Watch: 'Brigitte Quinn's 22 Minutes' With 'Me Before You' Author Jojo Moyes
In this installment of "22 Minutes," 1010 WINS anchor Brigitte Quinn sits down with the best-selling author of "Me Before You," Jojo Moyes.
Moyes' critically acclaimed novel has gone on to sell over 5 million copies worldwide and was picked up for a film adaption, which hits theaters June 3. The story follows a small-town girl who forms a bond with a recently-paralyzed man she is taking care of.
JM: It's ridiculously exciting. I'm not going to be cool about it. It's mind-blowingly exciting.
BQ: What was your reaction when you saw the trailer?
JM: That's when it really hits home. For me, I've been so busy the last few years, it's all been a process. I was sitting in this hotel room the other night and suddenly I turn on the TV and there's the last few minutes of the trailer. I think I yelped actually. I think I made a really uncool noise. There was my name and I thought, "OK, now it feels real."
BQ: I think some of the big issues in the book is one of the reasons this has been such a hit with book clubs.
JM: It has some grit in the oyster. It's not a straightforward romance. It is a story with an issue at its heart which is: what makes the quality of life? How do you give somebody a reason to live? How do you give them pleasure and dignity in an existence that seems to have that removed? And that is an issue that in society, we seem to be facing more and more. We have to work out how society keeps up with this.
BQ: What an attractive cast too, Emilia Clarke of "Game Of Thrones" fame.
JM: She's very different in this than Khaleesi. People who only know her as that character are going to see a very different side of her. When they said to me that they were auditioning Khaleesi for the role, I thought, "Oh, I'm not sure how that's going to work." She's blonde, she's very serious, she's always killing people. And then Emilia walked on and she's just this little brunette powerhouse. She's funny, she's quirky, she has this incredible natural warmth. The director had seen 300 actresses for the part and right away she said, "There we go, there she is."
BQ: Where did you get the idea for this story?
JM: All my stories come from real life generally. They're either things I've talked to people about or I hear on the news. In this case, it was back in 2008/2009 I heard a news story about a young man who was a sportsman and was left quadriplegic after an accident. Several years later he had convinced his parents to take him to an assisted-suicide center. I couldn't understand why someone wouldn't want to find a way through. I started reading around, the more I read the more I discovered it just wasn't the black and white issue I wanted it to be.
Check out the full interview in the video above.
About Jojo Moyes
Jojo has been a full time novelist since 2002, when her first book, Sheltering Rain was published. Since then she has written a further eleven novels, all of which have been widely critically acclaimed. Jojo has won the Romantic Novelist's Award twice, and Me Before You has been nominated for Book of the Year at the UK Galaxy Book Awards. Me Before You has since gone on to sell over 5 million copies worldwide.
About Brigitte Quinn:
Brigitte anchors mornings at 1010 WINS radio and has worked in broadcasting for more than thirty years. She was a TV anchor at the Fox News Channel, MSNBC and NBC. She holds an MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College and a BS from Cornell University. Her first novel, "Anchored" was published in 2015.
Follow Brigitte Quinn @BrigitteQuinn11
