How Normal People Went From Beloved Book To Tender TV Show

By Alissa Schulman


“You'll have found that neither Lenny nor I are millennial women,” Ed Guiney, showrunner of Hulu’s Normal People says of himself and director Lenny Abrahamson on a recent Zoom call with MTV News. “But we do have millennial females working with us.”


This is the sort of statement that can feel questionable, as if tokenism is a blanket excuse for privilege to rule. Here, it comes off as earnest. Their proven ability to back female-centered stories assists the — Guiney was a producer on 2018’s The Favourite, which earned Olivia Colman a Best Actress Oscar in 2018, and Abrahamson directed Room, which earned Brie Larson the same statuette three years back — as does the fact that there really were a couple of females working in back of the scenes at high levels. Most notably, Sally Rooney, author of the 2018 novel upon which the show was based, executive produced the adaptation, allowing her to have a hand in all characteristic of the process. She also co-wrote (primarily alongside Succession story editor Alice Birch) the series’s 12 episodes.


It also helped that Abrahamson and Guiney saw in the protagonists the same thing that led scores of fans to devour the book in a sole sitting: a quiet acceptance of modern first loves. Normal People tracks Marianne and Connell — in the show, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal — from high school through college as they explore the bond they deeply feel, though don’t habitually understand. Their relationship feels symbiotic, essential to their growth. Without consideration of the titles between them, both Marianne and Connell know the other will lovingly give them the space they require to work out their own versions of right and wrong.


“[Young] characters are usually be treated in an either condescending way, played just around the awkwardness and uncertainties of being a young adult, or otherwise made into a problem or a way for older people to go, ‘God, look at the crazy nihilistic lives these young folks are living,’” Abrahamson says. “In fact, [Rooney] just takes them as they are, and turns her considerable intelligence and capacity to analyze them in a way which feels so dignified and real.”


although the filmmakers are not of that generation (they use the phrase “old people”), the duo noticed a radicalness in the honesty, immediately knowing that this was an assignment they wanted to be a segment of and speedily working to create that happen. In conversation with MTV News, Guiney and Abrahamson walk us through that process.


MTV News: Knowing this is a beloved property, what was the plan of action in how true to the book you wanted to remain?


Ed Guiney: Very early on I think we really wanted to lean into Sally's book, both in terms of its spirit, yet also rendering the scenes and the developments of the relationship. We've been involved in various adaptations over the years, and I don't think that we've ever made anything that's been as close to the source material as this series has. And, obviously, Sally was very much piece of all those discussions, segment of the choice to tell it in 12 half hours, as she wrote, as you know, six episodes with Alice Birch. She was very involved in the casting of it, all the sort of key decisions. So it just felt like a very natural thing.


The other parameter that was present is that any time we were commissioned by BBC, they wanted us to prepare the full book in one go — in other words, not to split it up into seasons. They did not have strong views as to how we should do that, nevertheless just that was piece of their thinking, so we were embarking on a method of adapting the full book, however at all points, I think any time we came to story niggles and all that sort of stuff, we went back to the book. There's very little that's innovated. I don't think there really are any characters that don't appear in the book; there aren't any storylines that don't appear in the book. Some things are changed in terms of the adaptation, although quite minutely, and in quite a tiny way. So more than with most adaptations, the book really was the sort of Bible for us.


MTV News: What was the casting process like, and what made Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal the best Marianne and Connell?


Guiney: A show that's so character driven and really all about their relationship, it stands or falls on the chemistry between those two actors. We worked with an excellent casting director called Louise Kiely. She, very early on, brought Paul to our attention. Paul hadn't done any screen work before, although had been developing a reputation in theater, and in Dublin had reported himself immediately as an incredibly strong actor, and really as our Connell. That was a sort of day one thing almost.


Yet finding Daisy was more hard. We ended up hiring casting directors in the [United] States, Canada, Australia, the [United Kingdom] to find our Marianne, and Daisy actually I think, weirdly, had companions who'd auditioned for the part and trim read in for them, although hadn't actually auditioned herself up until quite late on. And as soon as we saw her, we were incredibly excited. And then whenever we brought Paul and Daisy with each other, it just felt like there was a sort of undeniable chemistry between them, and we felt that we were in a very safe place to prepare the show.


The truth is, we were worried actually. There was a time as soon as we were quite concerned as we moved towards production and hadn't noticed our Marianne, along with knew that if we didn't find the correct Marianne that we could be in trouble. And I think whether the show is something that appeals to you or not, ultimately, it's sort of undeniable that they have something going on between them and that they're very, very special actors.


MTV News: Marianne and Connell’s relationship is very intimate and physical. How did you approach filming sex scenes?


Lenny Abrahamson: I worked very closely with Suzie Lavelle, who was a cinematographer, and she was a key segment of our approach to this in terms of how we shot. And then a very good decision was made to bring in a woman called Ita O'Brien, who's an intimacy coordinator, and she's perfect at creating an environment within which everybody feels safe; the actors feel heard and the crew as well have a safe space in which to do creative work, where it feels like everybody's instincts are listened to, anybody's concerns or anxieties are listened to.


And then from my point of view because the director, because you still have to assume that responsibility, it's about, I suppose not just inside the intimate scenes however across the full thing, feeling that I am listening to and paying equal attention to both the characters. One of the decisions we made early on was that there shouldn't be a gendered approach to nudity. In case you look at the ways in which folks are depicted in intimate scenes, it's often the woman who is looked at more, and that is I think a function of the male gaze. And thus in this case, there's a real balance in the nudity between the two actors.


It's just checking yourself and understanding where your own unconscious biases might be and complicated those. I noticed the full thing deeply positive, ultimately, that the novel is so good, and yes it evokes a sense of how transforming this real honesty in a relationship, both emotionally and sexually, is. And bringing that to screen and giving that same sense the sort of transforming and positive power of intimate connections, and of love and of deep sexual attraction. That was, for me, a challenge which I noticed sort of personally very positive.


MTV News: because the series progresses Connell learns how to feel his feelings, and Marianne recedes into her feelings a little. Can you talk about building those opposite tracks alongside one another?


Abrahamson: I think with Marianne, her challenge is to let herself to be a piece of the world, to accept the life around her; Connell's is to step into it, so they're both categorize kind of caught at the starting of the story in their own constrictions. And I think it's the skill of the writing and it's, again, after the book, although Connell has to confront the anxiety that prevents him from really grabbing hold of life. Marianne has to confront her sense of being somehow unworthy of life. And the way that it works with her is that she slips into a very dark place about two-thirds of the via story.


However by the time we come out into episode 12, she really has noticed a sort of peace and also a sense of her own company, and at the same time an ability to reside in the world. And feel happy about that. And, I feel like both their journeys — his into depression, hers into a sort of withdrawal and self-disapproval — resolve around the same point in episode 12, and that was a very delicate balance to strike. And I hope we managed to do it in a way which is satisfying.


This interview has been edited and condensed.