Well, it's so hard for books to take off. You give years of your life to something that probably won't happen, so when it does, it feels a little... unjust.
From David Nicholls
As a novelist, I'm incredibly lucky to make a living, but that doesn't mean that I don't lie awake at four o'clock in the morning, worrying.
When I was an actor, I worked with lots of men who had a bit of success early on, who were very good looking, who suddenly made a bit of money and who felt no embarrassment - and nor should they have done - about having a good time.
My 20s was a sea of worry. I worried about benefit forms, about being thrown out of my flat. I never went on holiday because I thought: 'What if an audition comes up?' I was a nervous wreck.
Well, I don't think Hollywood's a dirty word at all, I love a lot of Hollywood films.
I love Billy Wilder, and I love the way that his films can be very touching and very moving and very romantic, and at the same time there's always a little cynical undertone, there's always something that undercuts things.
I think probably I'm quite sentimental; I like big emotional stories, I like being moved by things, but I think I'm very embarrassed by sentiment. I'm very embarrassed by corniness.
I think I became a writer because I used to write letters to my friends, and I used to love writing them. I loved the idea that you can put marks on a page and send it off, and two days later, someone laughs somewhere else in the world.
David Holdaway was my stage name. I was an actor for about eight years in the '90s. I had to change my name because there was another David Nicholls, and I thought if I changed it to my mother's name, she'd be touched.
When you're reading a book, you're always looking for the natural place to stop. With a movie, you can't really have that sense of it coming momentarily to a halt; there's pressure to keep the momentum up.
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