Emma Watson in Coversation with Steve Chbosky

and I would like please if you could all join me in welcoming my very very dear friend Emma Watson [Applause] doing here it's it best kiss fantastic yes it's so strange as Steve says we've been going for dinner together now for 10 years yes and you know Steve he's too humble to say this but he's not just my friend he's he's really my mentor and yeah he's family really so anyway it's lovely to do this was an audience who once he has such great things to say and everyone should hear them so thank you no pressure the best advice I obviously biased because I like you as we know but I I always honestly up start with your book I think I told you this when I first called you after I read it but I read it in two sittings which considering if you've seen how thick the book is this is a really big deal it means I didn't move for a very and just read his book it's um it has all this wisdom in it but it's entertaining it's as I said it's the brand and the donut yes it's spiritual enlightenment and horror which are two concepts I never expected to be so successfully melded together can you I know you often think filmic Lee an amazing film and the book can you give us the trailer of your book what would the trailer look like for Imaginary Trials oh well I I think right now yes well imagine well I well it depends because not the sequel because I've told you about the sequel that's the that's the child one for this one imaginary friend I would say this it would be it would be that moment with Christopher's outside of his school and he's all alone and there is there is the cloud face up and up in the heavens and and it's like when the last of the school buses go away it's just him alone talking to that clown I think that like a nice little 20-second scary little trailer like what does that mean what's behind that cloud because that cloud represented everything you know and in following the cloud was the kind of the metaphor for the last 10 years of writing this book so I would pick that moment so that was really gonna be my next question was so you had this this vision came to you of the boy speaking to the cloud and then I'm curious did you kind of have the whole story panned out and then you just kind of had to write it or were different big pieces of the story revealed to you as you I think I think big pieces of the story were revealed to me as I went I knew some basic things and I know that you know that I know some basic things because because this is a there's a kind of a fun moment where you and I are on the set of the person being a wallflower and we were at lunch when we were shooting the secret santa thing and it was just me and you and I was like and I I told you the story and the boy and the cloud and he done in the woods and they you know he goes missing in all these things and you were on the edge of your seat it was a fantastic moment and then at the end I go and then this happened you were like actress is about being a good liar it's actually the opposite what it means is all of your emotions play across the whole of your face this is true cuz you can hide nothing about the way that you feel yes that is absolutely true you are sure you're a very bad liar I was just I couldn't conceal my you couldn't there you go there you go so you know welcome you dinner so yes so yes that was but but that was a really important moment because because obviously I I trust your taste and you're brilliant and so so you knew it so going back to your question is you knew a lot of it already but a lot of it was real surprised I didn't think it would be as long as it was but but it kept demanding to be this length it kept demanding to be an epic and multi point you know multi perspectives and so yeah I knew a lot of it I knew a couple of the twists along the way but a lot of it was real surprise you would set up a thing where in the beginning of for example the prologue David Olsen is is this character and he goes missing in the woods I only wrote that part this will kind of be shocking to you I only wrote that part because I just wanted to establish the kind of scary tone because nothing scary happens for a long time it's really about the heart so I just added that and then he became such a huge presence throughout the whole book so sometimes you just follow you know you just follow the plan became became this thing and then and so many thumb at éclairs about loss about about you know I had the idea for this one character Mary Katherine and she started off as one way and then evolved into something else so yeah a lot of it was surprising to me amazing because I know you say well I know that being a great husband is really important to you being a good father is really important to you you have two children you've directed a film in the meantime I'm just curious what the daily rigor of actually getting a project this of this magnitude done and complete what is that what does the discipline look like to actually to do that well yeah well no that's a great question you know it's funny when I was younger when I was in my 20s I used to wait for inspiration right and and now and now it's kind of like flipped like inspiration waits for me you know I'm saying because what I've learned is when you're a young artist you're like waiting for that lightning bolt and and now that I'm older and like you know Liz and I like we have you know with with our kids it's like you know you got to take Figo to school you gotta take Theo to school if you only have three hours that day well guess what that's what you have what I found though is by just into committing to the time when I have time I give it as much as I can that and a lot of coffee you know and you know that a lot of coffee in ten years can equal you know a book let's not leave out the 10 years farts like I have to write between 4:00 in the morning and 8:00 and then I have to have this very specific type of cross star and then do you know what I mean it's not it's not that yes absolutely first of all I haven't had a second second secondly it's like listen you know it's funny I was thinking about when we were right down the road here on Sunset Boulevard for the The Perks premiere at the Cinerama Dome right so we're right down the road and like you're off and then I went home that