Monday, August 17, 2015

John Green: ‘To teenagers, we look like idiots’

The video blogger and author of The Fault in our Stars and Paper Towns on love, fatherhood, human complexity and Cara Delevingne

John Green
John Green: ‘I had someone I romanticised and projected my expectations on.’ Photograph: Cooper Neill/Getty Images for Allied-THA
You first became famous on YouTube – how and why?
In 2007 my brother and I started a video blog, making videos for each other, every weekday for a year. For the first 100 videos we only had about 500 viewers, but it was interesting – a collaboration. We started to do projects, many focused around philanthropy. Then, thanks to a grant from Google, we created Crash Course and SciShow, making free educational videos.


How has this part of your life fed your novel writing?
In terms of audiences, it has been a huge boost, although when The Fault in our Stars came out as a film, it took on a life of its own. Now, a lot more people don’t know that I am the person who does both things.


Two books have been made into movies – The Fault in our Stars and Paper Towns. How true are the films to your books?
It was easier this time because the screenwriters who wrote The Fault in our Stars wrote the Paper Towns script. They have a gift for structure – I knew they would preserve the novel’s themes, characters and ideas, which is all that matters to me.


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