co-written with Neal Stephenson). She has a MFA in Creative Writing from University College Dublin, and loves teaching workshops on world creation.
She has also worked as a stage director, dramaturg, and X-wing fighter pilot.
Here Galland dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Boy:
My two 19-year-old protagonists are largely described in contrast to each other. Alexander (Sander) is an actor: ethereally, delicately attractive, a bisexual man-boy desired by nearly everyone in London. A singer and dancer, he moves with androgynous grace. Black-haired, blue-eyed, marvelous bone structure that has been praised since childhood. In contrast, his best friend Joan is the living embodiment of nondescript. An unschooled intellectual, she pays little attention to her own appearance: blandly light brown hair, blandly hazel eyes, with an unremarkable physique, and a soft, forgettable face. Her sole distinctive feature: beautifully expressive lips, which live on her face without adding to its overall beauty. She spends a good chunk of the book disguised as a boy – a boy as nondescript as Joan herself.Visit Nicole Galland's website, Facebook page, and Threads page.
In general, I never think about who would play my characters in a movie adaptation. I develop such specific mental images of them, an actor would strike me as a mere impersonator.
But…
…virtually every early reader of Boy cooed, “Ooo, based on your description, you’re obviously thinking of Sander as Timothée Chalamet.” Because I’m bad with names, I wasn’t sure who Timothée Chalamet was, so after the fifth time someone said it, I Googled him – and found myself staring at someone who looked remarkably like Sander! But once I’d been prompted to contemplate Sander portrayed by a not-Sander in the flesh, I realized a young Billy Crudup would suit better. By a sweet coincidence, Crudup played a Sander-like character, Ned Kynaston, in the movie Stage Beauty (2004).
Once a Sander impersonator was on my radar, I idly contemplated who might then play Joan. Joan is hard to cast, precisely because she is so nondescript. It’s wonderful that actresses no longer need to look conventionally beautiful to have careers, but they do need to look interesting - and Joan disappears in a crowd. As a thought-experiment, I turned again to Google, and spent an hour seeking young character actresses who reminded me of her. The ideal Joan-actress should make the audience feel “I like you” without also feeling “I like looking at you.” Nobody really fit the bill, but three of them came close: Florence Pugh (too conventionally pretty), Saoirse Ronan (too strikingly distinctive), and Sophia Lillis (too adorably tomboyish). While I’d be thrilled to see any of them in the role, some little part of me would secretly grouse, “Yeah, but she’s relying on her looks to make a good impression; Joan herself doesn’t need to do that.”
Coffee with a Canine: Nicole Galland & Leuco.
The Page 69 Test: Stepdog.
My Book, The Movie: Stepdog.
Writers Read: Nicole Galland (August 2015).
--Marshal Zeringue