night change diapers you know I'm saying it's kind of like the glamour of it yes it used to be like that there was a ritual and this had to happen and this had to happen and now it's like you know I mean just do it you know I mean and sometimes it's great and sometimes it's not but like tomorrow will tell you how good today is thank you okay amazing um all right so you had this I was gonna say of all the things you could have written why did you write this but it sounds as though the inspiration guided you in the sense that you weren't like I want to write a book about this kind of message it was like there's an idea just captured you all it was the idea of maturation the idea of the boy looking at that cloud and I was like something's behind that cloud it's it's evocative of something he's been through I started thinking about the boy and his friends and start I think about my childhood in Pittsburgh and little by little bit by bit these moments happen that were just they were really they just inspired me and and you kind of go down a rabbit hole and but my deal with with myself and with the reader was this is you know I hadn't written a book I didn't published a book in 20 years so for me I was like I was gonna give it the best I had yeah like I wasn't gonna stop until I thought it was really really up to par with the Perks of Being a Wallflower because I couldn't let down those fans I mean over the years it's kind of remarkable all the love that I mean the letters and that just meeting people it was like you know that was my thing I did it you focus in New York Times bestseller right now thank you so clearly you achieved that goal small spoiler Christopher counts in the book the time that he's for the shining and a new sight Stephen King an inspiration I do so I had to ask you do you think there's lots of similarities between Danny Torrance and Christopher I never thought Danny Torrance and Christopher because Danny was born with the shining and what Christopher at what happens to Christopher in the woods like when he comes out a little bit different he was he was changed in those woods okay so it's it's it's slightly different but I will say that in terms of Stephen King was very exciting and it was I was that that his son the brilliant Joe Hill I love the firemen a little plug there for you Joe that that when he gave me and ice blurb for the book it really meant a lot to me it's just Stephen King is such an inspiration you know when I was a kid when I was I don't know if I've ever even told you the story when I was 12 I I you know I've only wanted to be two things in my life I want to be a baseball player I want to be a writer so I said to my dad you know when I was when I gave up baseball at 11 I was like that's not going to happen I said you know dad I want to be a writer what I meant to say was novelist I said writer and he gave me this advice he said well great writers are great readers and and then he kind of left the room to like smoke a cigarette and watch the hockey game that's what he did and I was like huh and I it was good advice he's trying to encourage me to read more but I didn't take it that way I took it as a rule ah I guess it can't be a novelist cuz I wasn't a great reader I watched a lot of movies I watched a lot of movies I said well I read movies all right I guess I'll write movies because I just applied the logic of the rules to like this you saw children is such a huge deal because I'll take you'll take it little yes well you don't be too sad because you know I ended up being pretty good at it ya know it turned out you know you were good in the movie and the other life is great you know yeah it's all fine know the point the point being though is that when he gave me that when it gave me that advice the only person I really read at that age because I think I I don't think I was ever diagnosed I was never diagnosis to let dyslexic whatever but I'm a really slow reader painfully slow and at that age the only person that really kind of got me right that I got was Stephen King he's what I read so so it was like it went from like dr. Seuss and then I skipped a lot too you know and so that this book imaginary friend was very much a tribute to him and in his influence I loved his stuff and also it's ironic I was just in London as you know because I saw you there we saw the teenager musical which we did which was great but is it quite good right great but um but we I went to the Stanley Kubrick the next day I went to Kubrick archives and I held the shining screenplay on my hand which was pretty remarkable that's pretty cool yeah just to move in a completely different direction now the book deals with these kind of existential questions life after death deals with the religion a lot and I I know a little bit about your growing up but do you come from a religious background how did this form so much of the backbone well yeah well I mean I my thing is is basically I was raised in western Pennsylvania a southern suburb of Pittsburgh called upper st. Clair and my thing about growing up in Pittsburgh is I was basically surrounded by three things all of which are in the book woods deer and Catholics you mean like foundations basically the working title of imaginary friend was wood deer in Catholics and so and I am the latter I was raised Catholic and you know it's it's it really when you give a kid like me that's pretty literal yeah with a lot of imagination and you tell that seven-year-old okay so by the way and then God's gonna flood the world like you know it it scared me to death I mean because I took it quite literally and and it really scared me and so a lot of those a lot of those questions a lot of that imagery is is in the book it's it's kind of a mixture of everything that scared me as a kid a lot of ways whether it was you know Hansel and Gretel who big you know the which becomes the ancing lady or you know when Christopher goes into the woods he's wearing the little red hoodie he's Little Red Riding Hood I'm mixing Grimm and the Bible in this very and my own kind of memories because all of those things together with my own imagination is what led to the fear the kid fears and what is most remarkable about art and and I love this about art I'll always love about it is that that doing writing about fear at the end of