Based on Anna Todd’s best-selling novel which became a worldwide phenomenon on social storytelling platform Wattpad, “After” follows Tessa (Langford), a dedicated student, dutiful daughter and loyal girlfriend to her high school sweetheart, as she enters her first semester in college.
Armed with grand ambitions for her future, her guarded world opens up when she meets the dark and mysterious Hardin Scott (Tiffin), a magnetic, brooding rebel who makes her question all she thought she knew about herself and what she wants out of life.
Check out our exclusive interviews below!
Anna Todd
The Knockturnal: Were you a Harry Styles fan before this? I know that you created the fanfiction and it was kind of based on him and One Direction. How did it translate to become the huge thing that it is now?
Anna Todd: So it started because I was reading a lot of One Direction fan fiction. I was a fan before obviously and then I started reading fanfiction on Wattpad and I became even more immersed with the fan fiction side than the actual fan side of it. I had a community of friends and it just felt like a natural thing to write one but I didn’t think it was gonna turn into this.
The Knockturnal: So I know fan fiction tends to be steamy. How was it creating those steamy elements from fan fiction world and recreating them in a feature film?
Anna Todd: Well by the time we were making the film I wasn’t really thinking about the fan fiction part to be honest because at that point Hardin had become such a solid character on his own in my head. I love Harry but it was kinda like the Harry side of him was completely gone because even from the beginning it was just appearance. By the time I had written 7 books about these characters it turned into something else entirely. The steamy scenes from the book that got translated into the film– we wanted to keep a good balance of not having it just be focused only on sex. Of course we wanted to have sex in the film because it’s a journey of a girl’s awakening and her first time leaving home, first time falling in love, and first time having sex. So we don’t want to shy away from the sex but we also don’t want the film to just be about the sex. So I feel like we’ve had a good balance.
The Knockturnal: Is there a lot of pressure when it comes to satisfying the fans and their wants?
Anna Todd: Yeah I mean sometimes, it’s more of a responsibility I guess but there are some things that I know that they want but just don’t translate well. With a book you have your own imagination you can kind of imagine it however you want. With film it’s a solid image there’s not a lot of room for your own imagination. There’s a line from the book that is like an internal monologue and she’s saying “we’re a beautiful chaotic mess.” If somebody walks up and was like we’re a beautiful chaotic mess you’re gonna be like “ew.” So there are things that we just changed them around and now it says like “I’m a mess, we’re both a mess,” so it keeps the things that the fans love so much but not to the point where it’s like cringey. As much I want to make them happy I also need it to be a good film even separate from the books.
The Knockturnal: So Pia Mia’s character Tristan originally she was supposed to be a male. How did the idea to change it into a female and nonetheless an LGBT character come about?
Anna Todd: With the fan fiction world you kind of have a template of what everyone is gender wise and when you put them together as a whole with humans there’s a lot of guys and not that many women. We knew we wanted to be more inclusive. I think even in 2013 when I wrote it honestly I wasn’t as aware of diversity and I have a black husband and a black child. I look for this in film but I never really thought about the fact that all the romances of all these books I’m reading are mostly just white characters because you can imagine whatever you want. For us along with Jenny Gage, the director, we wanted to really make it more inclusive. We wanted it to be a representation of an actual college campus where you will meet LGBT people, you will meet different races, you will all be in a melting pot. We didn’t want it to be this same thing that everybody has been doing for so long. Everyone can do better and we wanted to be part of that change in film.
Jenny Gage
The Knockturnal: As a director, directing a film based on a novel, how has that process been like? Have you ever done that before?
Jenny Gage: So this is my first feature film, so I had not done that before. There’s a great responsibility to the fans. After has a huge fan base and so I felt definitely responsibility to them. They are loyal passionate, excited for the movie and so that was a huge element on top of making a book into the movie.
The Knockturnal: How was the collaboration with the author Anna?
Jenny Gage: I mean I really wanted Anna to be involved from the very beginning. It was great to have her the mother of the After series be there to bounce ideas off of and if there were any changes to get her blessing. So I felt very lucky that she was there available to me.
The Knockturnal: Fan fictions tend to be a little bit steamy how was it translating that from page to screen?
Jenny Gage: It was great. I mean that was one of the things that really attracted me to the project. This was a coming of age sexual awakening story through the eyes of a young woman and there’s not a lot of movies out there like that. It was really important to myself and to the actors that we get those scenes right. We talked about them a lot before filming them and sort of choreographed them so everything felt right by the time we were on set.
Have you ever been in love, broken hearts or have gotten your heart broken?
Jenny Gage: Yes! I’m married and I have 3 kids and I’ve also had my heart broken when I was younger. That’s the thing about After, it’s very relatable, it’s very authentic and I love the way that the love story is messy and complicated. People don’t always act their best but that’s what growing up is for.
Was there a particular character that you related to the most?
Jenny Gage: I would say I’m a combination of Tessa and Steph but I think each character in the movie has something to relate to at least for me and I hope that’s the same with the audience.
The film is now playing.