00:00Well, as Catherine can tell you, and Dylan as well, it was a long and drawn out search, you know,
00:05especially when you're adapting a really well-loved piece of literature, you're contending with many, many readers' visions of who
00:14should play these roles.
00:16And so what we knew going in is that more than any physical attribute, more than any specific kind of
00:24person, we needed someone who could capture the essence of who these people were.
00:29Well, as Catherine can tell you, and Dylan as well, it was a long and drawn out search, you know,
00:34especially when you're adapting a really well-loved piece of literature, you're contending with many, many readers' visions of who
00:43should play these roles.
00:45And so what we knew going in is that more than any physical attribute, more than any specific kind of
00:53person, we needed someone who could capture the essence of who these people were.
00:58There are a lot of shows centered around teens out there, but I've never, not really to the extent of
01:06the pedigree of the people that are on this, so that's what's really cool and what really attracted me to
01:10this, because I knew the story would be told properly and to the fullest extent, and it's been amazing.
01:18Well, it's an ongoing dialogue. I think when you're working on a series, you know, you have the opportunity, which
01:23is a glorious opportunity to develop characters over time, and you get to sort of learn more about them as
01:28the season goes on.
01:29And I was blessed from the beginning, we had a wonderful writing staff. People talk about my writing. Well, it's
01:36really sort of me and eight other writers, who are really just spectacular writers, and also very, very smart people
01:43about human beings and the way human beings behave in the world.
01:46So that's where it started. And then, you know, on set, we were also blessed with some really stupendous directors,
01:54beginning with Tom McCarthy, who, you know, had not done anything for young adults before this, and not really done
02:01all that much as a television director, certainly as an actor.
02:05But, you know, in asking him to take this on, and blessedly his agreeing to take this on, we really
02:13were guided by someone who, in Tom McCarthy, has a tremendous sense of truth, and a tremendous way of working
02:21with actors, so that they can do the most truthful thing in every moment, that they're free to work, but
02:28also to have a sense that there's a guiding hand to help them.
02:33And I learned so much watching McCarthy work with the actors, and that collaboration with, you know, the writer, with
02:41the director, and with the actors is really sort of the, to me, the most thrilling part of this, because
02:46at the end of the day, the character belongs to all of us together. It's a collaboration.
02:51Dylan has to go out and be Clay. Hannah has to, or rather, Catherine has to go out and be
02:55Hannah. But hopefully, the way we've created these characters is as a collaboration, and we're there helping them bring the
03:03characters to life.
03:06Consideration of changing the ending, I think that, you know, when the show is very upfront, we learn in the
03:12first episode, really, maybe five minutes in, in the present tense, that Hannah's dead.
03:19And so that becomes sort of the challenge is not whether or not that's going to happen, but why it
03:26happened.
03:26And in unfolding the why, we truly sort of begin to unpack all the mysteries of who Hannah is, and
03:35all the things that happened to her.
03:37And hopefully, over the course of the season, even though you know the ending, and we all know the ending,
03:42we really hope that at some point in the middle of the season, you'll forget that, and you'll start rooting
03:47for her to survive and to make it, and for Clay and Hannah to fall in love.
03:53And hopefully, if we've done our job right, you get lost in the possibilities of what might be for Hannah,
04:00so that her loss is all the more tragic because of it.
04:10I think that's an excellent question, and really, I think that's the most important question we faced with this, you
04:15know, in telling a 13 episode, you know, television series about a young woman who commits suicide, are you in
04:22some way glamorizing or championing what she did?
04:25And we sort of set about telling the story in such a way that we would understand both the tragedy
04:33and the senselessness of what she did, so that we could bring, especially young viewers, hopefully all viewers,
04:41but especially teenagers and young adults, into Hannah's story, and help them to understand how there were ways that she
04:49could have survived what she was going through.
04:52There were ways that the people in her life could have behaved differently, even just a little bit differently, that
04:59might have drastically changed the outcome.
05:01And ultimately, as you'll see at the end of the series, we tried to be very clear-eyed and sort
05:08of brutally honest about the pain of suicide, the pain of the person who attempts suicide,
05:14and certainly, when someone dies by suicide, the tremendous pain of the people that they leave behind.
05:22And particularly, Clay, Hannah's parents, who are beautifully played in the series by Kate Walsh and Brian Darcy James, you
05:30see throughout the whole series what they're living with.
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