The Perks of Being a Wallflower — Behind the Scenes

And so we’ve reached our last discussion post about the beautiful movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

One of the most interesting aspects of this movie, is that it was written and directed by the author who also wrote the book, which this movie is based on. Stephen Chbosky released the book in 1999, creating a large audience who came to love the story of Charlie, Sam and Patrick.

It wasn’t until 2012, thirteen years after the book’s release, that the movie premiered in cinemas. Even though the movie became a huge hit, Stephen Chbosky was hesitant at first to bring his beloved story onto the big screen. He only agreed to do so, if he could write the screenplay, as well as direct the movie…and so he did.

A Promise

After writing the screenplay, he went on to finding the perfect actors to portray the characters, which is when he found Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller.

To this day, Emma remembers Stephen’s pitch he gave during their first meeting at a hotel in New York City:

“Not only will people remember you as this girl forever, but you’ll also have the summer of your life and meet some of your best friends”

Quite a statement, don’t you think?

However, he did not promise too much, as Emma later on said that he was completely right.

The Actors Meet

When it came to developing the relationships between the actors/characters, the actors were quite concerned, wanting to do the book justice. Funnily enough, the actors ended up bonding over very different things.

Emma and Logan had met prior to shooting this movie, however, they bonded over the fact that they really wanted to make this movie happen, putting all their enthusiasm in the pre-production, ensuring the movie would be produced.

Emma and Ezra, on the other hand, bonded over dancing. Yes, dancing. When they first met, the director made them choreograph a dance routine for the homecoming scene. While it seems odd to start with this part of the movie, both Ezra and Emma said that it was the perfect start to their friendship.

They say that it is impossible not to like each other, when you have to dance and show off your most ridiculous dance moves. Furthermore, they said that you can get a pretty good feel for someone’s personality, based on their dance moves.

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And this concludes this week’s discussion. I hope you all enjoyed it!

Let me know in the comments what your favourite moment of this movie was.

Don’t forget to stop by our Instagram (indie.film.club), to find out which movie we will be discussing next.

I wish you all a lovely day!