the book I don't fear it anymore right speaking of fear blasphemy and and also superstition clearly one you would just like able to put those two wants but you know what yes okay and some people feel that way like you earth I've gotten some anger I have pretended but I didn't but you know as you know cuz you know you've read the is that especially with the carry that let's say like Mary Katherine like Mary Katherine McNeill who is and I wrote her she's like the most Catholic girl ever and I take it very seriously I say what happens to a young woman in this in this case she's 17 who is raised Catholic believes everything you know she's a true believer true person of faith and her brain goes ok what happens if what happens if I sin and before I can go to confession I die does that mean I'm damned and I take it very I take it very seriously and very literally and so my thing was was watching her go through her you know watching her go through her journey to the entire thing to letting go of fear and only embracing the love I think is very empowering it's actually a very pro faith the whole thing is steeped in not very spiritual yes it felt yeah it definitely felt that it was honoring thank you which brings me also to forgiveness forgiveness seems like an incredibly important theme in the book and I love how we come to understand the stories of the two children in the story who are beliefs or who are bullying yes and we're just interesting if you could say more about the importance of that in terms of bullying as themes yes I in terms of understanding see here's the thing one thing I've loved I've done this in all of my work and and and it's I'm really grateful to have a platform to even say this is I feel like you know most people as you know we all have we all a prejudice against each other you know I don't talk about I'm not gonna do racial or religious I'm talking like you see a person on the street you make an instant snap judgment about them we all do it we you know it's part of our survival I look at something a little bit deeper and I say I love I love taking a character than you think oh this is the bully and you dismiss them oh this is that this and by the end of this story everybody is redeemed by the end of the story you understand you may not agree with how they've coped with their whatever their trauma is whatever it is they're going going through but only you understand it and what I'm trying to use this story for it's why I was very honored to direct the movie of wonder or even even with perks to be a Wallflower going back is you take these things that most people don't talk about that most things get swept under the rug and you really look them in the eye so that people can use them whether it's like a young woman who's like struggling with something in her own life or it's a kid or even its if it's a parent that's trying to understand oh my kids struggling maybe something's going on there yeah and the the compassion of that is amazing and yeah and your willingness to confront issues that as you say are uncomfortable and people kind of prefer to kind of just sweep that one over this way and let's it's easier just not to talk about any yes which is which is incredible I think when I wrote the review for your book that was actually the the thing that I that struck me the most so that I wanted to say the most about your book and why it felt really meaningful to me was was this idea that there is no nowhere and nothing and no one that is not cannot or is not worthy of redemption and yeah I just I loved how oh there's something about when I finished the book how it felt so complete and so deeply comforting and I think that's the thing that carries me through all of your work whether you're writing something or directing something or it's a script actually not that many people know this but Steve wrote the script for beating the beast and there's just something so profoundly profoundly comforting to me about about the things that you the things that you write and you somehow manage to do it with a thriller I don't know how but you did know but you know we essentially imagined beating the beast because it's not so much as thriller it's really this it's the coming-of-age is the story of childhood all of these things they all are linked if you think about just you know you're an English literature major you think about children's literature which usually gets something of a bad rap in a way but you know not a bad rap but in other words on some level it's not taken as seriously as something like I don't think a child's author has ever won the Nobel Prize for Literature and you think about how many great ones there have been it the thing about all of these stories whether it's a fairy tale it's a fairy tale or or a princess story like Beauty and the Beast is it's there's the fantasy element there are all these things that it's it's really talking about children how they see the world how they relate to the world watching Macy and Theo watching them invent things it's all kind of part of that world to me yeah why do you choose what I'm you're right that is totally the threat why do you choose children to explore such adult themes what can they bring to it that if you if you had an older protagonist they wouldn't be able to do that well you know I think on some level because you know that story I told earlier when I was 12 you know if I had been sitting if my father had said anything else if I'd take it in any other way I would have a completely different life it is such a formative powerful time and so I remember let's talk about beating the Beast for just a second I remember writing the bit where so you know you get the frumpy dress and then what I loved was the idea of like oh wow Bella's being taken captive this is horrible and and I'm saying to Macy hey the Beast takes you captive maybe turn the dress that they give you into a rope to get the hell out of the castle Jim saying as a metaphor for the whole thing I I what I love is I love writing things that empower people whether they're they're young adults and they're trying to figure out of their identity they're they're you know every number of issues that they're facing if they're a small child and they're just trying to find some power in the world when they feel so powerless or you