I don't know how this has managed to escape me for so long! A commercial in my Instagram-feed randomly caught my eye, a short teaser video (watch below) for the upcoming novel-based tv-series Thirteen Reasons Why. I hadn't heard anything about this before! Or I had and completely missed it. Wouldn't surprise me.
If you haven't read the book, I present to you: Goodreads summary!
"Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker--his classmate and crush--who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why.
The author, Jay Asher, isn't writing the script himself which is always a bummer, but Brian Yorkey who is writing it has apparently been rewarded for good writing in the past, so there's hope there yet. As for characters, there are many of them in this story, so I'll just feature the one's I remember being important from reading the book, cause otherwise this post would never end.
Hanna Baker:
Hanna will be portrayed by Katherine Langlord. Looking up her profile on IMdb, she hasn't done a lot in the past, but that really doesn't say anything on how good an actress she is. Her voiceover is nice in the video above, and that's good since the story centres around the cassette tapes she's made. In my head I always pictured Hannah as blond, but isn't this the mistake we make over and over again? So I'm not gonna complain. I will if I don't think she plays the part well, though, but then again, she just might be great.
Clay Jensen:
The part of Clay Jensen will be filled by Dylan Minnette, and contrary to his co-star he seems to be one of those children who grew up making movies, cause he's been at it since 2005 when he was only about 9 years old. I don't recognise him myself, but among others he's been on Prison Break and Lost, so I guess some people might know of him. You want to know more about him, here's his IMdb.
He doesn't look much like I envisioned Clay, but he does look kind - at least on this picture - so he might still be a good fit. He is quite far down on the IMdb list of characters, though, so I wonder how much he'll actually be seen on screen.
Okay, I just realised I don't actually remember the rest of the characters by name, just vaguely what part they played. So instead, I'll give you the poster. Looks pretty good, eh?
The show is a Netflix production, and will premiere there on Friday, March 31st - about two months from now. The show has 13 episodes, and I can't imagine there will be a second season because this story has a really tied-up end, but they have ways to turn anything into a five-season show these days, so you never know.
Fun fact is that Selena Gomez is part of producing the show, which isn't something she's officially done before. Go women! And I haven't seen a real trailer yet, so I don't think it's been released - stay put for that, people.
I'm really excited for this tv-series! I have high hopes for them to make it justice on screen, because the story itself has a lot of potential for a good adaption. It also has many really important messages so I'm happy to revisit the story. If you haven't read this book in the past, I truly recommend it to you. As good a tv-series this might make, there are elements to this story I think will be better to get in book-format. And as we all know, the book is always better ;) Here's the Goodreads page again if you want to find it.
Have you read the book or do you plan to before the show premieres? What do you think of the teaser and of Hannah and Clay?
