Interview with Paula Hawkins, Author of The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train is in theaters now. You will definitely want to see this thriller.

Earlier in the week, I had the opportunity to meet Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train.

 

 

We first discussed the setting change from the book to the movie.  The book takes place in London and the movie takes place in Westchester, NY.   We wanted to know how she felt about that.  Hawkins shared her thoughts with us:

  I’m okay about it, actually.  I understand that readers are less okay about it.  But, for me, it wasn’t the heart of the book, really, the actual location.

I think one of the reasons it’s done well is because the story travels.  So, I was fine with it, and I think it actually works very well cinematically.  I think it looks very beautiful on screen, so I’m happy with it.

I let her know that I often take the Metro North so it was definitely an eerie moment for me going home after seeing an advanced screening.  I started to ponder all that I could see around me.

 

I know that I thought Emily Blunt did an outstanding job as Rachel.  After all, it was not an easy role to play. Paula shared:

I think she’s outstanding.  I think she’s done an amazing job, because playing drunk is not actually an easy thing to do without making it comical or ridiculous.  And it’s supposed to be sad and horrible and depressing.  And she oozes shame and self-loathing, so I think she’s done really a great job.

I know that I had some favorite scenes and I thought it would be interesting to see what scene Hawkins thought was her favorite.

 You know, I was actually on the set when they filmed the scene where Rachel goes to Anna’s house and takes the baby and goes outside.  And it was an amazing scene to watch while she was actually doing it.

I think it’s amazing on screen too because, although it’s such a creepy, weird thing, it’s also really sad when she picks up the baby and she’s kind of comforting it.  I found that really moving and affecting.  So, I thought that was very good.

We all wanted to know what her inspiration for The Girl on the train was.  She shared:

  Well, there’s sort of the basic premise of this person witnessing something from a commute.  It’s something I’d been thinking about for a long time.  I’d done a lot of commuting myself, and I had one train which was always breaking down.  And I would sit outside these people’s houses and just looked through the window and hoped that something interesting would happen.  It never did, so that sort of idea was there.

But then in terms of the twists, a lot of that just sort of evolved while I was writing.  I kind of knew that it had to twist and turn, and I had some vague ideas.  But I don’t like to plot out in too much detail because then I think you lose some spontaneity and it’s not quite so interesting from the writer’s point of view.  So yes, a lot it just came to me while I was doing it.

 

In The Girl on the Train, we learn early on that things are always as they seem.  That perfect world that one perceives is not always what it turns out to be. Hawkins discussed her feelings on that and how social media has also taken a role in this too. 

It’s interesting, because actually Rachel’s kind of voyeurism is quite old-fashioned, really, because she’s actually looking at people in real life, where most of us now look at everyone else on Facebook.  And it’s so easy when you’re on social media to present, “We always look great and our children are always happy,”.

We kind of all know it’s ridiculous, but you can’t help but feel a bit like, “Oh, everyone else is having a better time than me.”

So, it’s good in that way to have that feeling where you actually start to think and actually realize, “You know what?  Everybody has a bad day.  Everyone is having problems.  Everyone’s lives are difficult.  Everyone’s marriage has challenges in it,” obviously hopefully not quite the challenges that go on in these marriages.  But still, it’s kind of a wakeup call, I think, that these lives are not perfect, the lives we look at.

 

Before our interview came to an end, we wanted to know what she was working on next. Can’t wait for this one to be released!

Well, I’m writing at the moment.  I’m hopefully nearly finished, actually.  It’s another thriller.  It’s another kind of–quite female driven.

The central relationship is between sisters, so actually like sisters who have kind of had these incidents in childhood which has led to their estrangement.  And it’s all kind of about the interpretation of those, since they have different recollections.

So, I’m writing about memory again, quite a lot but in a different sort of way.  It’s about those memories you have from childhood that you really cling to, and then you might realize later in life that things weren’t exactly the way you recall them.  Of course, there’s also bloody murder and other things there.  That’s the kind of general atmosphere of it.

The Girl on the Train – In Theaters Now

Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Allison Janney, Edgar Ramirez, Lisa Kudrow and Laura Prepon star in DreamWorks Pictures’ The Girl on the Train, from director Tate Taylor (The Help, Get on Up) and producer Marc Platt (Bridge of Spies, Into the Woods).

 

In the thriller, Rachel (Blunt), who is devastated by her recent divorce, spends her daily commute fantasizing about the seemingly perfect couple who live in a house that her train passes every day, until one morning she sees something shocking happen there and becomes entangled in the mystery that unfolds.

 

Based on Paula Hawkins’ bestselling novel, The Girl on the Train is adapted for the screen by Erin Cressida Wilson. The film’s executive producers are Jared LeBoff and Celia Costas, and it will be released by Universal Pictures.

 

Rated R

 

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Based on the thriller that shocked the world, The Girl on the Train is in theaters now. Get tickets now: unvrs.al/TGOTTTix

 

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