know even even in terms of like sometimes the adults who might have something that that is unresolved for themselves or they're worried about their own kids right like I don't know I I just I feel like there's something about that time and those subjects that are forever fruitful and I have never found a story about a grown-up that has been more powerful to me than stories about young people I can't think of one and I there I love a lot of my love sideways inmates right and there's so many good movies about grown people or great books about grown people but kind of give me to kill a mockingbird any day you didn't mean that's a beautiful answer and it doesn't I've never what's amazing to me about you is that you you seem to carry that knowledge within you in the sense that you feel this incredible sense of responsibility especially to young people that identify with the perks of being a wallflower I personally know because I've heard this anecdote or the story from so many young people that perks it being a wallflower say if their life help them recover from a really difficult moment in their in their lives but you don't you don't seem to you respect the importance of it but you don't carry the weight of it you it just seems like an adder to you to - well it's it's a joy to find the light within the darkness it's an acknowledgement that there is no there is no light without dark right and so if you've known some darkness which I have and and but the thing was I was always looking for the bright side it was it wasn't even discipline so yeah God knows I look trust me when I tell you I'm sure liz is back there going like yeah he carries a little bit of weight like you know to me isn't all it isn't all light but I will say what I found is the most effective way to tell a story that deals with the things that are normally swept under the rug is through humor it's through romance it's through joy it's through universal experience it's through the celebration of life not the ponderings of death that's how you find it so yeah it's so it's not like I'm choosing light I mean I'm I like I'm an optimist by Nature but but I also know that it's a great way to tell a story and I'll always tell it that way well thank you for telling it that way it's it's very yeah it's been as I've gone through I mean you met me when I was 19 I think I yeah I think it was yeah right yeah I remember you just gotten your famous pixie cut he's Steve met me two days after I had shaved back of my head yes and we met and anyway yeah it's it's I don't all of your work has been so nobody you know was because it's it's thinking about being young and it's about empathy right okay so you and I meet so I walk in like you know you were there but just it's serious I walk in and what I found most remarkable was is like it was like again you were there and like you know and and and Denise was nearby and so she was keeping an eye on you and so we we met at the restaurant and it was really what I felt was I could feel the eye of the hurricane that you grew up under Jude I'm saying that's what was interesting to me and what I never forget and I don't even know if you know how important this was and enlist can attest because I took the train home to journey home to Ocean Grove New Jersey and she's like how did it go you met I was like let's hang out as I said she said you said to me I want the person that will keep us all there to 1:00 in the morning because they just have to get it right and it was something about your your pursuit of excellence and wanting that and also just just knowing that you grew up in the craziest way I can't even imagine what it was like to grow up in that in that circus it's just as a human being it's an artist you you you were a champion this is a person you know sometimes you want to turn it off and be able to stalk down the street you know I mean and sometimes you know you can't was I was like I I made a promise like I was never let you down do you mean period they're like that this experience would be what you wanted it to be because and also you know how it is and we all know this we all relate to this is how sometimes you'll you'll fight a lot harder for somebody else's experience than for your own yeah jimm saying and so yeah that's what it was I don't know to me it was that and and yeah going back yeah I guess you were 19 yeah that's shocking yeah it was really so I have been I've been on a number of director meetings at this point four different projects on at this point I had kind of decided I was going to take time out maybe indefinitely from from making films and Steve came along with the wackiest two promises I've ever heard anyone make and it was that not only not only were we gonna make the most amazing film and the best possible rendition of the perks of being a wallflower but that I was gonna have the best summer of my life doing it I was like who makes a promise like that you can't you can't control that I thought it was absurd but then there was also something about the conviction of this man and and the way that he was able to describe every single frame of this film to me and exactly what it was going to look like that I believed you and then you bloody delivered I mean I actually did I actually had a summer of my life oh and that was the second part of the promise he was like you ought to make some of the best friends that you're ever gonna make one of them was you um and then the others was Ezra Miller and Logan Lerman and the rest of that cast who when we did become incredibly close but I think what endeared me the most maybe you want to sign up to your project was that you cared about the experience of making it as much as you cared about the end product oh yeah and not just that I remember I you know I was in we were in a script meeting and you said oh I have to leave now because I have to go and speak to my wife and she's probably being born to me and I was like I'd never seen I just went around all these executives who and other directors who it just appeared as though they didn't sleep or have any kind of life other than whatever their project was and if they did they certainly spent all of their time trying to disguise it and the fact that you openly were like we this film is incredibly important to me but ultimately we are my relationship