Derek Milman's "Swipe Right For Murder"

Derek Milman has worked as a playwright, screenwriter, film school teacher, DJ, and underground humor magazine publisher. A classically trained actor, he has performed on stages across the country and appeared in numerous TV shows, commercials, and films.

Milman currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, where he writes full time.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of Swipe Right for Murder, his second novel for young adults:

Someone recently tweeted that if Timothée Chalamet didn't play Aidan, my main character, in a movie adaptation, they would be enraged. Truthfully, Chalamet might be better suited for the slightly older Shiloh (the Eve Kendall to Aidan's Roger Thornhill, to make a North by Northwest comparison here, a film which heavily influenced the book, except I upended the usual classic Hollywood structure and made the novel super queer). The truth is, I don't know of many teenage actors who would be cast in YA adaptations. I'm guessing the world doesn't either, since Hollywood grooms these actors very young now, usually playing the young imperiled kids to an established movie star in an action film. This gives them a profile, and from there they make their first leap into a leading part, often in a YA adaptation. So they are often unknown to the general public (like Jennifer Lawrence was) when this happens. All that said, Jake Gyllenhaal would make a fantastic Scotty, leader of the Swans, an Erik Killmonger type, and I kept picturing Judith Light as Aidan's mom when I was writing (which I don't usually do), though she is too old most likely, so it would have to me someone with a similar energy, maybe Laura Dern, Amy Ryan, or even Kristen Bell.

Visit Derek Milman's website.

Writers Read: Derek Milman.

The Page 69 Test: Swipe Right for Murder.

--Marshal Zeringue