00:00So I knew I wanted to write a novel about fathers and sons in the form of it being a
00:03thriller.
00:04Hi, I'm Alex North, author of The Whisperman,
00:06and I'm here to talk to you about some of the differences between the film and the book without any
00:11major spoilers.
00:13So I knew I wanted to write a novel about fathers and sons in the form of it being a
00:17thriller.
00:17So it was a case of thinking about what a possible antagonist could be for Tom and Jake,
00:22who have just moved to this little village, and I wanted there to be a sense of threat there.
00:25And that sense of threat is a serial killer called Frank Carter, who's dubbed by the press The Whisperman,
00:30who operated 20 years previously in Featherbank, where they've moved to in the book.
00:33He's in prison when the book begins, but there's some sense that his crimes are continuing in some way.
00:41One of the scenes that readers of the book often sort of flag up is the letterbox scene.
00:48Jake, what are you doing?
00:53Jake!
00:55That's handled incredibly well.
00:57There's something intrinsically scary about the idea.
00:59Even though it's quite simple, a finger's just reaching through a letterbox.
01:01There's no real violence, there's no gore or anything like that,
01:04but there's a real sense of threat to it.
01:06My initial idea for him is that I wanted a kind of almost fairy tale-like character who preys on
01:11children.
01:12So Frank Carter's MO was that he would always target vulnerable children,
01:16children who are having problems at home, perhaps, and who he can lure away.
01:19And that was kind of the vibe I was going for.
01:21A slightly mythical figure, but then you kind of pull the mask off him and reveal some of the psychology
01:26that's going on underneath.
01:27They need to hear this.
01:31Another thing is, it's kind of a spoiler, but it's the twist about the reality of Jake's imaginary friend,
01:39who's a little girl who follows him around.
01:41And there's some doubt about her nature and her intentions and perhaps what she represents.
01:45And that's revealed in the book in a slightly different place than it is in the film.
01:49But I think in the film, it works really, really well.
01:52She's scared of it here.
01:54She's scared of it here.
01:55She's scared of this house?
01:56Why?
01:56When I first read the script, obviously there were differences from the book, but I expected that going in.
02:01I knew that certain things were going to change.
02:03For those of you who love the book, I think you'll find that everything you liked about the book is
02:06there,
02:06even if some cosmetic changes have been made.
02:09In the film, Jake gets abducted a little bit earlier than he does in the book.
02:13And then Tom and Pete's relationship kind of unfolds on the back of that rather than sort of prior to
02:17that and around it.
02:18But I think it works really, really well.
02:20But the heart of the characters and the emotions around it are all there.
02:22Simon, I'm sorry that I took this to get us together.
02:25Not together.
02:26This is me asking you for help.
02:28When I'm writing, I often don't picture certainly actors as the characters in my head while I'm writing.
02:33It's difficult to picture anyone else now.
02:35I'm extremely pleased with the way the performances have turned out.
02:38And I think everybody brought their A-game.
02:39And not just like the top-built stars, but all the way down through the cast.
02:42It's just excellent performances and everybody embodies the roles really, really well.
02:46So thank you for watching.
02:48And don't miss The Whisperman, which is now playing on Netflix.
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