with how the relationships I have the experience that we have here as human beings are just as important if not more important than the end result and that is a way of approaching you know life let alone art was so beautiful to me and has been and I've looked for people like you and people to work with like you ever since and the truth is there's very few to that I can find well you that all that way you're very sweet to say it but I'll say that like what I learned I learned it when I was I was this last month I was on my book tour it was like you know it's funny you know we don't I I think that the meaning of life really comes from the relationships that we have and and it's family I I know that I told you the story a little bit of stupid Stern who was my mentor and hero travel that a cause and Sybil and all these amazing movies and I remember when he passed away a few years ago it was you know his Emmy wasn't on the the you know what I mean it was like we wall went to the hospital we were all there for him and it was the people that loved him it's not it's all this this other stuff it's really about that thing and and that's why I believe I just believe it because I have too much proof to the contrary that that I have too much proof that the point of life is life it's not the accolades and everything else of all the things that I said about you and they're all true and they're all amazing and I'm so you know the thing that impressed me the most is always it's really just you are a great friend right do all these amazing things but it's amazing is to me is when you turn it off you turn it off and you're a person and you know that that's you know you're you're trying to help as well and I don't know it's just you've inspired me a great deal over the last ten years and I'm glad that I've done the same thank you it's just it's it and I'll stop after this but I just and that's the last thing I have to say but it's just you know industry so much like this with the compliments I know I know I'm great seriously in an industry where you're like oh maybe you do have to be an to achieve anything and maybe you do have to elbow people in the face and maybe you do have to be competitive and you know maybe you do have to be this way it's just like no no Steve Chbosky exists and Steve Chbosky is the contrary to the rule he is the that basically the nicer you are to people and the more you cultivate and grow people's talent and and the more human you are and just the more you show up as yourself the better product the better thing you're going to create and the better artist you're going to be you are basically against the role that in order to be a successful artist you have to be some sort of hermit you do not you know you do not this is really exciting and great news that's my memoir title by the way the odd a hermit I'm struggling to find but now uh you know I'm gonna go the other way I'm really bad I can't yet again help you to enough of my questions does anyone here ask questions that they want to ask Steve was there a point writing measuring friends where he got kind of just stuck for a while was there a point where I got stuck writing imaginary friends yes yes it was many many times there were many times you can ask Liz you can ask Kelsey Scott you can ask Ava d'lai or you can ask basically everybody in my acknowledgments page hey were there moments with Steve Steve got stuck oh yeah but what I found was I wasn't gonna give up on it because I really thought I had something special with this idea so yeah that's the main thing is like and I tell every young artist ever young writer actor you name it those moments that they you get down you keep putting one foot in front of the other and it's gonna happen for you I mean yeah okay after like seeing this story for 10 years if you see yourself like going back into it or adopting it whose screen yeah that's a great question do I see myself going back into or adapting this for the screen both I you know when I when I when I made the person be Wallflower with Emma making that movie that entire project from the book all the way through the film was the greatest artistic experience I ever had and I loved it I loved everything about it I loved having it my version in the book and then I love sharing it I loved what what she did with Sam I loved how as wrote up a trick all the cast it was just remarkable to watch them all kind of do their own autobiographies in a way even if they didn't necessarily live the characters lives what they brought to it so the idea of like creating this thing that was you know to get the blueprint in my head on the page and then adapting it would be wonderful and so that's really fun and yes there is I can't tell you what the sequel to the book is because it will give away what the ending of the book is but yeah I have a sequel already and Emma referred to it earlier and so I'm very excited to go back in I really didn't know that I was kind of writing my version of the Lord of the Rings I had no idea I thought I was gonna write it like a fun little to 250 page yarn that was mixed a heart and horror for my wife to love and next thing I know 10 years later I got I got a doorstop that I love and and there will be more yeah you were I just wanted to follow from that gentleman's question if when in those times what you did feel stuck well allowed you to stay resilient and keeper what allowed me to stay resilient and keep going in the moments I was stuck was really it changed all the time sometimes it was it with my kids or mine certainly my wife and also because you know I want them to read it someday if I don't finish it no one can read it you know I mean sometimes it's that simple it's not even like oh wow if I don't finish this book five years that are down the drain or anything like that I take time very seriously we only have so much of it I'm thinking of a I'm thinking of that fact more and more every day you know sometimes you write a book or you make a movie because you want to be the person that read the first person that reads or or sees it you know I was like I I'm the first person that got to read a mentoring friend it was here and and if if you believe as I do that like so much of this has inspired so much of this is out there kind of in the ether and I don't know why the boy