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John Green-Hannah Marks Open Up On How OCD Plays Central Role in Their New Movie Turtles All The Way Down
John Green and Hannah Marks discuss the role of OCD in their upcoming movie. The duo opened up about their experience working together.
John Green opened up on being reluctant about how Turtles All The Way Down would fare as a movie until he met Hannah Marks. Interestingly, Green is the author of the famous 2017 book Turtles All The Way Down.
In a recent interview, John revealed it was Hannah’s will for his book to be made into a movie that changed his mind. Marks who also serves as the director opened up about her struggle with OCD and discussed how it plays an integral part in the upcoming movie.
Hannah Marks and John Green talk about OCD
Hannah Marks, the director of Turtles All the Way Down, spoke about her own struggles with the condition. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, she opened up on relating string with the book. “I had never read something that felt so honest and raw about OCD or anxiety,” she shared. Marks added that she had “similar issues” as the protagonist from the book which made her connect deeply with the character.
Green’s portrayal of OCD in the book is very detailed and realistic, unlike the way it's often portrayed on screen. The author pointed out how people with OCD are often shown to be “freakish” in pop culture which is not true.
“My experience of OCD is that you’ll do whatever you need to do to make the obsessive thought spiral stop, because it’s extremely painful,” Green explained. He further elaborates on the truth of OCD, “And so the compulsive behaviors are not freakish—they make a lot of internal sense when you’re trying to confront intense pain.”
John also explained how he related to Aza, the protagonist, particularly during one scene. A scene where Aza’s best friend accuses her of being self-centered and implies that she is a bad friend is what hits home for John. He revealed how he often had a similar conversation with his friends growing up.
The author revealed how despite understanding what his friends meant it still ended up being “hurtful.” He then joked about how this situation was similar to the audio from TikTok that went “‘Is it me? Am I the drama?’” He quickly added that he does not think Aza is a bad friend. “I think she’s ill. That’s why it’s really important that the story doesn’t end there,” he concludes.
John Green and Hannah Marks on working together
Green revealed that he was skeptical about how his book would fare as a movie at first. The author explained how he thought it would be a “huge challenge” for a filmmaker to understand and capture the essence of the book and the protagonist.
The story revolves around a girl named Aza who struggles with severe OCD which the author wrote out of his own experience with the condition. He shared how his doubts vanished when he met Hannah Marks. Green then added, “She’d put together this two-minute video that captured how she wanted to portray [Aza’s] thought spirals.” The author revealed how Marks managed to capture the “richness” and “fullness” of Aza’s life and relationships.
Green often visited the movie sets, and Hannah revealed how she consulted the author about everything. Marks recalled how it must have been tough for John to see what he wrote “come to life.”
John appreciated Hannah for the process of creating the movie. The author spoke about how Aza’s main conflict in the movie will be to deal with her internal dialogue that demands the answers to, “Am I making these choices, or are these choices making me?”
He further added how Hannah as the director of the movie gave much-needed thought to this. The author shared, “One of the things that I really love about working with Hannah is that she took those questions really seriously, and explored them visually.”
Turtles All the Way Down is set to premiere on Max on May 2, 2024.
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