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Welcome back to Insider Pix, where we uncover what entertainment and culture insiders are watching, reading, and listening to! Next up:
John Green
John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of books including Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down, and Everything is Tuberculosis. His books have won many prizes, including an Audie Award, an Edgar Award, the Michael L. Printz Medal, and a Los Angeles Book Prize. He is currently on tour for his first adult novel, Hollywood, Ending. See John Green in a city near you!
Hollywood, Ending
For rising talents Kai Laramie and Juniper Castillo, being cast in the buzzy biopic Andy Warhol Never Gets Old is the opportunity they’ve both been waiting for. They’re on the verge of breaking out, and maybe even falling in love. Soon, the movie is blowing up, and so are their lives—in exciting, but also terrifying, ways.
John’s 5 Picks
A 5-star-worthy book you’d recommend to anyone?
Heart the Lover by Lily King
Best TV show you’ve watched recently?
I almost exclusively watch TV shows with my 13-year-old daughter, who loves sitcoms. I've really enjoyed watching Abbott Elementary with her. What a charming, kind-hearted, and very funny show.
Best movie you’ve watched recently?
I was unexpectedly moved by Project Hail Mary, a film that reminded me that the story of human beings is really one of cooperation and collaboration more than a story of competition.
A hidden gem you wish more people knew about?
There's a forthcoming book by Robin Wasserman called Some of Us May Never Die about mortality and consciousness and artificial intelligence. It's brilliant, and I am very fortunate to be among its first readers.
Album on repeat lately?
DAYS, by The Mountain Goats, my all-time favorite band.
Pix: Hollywood, Ending is your first novel in nearly a decade. What made this the story that brought you back to fiction?
JG: I missed the pure joy of writing fiction, the way that making up stories allows me to visit rooms in my mind I have no other way of accessing. Writing this book really reminded me of that joy.
Pix: Following the enormous success of your YA novels, did writing your first adult novel—or your move into nonfiction—bring up any of the anxiety or determination Juniper feels about making the leap from child star to adult actor, particularly around how audiences would receive you in a new space?
JG: Juniper is trying to prove that she can be an adult. I’ve been an adult so long that I truly feel like I don’t have much to prove on that front. I am certainly anxious about how readers will receive the book, though! It’s been a huge relief that people have taken to Juniper and Kai with such generosity.
Pix: Andy Warhol—and his relationship to celebrity—looms large in the book. What fascinated you about putting today’s attention economy in conversation with Warhol’s understanding of fame?
JG: Warhol saw so much of our world coming. He saw the two-dimensionalization of human experience coming. He saw consumer culture coming. And he saw that in the future, normal people would become very famous, sometimes against their will. And so I wanted to explore that, but I was also thinking about how Warhol was able to keep much of his private life private during his life—something these days it's almost impossible for celebrities to do.
Pix: Were there any books, documentaries, or internet rabbit holes that were particularly informative as you researched for Hollywood, Ending?
JG: I got to watch so many movies while writing this book. I used "research" as an excuse to watch good movies and bad ones, and movies from every genre (except horror; I can't handle a horror movie!). I love movies so much, and even as this novel explores the costs of making them, I hope it's a love letter to movies.