with the clouds and this title came to me as opposed to somebody else but I'm really glad the book exists and so I get to read it first and then if I feel it's up to snuff then I get to publish it and then share with other people that's that's when it gets really really fun because I genuinely believe in empowering the reader and other things but it's not so much like I'm this preacher and this is the message it's more of like I because that to me implies on some level that that there's that there's some kind of hierarchy when it's not you go look if over the years last 20 years people come up to me SM has referred to and they talk about what perks is meant to them as a movie or as a book I was just on tour and I had four people as you'd reference who literally looked me in the eyes and the I didn't kill myself because of you're actually in this case movie which is really remarkable and and so so let's just take that as a friends as the most extreme version of this thing that I believe which is it if I wrote something many years ago whether its imaginary friend of perks or whatever and I felt this thing if someone comes to me and says wow it's like you really understood how I felt right so if I don't believe in a hierarchy which I don't what it means is it's not like writers up here and readers down here we're here and the thing is that it's the feeling because if someone says you understand how I felt I get to say back to them well that means that you understand how I felt and now we have communion wave connection it's the connection always the dance between artist and audience is forever that's what I'm always chasing yes the having kids because I know you're kids so there were moments in Christopher that I saw from your daughter that made me cry so are there things is it within different experience writing young people now that you have kids you were writing a lot of kids in this book yes well I have to say you know I'm really glad I made the person we will offer our movie before I had children because I think I was willing to go a little bit you know deal with some things that might be a little tougher now but in terms of imaginary friend I started writing that book and the person I related to the most was Christopher and by the end of the book the person I related to the most was his mother yeah went from Christopher to Kate really quickly because yes it's like as any parent knows if your child is struggling in any way with any sent any set of you know you know whatever the issue might be and in some cases something fairly harrowing like when Theo would just took off on us at SeaWorld for like 20 minutes and you couldn't find them like I wouldn't wish that feeling on anybody and so it all kind of found its way into the DNA of the book for sure really did you use your kids as inspiration for something parts of the book and then [Music] [Applause] y'all's gonna answer them you want to see yourself in the future you're tapped into the collective unconscious my friend did y'all done young man fantastic what are a follow-up what was the original ending that Emma so wisely told you I can't I can't and I'll tell you why it kind of gives a couple things away that I ended up figuring out no nuts equal although yeah part of it actually you know what it was it was C okay I'll share this I'll share I'm gonna I'm gonna talk because I don't want to give on any way of measuring a friend so I'll talk about in terms of perks when I wrote The Perks of Being a Wallflower when it first started it way back in college it was the kid was angry and it was first person it was very angry and very kind of you know edgy and blah blah and then I'm paid 72 I'll never forget I wrote well I guess that's one of the perks of being a wallflower and I spent 72 pages to get six words and I scrapped the 72 pages instantly because I realized that the person in Wallflower was what I was always searching for the whole time that every time I try to be angry or edgy or like you know scandalous or whatever I try to be I'm just not good at it I mean every time I try to go dark and not like dealing with dark subjects what should I do but like do it like go in with an edge it's it's just I'm just me and it doesn't work ever and so my original ending I think what she will attest was this like and then this dark thing happens and she's like like yeah I go from the edge of the seat to just off the cliff like that instantly so yeah that was that's all I can tell you everything else would give stuff away so I this is gonna be my last like I'm really throwing you guys a gem here but I asking this question because basically well I'm about to appear in a grocery I would write the script and directors Little Women yes which I've heard is incredible [Applause] coming out on Christmas Day quick film no but seriously so a big part of my character Meg story is is figuring out what LifePath she wants and specifically which which man is the right man that's her specific story the other sisters have other stories but that's Mexico and over the last ten years you've given me the best dating advice I've ever had from anyone consistently a big portion of her conversations as me just with my by the way notice that the overlap of the ten years is after I got married so like once I got married to Liz and I was like oh it's this then I could give good a dating advice before that rubbish go ahead okay so because I've always felt this because this is what our dinners look like right with Steve is I'm I'm scribbling on some corner of a napkin somewhere with a pen because I'm like this is gold and a lot of it was usually I love you kid but you're kind of messing this bit up I'm just going to give it to you straight and so for everyone else who should get to enjoy and slash prosper from your incredible advice okay just give me like give me like the three give me the summary of what you've been telling me for the last ten years here's a year okay wow this is like I this is on the spot okay no I'm so sorry because I have the top three it okay okay number one number one absolutely number one which is and I'm gonna say I usually because cuz you know I usually give you advice about like two young women but but this can apply to anybody which is don't fit your life to your man fit your man to your life or when