:27And how much does your day-to-day life as a father, a husband, I mean, Harlan's wife,
21:35which I learned, Anne, is a distinguished doctor and head of the Columbia Business School,
21:42School of Admissions.
21:43I mean, incredible.
21:44How much does that family part of you influence you, inspire you, stimulate you?
21:50Well, it's everything.
21:51Flaubert has a quote where he says,
21:53be regular and orderly and bourgeois in your real life so you can be violent and original
21:59in your work.
22:00So my normal life is very, I'm just a father of four.
22:04The other thing is I have no other interest besides writing.
22:07I only write, and I have the family.
22:09My kids are grown now.
22:10So I don't have any hobbies.
22:11I don't like to collect things.
22:13I don't like to, so that makes me focus even more on sports.
22:16I don't paint.
22:17I don't, so whenever, there's always a voice in my head that says you should be writing.
22:22Whatever else I'm doing, there's always, I took up golf a few years ago.
22:27I should have just smashed a glass and jammed it in my eye, but instead I took up golf.
22:32But even when I'm playing and having a good time, there's always that voice in my head
22:36that's like, you should be home writing.
22:38And I think you need that voice.
22:41Most writers are insecure, and I think that actually helps feed us.
22:46Well, I want to thank you very much for this conversation.
22:49You're so great.
22:49You've been amazing.
22:50Thank you.
22:50And thanks, everybody.
22:53Thank you.
22:55As he should be home writing, you should all be home reading.
23:00So thanks so much, and please buy a copy of Think Twice.
23:05Thanks, everybody.
23:07Thank you.
23:07My pleasure.
23:08Thank you, Jeremy.
23:09Thank you, Jeremy.
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