Author Markus Zusak flipped Hollywood to make The Messenger TV series in Australia

Australian author Markus Zusak has received several offers from Hollywood to turn his novel The Messenger into a movie or TV series in the United States.

“I think there were about three or four, maybe five opportunities along the way, and some just didn’t work out. Some were rejected,” he says.

Another of his novels, the international bestseller The Book Thief, became a Hollywood blockbuster.

But Zusak decided that any screen adaptation of The Messenger should take place in Australia.

“I remember one in particular back when The Book Thief was doing really well, and as a result of that these deals were coming in and I think that was enough money that was put together,” he said.

“But I just started to feel like, especially in the first chapter of the book, these four friends on the floor of the bank, one of them is yelling at the bank robber to hurry up to me, he there was a real Aussie sensibility in there.

“And I thought, I want this adaptation, if there’s going to be one, I’d like it to be done here, because the characters feel Australian, the dialogue feels really Australian, everything the environment as well.

More than two decades after writing it, The Messenger has now become an Australian television series on ABC.

“Ultimately Lingo [Pictures] happened, it’s a great Australian company, and then the ABC, you don’t get more Australian than that. So it was worth holding on for sure,” he said.

Zusak says he thinks the TV series turned out better than the book.

“I wasn’t lying either,” he says.

“I’m incapable of not telling the truth, I think, because people discover me too easily.

“I absolutely fell in love with it, and what more could you ask for when your book is translated to the screen?”

Keeper of History

The Messenger was first published 21 years ago when Zusak was in his twenties, a few years before the huge success of The Book Thief.

It tells the story of directionless 19-year-old Ed Kennedy (played in the William McKenna TV series) who, after stopping a robbery, begins receiving playing cards with cryptic messages written on them by an anonymous sender. , each leading him on a quest to help someone in need.

“[Ed] was chosen to be a superhero but he doesn’t have superhero powers,” Zusak says. “The irony is that his real superpower is his banality and his humanity.”

Zusak was an executive producer on the TV series but says, “I really didn’t do much other than write the book which was the source material.

“I think, again, honesty is always best,” he laughs. “The worst part is when you start fumbling on an answer because you don’t know the answer, or you try to make it sound better than you actually are.

“At the end of the day, it was more just about consulting on the scripts. That was really it, and it became a really easy job because the scripts were still really strong.

“My role as executive producer was kind of to be a gatekeeper to what this story feels like, and were the writers of the scripts maintaining that, or if they changed it, did they change it in a way that improved it? And I think there was a bit of both.”

One of the big changes to the show is that it expands the roles of Ed’s three best friends, Audrey (Alexandra Jensen), Marv (Chris Alosio) and Ritchie (Kartanya Maynard), with the latter character being changed to male. in the book in woman for TV.

“Over the eight episodes, we get to know the characters better. They’re all more complex than they are in the book,” says Zusak.

He says the series also makes the world in which the story takes place look bigger.

“That’s why I thought, yeah, it’s a better achievement than the book. And I think it’s easier for me to say that with 20 years of distance between me and the release of the book.”

“I was braver back then”

Zusak says looking at his book The Messenger gets easier over time.

“What I think I understood about the novels of the past and all of your previous work is that you write your next book to atone for the sins of the last. After long enough after that, those sins don’t matter anymore. looks so awesome,” he says.

“You’re very cautious and worried and just cautious about the last thing you wrote, I think. As soon as your book comes out, you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s this hole in it’. Or, ‘I’ should have worked better on that sentence.

“And I think after a while you allow yourself to be nostalgic about it because you don’t keep it anymore.”

He says he was a “much more flexible” writer when working on The Messenger, compared to his style today.

“I think what happens as you get older as a writer is that you get better at some things, but you also lose something by knowing more. And because you know more, you worry no more. And there is something to be said for naivety.

“There’s something to be said for being a little more clueless, because you’re more willing to jump into something and say, ‘Yeah, that’s really good. I’m going to leave that,” rather than picking it to pieces and maybe ruining it.

“I think I was braver back then.

“I think it would be really difficult for me to write this book now.”

Next book on the way

Zusak reveals that the book he’s writing is a “memoir type thing” and he says he understands why some authors don’t want to discuss mid-term projects.

“There’s nothing worse than the writer or the artist saying, ‘No, you can’t watch what I’m working on.’ I mean, I get why that’s the case, because you you’re a little vulnerable at that point,” he says.

“I’m trying to finish something this year and for the first time it’s not fiction. I’m basically writing a sort of I guess you’d call it a memoir type thing. And it’s not about necessarily to write. And so that’s what I’m mainly working on right now.”

Zusak says his parents will feature in the book, as will the Sutherland Shire in southern Sydney, where he grew up.

“I think we can’t escape our childhood, and sometimes that’s not a good thing. But I think most of the time it’s a good thing. It’s an honest part of the place where you’re from so I’m looking forward to we’ll see how we do.

“It brought me back to that first time [writing]. I think the more you can be reminded of why you started writing the better, and trying something new, trying something that isn’t fiction made me feel that way again.

“I definitely write with a looser feeling than I’ve had in the last decade, that’s for sure.

“Hopefully I’ll be done by the end of the year and there’ll be a book next year, if it’s any good.”

Watch all episodes of The Messenger on ABC iviewor on ABC TV on Sundays at 8:20 p.m.