Published in Italy by Bompiani under the title “Le stelle del cane“, the novel by Peter Heller serves as the foundation for The Dog Stars – Le stelle dopo la fine, Ridley Scott’s adaptation, starring Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Guy Pearce and Margaret Qualley, currently in cinemas. People magazine interviewed the author, who composed the 2012 book almost on a whim: today he is more moved than ever by the idea that that gamble not only paid off, but found a second life thanks to Scott and screenwriter Mark Smith.
Peter Heller, autore di The Dog Stars, si è commosso vedendo il film tratto dal suo romanzo
Peter Heller was more of a poetry specialist than a prose writer when he penned the novel that would give life to The Dog Stars – Le stelle prima della fine. Almost without planning, he began with a single sentence — he tells People — and he reached out to his friend Carlton Hughes (Lost) to ask whether such a bold move was reasonable: the response was a green light, because it seems that even Stephen King or Elmore Leonard did not shy away from this kind of approach. Years and years later, Heller was not anxious about the film adaptation: even before Scott, he had already interacted with the screenwriter Mark L. Smith (Revenant – Redivivo): “This man understood my sensibility, he asked to write the screenplay and I told him: go ahead. After we had met several times, I finally said to him: listen, I don’t expect to see my book on the screen again. I’m honored that another artist, a great artist, should draw inspiration from it for another new and different artistic work. Go for it, my friend. He did it and fully captured the spirit.”
On first viewing of Scott’s film, Heller did not hold back: “At the opening of the film, it hit me as clearly as the sun when I went to that coffee shop in Denver. While Jacob Elordi was on screen, I remembered myself sitting at that table telling myself: don’t think, just listen. I let that character speak to me for seven months, I wrote as if possessed. It came back to me then, tears rolled down my face, as I watched him come to life in another form, in the hands of great artists. Moving.”
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