someone basically what happens when you're young is is and I found this more in younger people than older people is when you're younger you're like oh he's really great look he or she's great or whatever and you start to like pretend that you like hiking and you know I mean you start like you're right I start like lying all the time because you're really into this person right get exactly I hate hiking thank you I love Liz I tried hiking with her once I was like they I love you don't make me do this again plea I beg you so the thing is is that is that what happens is trying new things inspired by somebody that's awesome but like just don't change because like oh I have to make this fit this that's right there yes that's the rule just be radically brutally honest about who you are yes because if your life if like I love to do this and that miss and this and this and this and that and you meet a person that loves to do all the same things or at least adjacent enough and you suddenly realized oh I'm not lying I'm not pretending I'm into something I'm not I'm really myself this is the life I'm pursuing this is what I you know this is what I want artistically and he fits all of that well he's way better than the person that you're you know twisting yourself into a pretzel thanks figure out how to become exactly yeah exactly that would be number one okay so spend as much time as possible trying to figure out who you are and what you like and what your truths are and what will make you happy and what will make you happy hmm and I know those things people well yes and then seek seek someone that likes those things and yes you understand yes 100% and understand that you don't have to compromise those things for love we have this belief sometimes especially when we're young oh I can't just have it all of course again yeah you can have you okay can you say this is the best thing season telling me feels he's like no no you can have all of that and the rest of it I'm like really exactly you're like yes yeah you don't have to suffer you can suffer for your art if you want to and we do a little bit don't suffer for love this was genius this was profoundly good I'm violent for me I'm glad I was helpful stop bringing compromise not necessary yes the other thing yeah boom and then the other thing was I would say is that I believe in this this is what really with Liz it was the game changer was like you know when you're young I think people think that love leads to marriage and yes love is part of marriage in a very very important part respect is as important if not more important than love in this kind of fundamental way because there are moments when you've had three hours of sleep you have you know if you fundamentally respect each other it's a great great bedrock right so yeah and I think that when you're younger you you don't you don't covet it as much and I think it's it's critical I don't have a third what's a third Oh here's here's the third you know I don't even ever said this to you what what I found is and this this has now been married nine years you know having known list for twelve is it's it's the quiet as much as the talking it's like there's so much that we we live our lives like that we feel like you know when you're young it's like oh and you're go out you do crazy things you stay out all night and do all this stuff and you think that that pace of life is always it's not you don't mean as you get older I'm 49 now I'll be 50 in January that as you get older it's like you start to like know it's it's it's the stuff that sometimes isn't said is as important as the stuff that is it's like the sometimes I swear to God if Liz and I can have like a half an hour to watch the Netflix at the end of the night it's like heaven I mean you don't I mean that's like it used to be like all-night diners and likes chain-smoking and all this other stuff when I was younger now it's like that just like the peace of life you mean you know peace you know like our peace beats anyone fights I guess also just I don't know it's like it's things that probably the things that she that you each do that are not that answered yes yes and I will say like you know I wrote the line in the perspi Wallflower we accept the love we think we deserve that was my personal I wrote that line when I was 26 and and it took me a long time to actually apply it to my life so it's not like it's not like it happens oh I thought I thought of a I thought of a slogan and oh it's all fixed no you have to apply it and you have to figure it out and you have to know the right you have to meet the right person right and I guess you can also just apply that to people friendships parent across every relation self in your life you know we accept the love from ourselves that we think we deserve from our friends from from really everybody yes he's the best he is the best so can I show you my surprise yeah you don't even know you don't even yeah here we go I want to share this with you because this is really cool and I'll tell you why because as I said you know it buried the lede a little bit earlier where you know I was just out on the road with imaginary friend for a month and everywhere I went I mean the people that came up to me like I've received letters over the years I've run ran into people of course but the just concentrated every night you know here's the line of people and here the book signing and the people that told me these things so many people about this movie that we made so many it's like that let it like it took 11 years to get to a million copies and now we're 5 it's because of the movie and it's because of you because as we you and I talked about and you know it's true basically you going all around Hollywood and saying make this movie I want to make this movie is what got the movie made so basically you putting your you know putting all of that behind this project literally save lives because if we don't make it they don't see it right so I wanted to share this with you to say thank you you didn't mean so here let me just get up just for a second this there you go so by the way I did have to do that so crazy so coming out of Harry Potter all the studio heads were like well you know what do you want to do and I would just kept saying I don't want to do anything the only thing I want to do