The much-anticipated book-to-film drama Me Before Her is a story about love and how it transforms you. It is already prompting discussions about disabilities in the context of relationships and about how people who are disabled are portrayed. Based on the critically-acclaimed, bestselling novel by Jojo Moyes, Me Before You (New Line Cinema and MGM Pictures) stars Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones and Sam Claflin from The Hunger Games. The film opens nationwide on June 3rd and is expected to be a summer sleeper.
Clarke and Claflin play two complex characters who fall into a catalyzing romance. Both actors were initially attracted to the movie after reading the book and were instantly pulled into the material, and according to them they gunned pretty hard for the roles.
I was recently a part of a group given the opportunity to talk to the two actors about the film, how they got their roles, its impact on their own life perspectives, and more. Here’s what they had to say:
Q: How do you see your characters Will and Louisa?
Emilia Clarke: Louisa is from a little village with a big castle. People have been describing her as a mix between Bridget Jones and Mary Poppins, or Bridget Jones and Cinderella. She’s an incredibly glass half full, optimistic, happy person who is feeling the weight of responsibility taking care of her family because they don’t have a lot of money and her dad’s just lost her job and her sister wants to go to university. Times are tough and she needs to get a job. She has an opportunity to work for the Trainers, which is where she meets Will. We meet and wonderful things happen.
Sam Claflin: I’d say Will is complicated. There are two Wills – one pre-accident and one post. The person he becomes after the very unfortunate road accident is a very reclusive, bitter, twisted and depressed depressive, and it’s not until this bit of fresh air walks into his life that he starts seeing the light again. It’s sort of her honesty, her enthusiasm that makes him start being the old Will again –- which is someone who is very charming, very witty, very charismatic, really good looking, especially the guy in the film. He’s the guy we inspire to be, the guy who lived life to the fullest, and she tries to get him to do just that. She’s the Henry Higgins, he’s the Eliza Doolittle. She allows him to experience life through different eyes.
Clarke: She sees through the disability to something more interesting. So when you first meet Will, he’s in a wheelchair. But the wheelchair becomes the least interesting thing about him. The fact that Louisa comes in so unaware, wanting to do her job really well, that she sees way past the wheelchair immediately because that’s in her earnest nature. That in turn allows him to see past his disability.
Q: How do you tap into the emotions of these characters?
Clarke: Honestly, in this movie it was really easy. The script was so beautiful and Jojo Moyes wrote such an incredible book. We had a director from the heavens. It was her first feature and you’d never know it. When things fall into place like that for an actor, it becomes so organic that I never had to search for anything, we rehearsed so much that it was all there for the taking.
Claflin: Yeah, all the hard work was there and already done. Imagining, imagining yourself in the character’s situation and going through what the character was going through. It was a very emotional journey for us, as well as the audience to kind of participate.
Q: What was your first meeting like?
Claflin: It was six years ago. It was a rising stars’ photo shoot of 30 or 40 British actors and young writers. We were sat next to each other, both slightly bored. We started talking about art, which I know nothing about. At that time, I was genuinely trying to sound cool. Then our paths disappeared from one another – she went off to do Thrones, I went off to do Pirates. Then we nearly worked together a few other times. We came back for chemistry reads but she kept messing me up. I would have got it had it been anybody else….
Q: Did you ask yourselves while making this film, can you love that deeply?
Claflin: I think so. For people who haven’t necessarily found the one, everyone likes to think it’s possible.
Clarke: We were all hopeless romantics on the shoot. We were quick to laugh and quick to cry.
Q: Did both of you read the book before going for the audition?
Clarke: My agent sent me the book before sending me the script since the author was writing it. I read that first and just fell in love. Within the first few pages I was YES, YES, YES. Do it, YES. I’m reading it, do it.
Q: Did you know about the competition?
Clarke: There were five boys and five girls by the end of it, so we both auditioned with others. I auditioned with four other guys, Sam auditioned with 25 other girls….
