Based on executive producerMichael Ausiello’s best-selling memoir,Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, the upcoming romantic drama,Spoiler Alert, starsJim Parsonsas Ausiello, an entertainment writer who has a rom-com-worthy meet-cute with photographerKit Cowan, portrayed in the film byBen Aldridge. Like the memoir, the heartbreaking holiday movie chronicles the couple’s love story from their first fated moment, to their last, when Kit is diagnosed with terminal cancer. The movie also stars two-time Academy Award-winnerSally FieldandBill Irwin.
BeforeSpoiler Alerthits theaters, Collider’sSteve Weintraubsat down with memoir author and executive producer Ausiello (also President and Editorial Director ofTVLine) to discuss adapting his life’s story to the big screen. In the interview, Ausiello explains his hands-on approach to the film adaptation, while allowing screenwritersDavid Marshall GrantandBen Savagepen the script and discusses howSpoiler Alertavoids becoming a cliché Hollywood romance. He also shares his passion for the Disney+ seriesAndor, and which of his Smurf collectibles he’d save in the event of an emergency (spoiler alert: it’s from Kit). You can watch the interview in the video above or read the full transcript below.
COLLIDER: I know you love TV, so I’m just going to throw out there, what’s the thing right now that you can’t live without on television?
MICHAEL AUSIELLO:Andor.
Okay, so we’re on the same page.Andoris the best thing on TV.
AUSIELLO: It’s the bestStar Warsseries there has been. I’m obsessed with it. I watch each episode, I’m like, “I cannot believe how good this show is and how much it captures the spirit ofStar Warswithout featuring any iconicStar Warscharacters.”
I’ve been saying to everyone, because I do thinkAndoris the best thing on television, even if you took theStar Warsout of it, it would be the best show on television. It just happens to haveStar Wars.
AUSIELLO: Yes. Nothing prepared me for the high quality of the show. I mean, I loveMandalorianand the otherStar Warsshows, but this is just next-level good.
I completely agree. And by the way, and I’m sure it’s the same with you, when they announcedAndorI’m like, “Yeah, okay, maybe this might be okay. I don’t know if I care.”
AUSIELLO: “I’ll check it out.”
Now I’m like, “This is the best thing on TV. Like-”
AUSIELLO: Yeah. And I’m so happy because usually, a lot of these series, there’s like six or eight episodes. This one, I think there’s 12, or something, in the first season, so it feels long. It feels generous. Like we’re getting a lot of time with it, and they’re already doing a second season. So yeah, obsessed.
Yeah, we’re on the same page. So in an emergency, something happens in your house, I don’t know where you live. What’s theSmurfsitem that you are grabbing to save?
AUSIELLO: It’s the green surprise-bagSmurfthat Kit [Cowan] got me at Christmas. It’s extremely rare, it’s worth a lot of money, and it was just a very special gift. And I think that would be the first one that I grabbed. But let’s be clear, I would take as much as I could.
Right, of course. You have sat where I’m sitting many times. How weird is it for you to be where you are right now and doing hours of press? I’m just curious what it’s like.
AUSIELLO: Weird. So incredibly weird. I’m glad you asked that. It’s a bit of a mind you-know-what. I’m much more comfortable sitting where you’re sitting, asking the questions, and being in control. This is new territory for me.
Yeah. Did they make you do media training? Did you want to?
AUSIELLO: I didn’t do media training. It crossed my mind, but at the same time, I did some press when the book came out, so I had some experience talking about this subject matter. And also, my concern about media training is I don’t want to get inside my head too much. I don’t want to have rehearsed soundbites. I want to come to this as naturally as possible because as someone who interviews people for a living, those to me are the best interviews. You can tell when someone is coming off a little too polished, a little too rehearsed. And I didn’t want to bring that energy to this.
And you know also what it’s like when you ask a question, and you’re getting a completely different answer, you’re like, “What just happened?”
AUSIELLO: Right. Yeah.
So you obviously wrote the book. Did you ever, at any point – this is your whole life-story – did you, at any point, think about writing the first draft of the script? Or did you say, I don’t want to do that?
AUSIELLO: No, it crossed my mind. All options were considered and, absolutely, I thought about it, and these were conversations that I had with my creative partners on this, with Jim Parsons and [director] Michael Showalter. And I think we all agreed, at the end of the day, that we were excited to see what new writers could bring to this story and make it cinematic. I’m so glad that we did.
But I will say that I was very involved in the process every step of the way. It was a very collaborative process, so it’s not like I just washed my hands of it after I optioned the book, and walked away and let other people make the movie. I was very hands-on and Michael Showalter made it a really safe, collaborative environment.
One of the things that I love about the film is that it’s just an honest relationship. It’s an honest story, and it’s never Hollywood-izing anything. Can you talk about that aspect of it, that it’s not going for the big third-act craziness or whatever?
AUSIELLO: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s being true to the book, which I think is important and something that I stressed from the beginning. There were certain aspects of the book, like the DNA of the book, that I wanted the movie to capture, and everybody was on the same page.
One of those things is relationships are messy. People are imperfect. And there’s no value in softening those hard edges, or in sugarcoating aspects of that because that’s reality, and I think it’s what makes the book, and the movie, ultimately, relatable.
I know you were on set basically every day. I can’t imagine what it’s like to sit there and watch people – your life – right there in front of you. So can you sort of talk about that aspect of it?
AUSIELLO: Well, there were moments that were absolutely surreal. Especially, there were some sequences that were very close to real life, including the deck scene towards the end of the movie, really captured the spirit of how that experience was. For the most part though, it wasn’t hard in the way I think maybe a lot of people think. I never felt like I was watching my life being replayed in front of my eyes. I knew we were making a movie. I knew this wasn’t a documentary.
And I also knew that these incredible actors were going to be bringing their own… Putting their own spin on these roles, and making them their own. So I never felt like Jim was mimicking me, or impersonating me. And the same thing with Ben [Aldridge] and Kit. They were creating almost these new people that were based on real people.
Talk a little bit about the titleSpoiler Alert. It’s a great title, and I’m just curious with the book, obviously, how did you decide on it? And also, was it always going to be the title for the movie?
AUSIELLO: So the title of the book came about halfway through writing the book, and it hit me like the best kind of light bulb going off in my brain. It just plays on a number of levels. One is it’s cheeky, it’s sort of silly and sarcastic, which is very much the spirit of the book and was the spirit of my relationship, and is my sense of humor. But also spoilers, that’s my business. I built my career on spoilers, and it just felt very on-brand to find a way to work that into the title.
Was it always going to be the title of the movie?
AUSIELLO: Yeah, it was. There was never any question about changing the title, although the title of the movie is justSpoiler Alertwhere it leaves off a couple of keywords, although I think most people are able to do the math.
Spoiler Alertis now in theaters