is I want someone to fund the making of this book called The Perks of Being a Wallflower yes yeah and then finally yeah yeah and Eric Flagg said ok fyke said all right got a blessing so anyway so you you've never heard me say these words so as you all know this because it was said 20 years ago I published The Perks of Being a Wallflower and my publishers said after 20 years like you know did I want to do like an anniversary edition and I said yes the thing was with the anniversary edition I didn't want to just like add a couple of like you know questions to the back at the book guide and call it it slap a sticker on and call it something new when it's not what I wanted to do was actually use the 20 years later and I want to share this with you and say thank you so I wrote a new letter from Charlie's point of view so so for 20 years it's ended the book has ended and I will believe the same about you love always charlie and now if you turn the page there's an afterword now I want to say really quick that that changed in the book here's the other thing that changed in the book it used to say for my family now it says for my family then for my family now for Liz Macy and Theo Scherbatsky always so it is for my beautiful wife and kids so here we go here's the new letter here the afterword it says September 18th 2012 September 18th is my anniversary that is a shout out for you'll is September 18th it's also the day I met her which was amazing September 18th 2012 dear friend I haven't sent you a letter I haven't sent a letter to you for 20 years I don't even know if this is still the right place to send it but I'm gonna send it anyway and hope that you find it you mean the world to me if you found it because I want to say thank you years ago there was a very sad kid who needed a whole lot of help and writing to you is the beginning of the hell whatever I've learned as an adult I've never forgotten what it was like to be that kid what it was like to feel like no one could understand these feelings because I couldn't understand them myself I've never forgotten feeling sad or crazy or depressed or outside of my own self a known body and only great taste I have never forgotten what it was like to go on those drives with those songs but those beautiful people who might still call friends that kid wrote some letters and said the mountains of the world to a stranger he had heard about and then something amazing happened you wrote back I know I didn't enclose my real name or address but somehow my letters were shared people pass them around the way Patrick's poem was the oxen traded whispered like a secret password however it happened it happened he read my letters and then some of you wrote back you sent letters to random addresses some of them were forward along to me maybe some of them weren't I don't know if I got all of them but I got enough of your letters to realize something extraordinary and if you could see the boxes and boxes of letters that I've received for the last 20 years you would know what I know once and for all forever and always you are not alone understand friend there are millions of us millions of people who struggle with and overcome all sorts of problems you would be shocked to know how many people understand exactly what you are going through that doesn't mean that what you're going through is somehow less meaningful special unique on the contrary it means that what you're going through is more it is important it deserves to be seen spoke enough and understood it is 20 years now 20 years of receiving your letters and I can't tell you how many times you've saved me that day or made me cry or laugh or believe or hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel I can't tell you what it's like to read a letter from the young woman who was going to kill herself read my letters and decided not to and she's now in her 30s she's happily married she has children that our time is over for her just like it will pass for you so if these words make sense if you have known these toys yourself if you have experienced our witness abuse physical sexual emotional if you have struggled with mental illness of any kind or love someone who does if you are surrounded by those who call what you are different instead of beautiful if your mind or body has cried out for peace and acknowledgement and understanding just know you are part of an infinite family the people who have been through terrible things and survived them if you're reading these words you won today you are here you are alive you have options you can wait out a bad situation move on fight back get out break up call ask her or him out write that book write that song listen to the music take the drive take the chance and live whatever strategy you choose you win there are so many more of us than there will ever be of them and we can find each other and we can help each other and we can talk to each other and we can build great lives happiness is not this thing for other people it is for you it is for me is for all of us we all get an ending whether or not it's happy is up to us that is my long way of saying thank you dear friend 20 years ago a young man wrote some letters you wrote him back and a grown man was inspired to write again so just in case this ends up being my last letter I want to answer one question the question I've been asked the most since your letters found their way to me whatever happened to Charlie and I can tell you what happened to Charlie in three words he made it and so will you love always Charlie [Applause] thank you so much for reading that thank you thank you for writing it you're welcome it's like as you said it's like getting a lesson you didn't know you were going to get from beyond from another place yeah it was so amazing ten years future hold thank you ten years later you made it to look at you amazing Bravo thank you so much for doing this with me your book is a masterpiece thank you very proud of you thank you thank you so much this is great thank you thank you [Applause] you

Channel: Totally Emma Watson

Views: 507,834

Rating: 4.9275236 out of 5

Keywords: emma watson, interview, stephen chbosky, the persk of being a wallflower, book, books

Id: dYDZWUmUdxI

Length: 51min 24sec (3084 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 18 2019