Claflin: I was aware of the competition; I took them all out. None of them are with us anymore. It was something both of us were determined to get. It’s an amazing story, an amazing couple of characters with very complex, layered characters. It’s sort of your dream role but it was tough competition.
Q: What does it take to make a movie that makes audience members feel so good yet is so sad?
Clarke: The movie has an incredibly uplifting message at the heart of it, and at the end of it. You follow these two characters and you see what is possible, the love that is possible between the difficulties and their hardship. And you see someone try so hard to change someone’s mind and then in reality, allow them to make peace with their own choice and then take everything they’ve learned from that relationship and put it into a hopefully fulfilled and happy life moving forward.
Claflin: It’s a story that focuses on one major obstacle that gets in the way of love. Love always has its obstacles however you look at it. There’s always an obstacle thrown in the way. It’s just whether or not you can conquer those obstacles and in my opinion, they do conquer it. As much as their love lives on even though Will doesn’t necessarily stay with her. In a sense, he releases her and allows her to become a better person and knows that in order for her to shine, he needs to let go. For me, it’s a selfless act but everyone will have their own opinions. It focuses on the obstacle and that’s why I think people are so moved by it. It’s a bigger obstacle that most people are used to and you realize your own life isn’t so difficult sometimes.
Q: What was it like preparing for this role?
Claflin: it was incredibly rigorous. It was the most physically demanding thing I’ve ever done, and I fought lizards and monkeys in Hawaii. Naively, I honestly didn’t think it was going to be as difficult as it was….I thought in a wheelchair, not moving…I thought okay, that’s easily doable. It was mentally challenging, mentally checking myself, are my hands in the right position, are my feet in the right position, is my neck locked? I was using muscles I’m not familiar using. I wanted to do the part justice, and I wanted to lose weight to look weaker, tired. During the rehearsal process, I was having like 500 calories a day and training three times a day.
We focused mainly on Will at the beginning at the beginning of his post-accident journey. It was the darker scenes and I was in a very foul mood. It was physically, really, really tough but also tt was emotionally draining –particularly at Dignatas, the two of us on that bed. I just remember crying all day. I felt as though I was there, I really felt like I was living what was happening. She was going off and crying, and I thought, I hate this job? Why did I want this?!
Q: Does this work connect at all with your other work what you’re known for?
Clarke: I mean, technically, they’re miles apart. I just turned up for the audition… genuinely.
Claflin: I’m just trying to imagine Daenerys (from Game of Thrones) in tights.
Clarke: Lou is incredibly close to who I am. This is much more me than Daenerys. This was the most gorgeous, beautiful, breath of fresh air that I got to do and was so much closer to me. But I think that there are weirdly similarities because they are both incredibly strong. One smiles and one doesn’t.
Q: Did playing these characters change your perspective on your own lives?
Claflin: This entire story opened my eyes more than anything. I think….I was not living in a happy bubble but I’d never met someone confined to a wheelchair. I think I’m just awake to other people’s problems and some of the struggles that someone like Will goes through on a daily basis. There were moments after playing Will that I came home from work climbing into bed, knowing what has to happen with someone like Will for him to get in and out of bed, for him to get dressed. It made me very, very grateful that I didn’t necessarily have to go through that on a daily basis every day, all day. Absolutely, it completely opened my eyes.
Clarke: Hugely. I feel exactly the same thing. Just watching Sam go through it was difficult for all of us. He tried and succeeded so well. We had experts on set making sure that everything was exactly there as well. Having a deeper understanding of disability and knowing really what’s behind it and how you deal. It’s not about ignoring it or not about how you deal with it.
Claflin: Film doesn’t focus that much on disability. What’s amazing is the way Will would want it to be. He doesn’t want the world to see him suffering so you don’t. There’s a moment when Nathan (Will’s nurse) has a conversation with Lou that Will hides his suffering and cries every night, but you don’t see his struggle.
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