Irish bestselling children's author Darren Shan aka O'Shaughnessy talks to RTÉ.ie about his 'Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant' which has just been released as a film.
Taragh Loughrey-Grant: You share the same agent as another famous children's author, JK Rowling?
Darren Shan: Yes it's bizarre. I wrote the first draft of 'Cirque du Freak' back in May 1997. I had an agent by that stage for my adult books and I sent the first draft into him and he didn't really deal with children's books but he said 'send it in and I'll have a look'. I sent it in; he read it and got really excited. He said two things that I'll never forget: 'I've got one other [children's] author that I've just started out with called JK Rowling'. It was 1997 and the first one ['Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'] had just come out. The other famous thing he said was: 'You've got to remember Darren, children's books don't make any money'. [Bursting into laughter, he added] Haven't things changed! It was just pure coincidence that we both came to him at exactly the same time.
TLG: Growing up were you an avid reader?
DS: I know the accent is pure cockney but I moved back to Limerick when I was just six years old and I've been living here [Ireland] ever since for 31 years now, my parents live there, my grandparents live there. So I grew up with two TV stations, there was no computer games, no video recorders, so reading was my real source of entertainment, to go wherever that great escape takes you. Reading has always been the great love of my life.
TLG: Do you think it's thanks in part to authors such as JK Rowling and yourself that children have been returning to books in their masses?
DS: I think there are a couple of factors; I think there are a lot of good writers around at the moment for children – Eoin Colfer, Anthony Horowitz, Jacqueline Wilson, especially for girls. The other thing that I think has been brilliant for books is the internet.
I know you'll read every so often in newspapers that children aren't reading anymore and computer games have destroyed them because they were going online surfing all the time.
When I was growing up it was very, very difficult to get new books and it was difficult to know when new books were coming out. There was no sense of books being released – you saw 'Top of the Pops' every week so you know all about the new singles and albums. There were movie shows so you knew what movies were being released but with books you never knew. The internet has created a buzz about books, children can get excited about books coming out, books they've been waiting for, they can pre-order or turn up at a bookstore the day it gets released.
It's made it far more accessible than it ever was before and I think children are reading more than they ever did and it's just that a lot of adults don't want to admit that. Every generation likes to think that children don’t read as much as they used to when they were young! You listen to some adults saying they were going around reading 'Ulysses' when they were seven or eight! I think children are voracious readers if you give them the right books and if you make those books accessible to them.
TLG: Darren Shan is the name of your famous protagonist but despite being born Darren O'Shaughnessy, you are also known as Darren Shan…
DS: Yes, I was born in London as Darren O'Shaughnessy and I'm pure Irish – my father has family links in Limerick that go way back to a line of Irish fishermen. I've been asked if I consider myself to be Irish but it's not a matter of considering myself to be Irish – I am Irish.
I released my first book as Darren O'Shaughnessy so when I started writing children's books I decided to release it under a different name. My grandfather was known as Paddy Shan and so I took on the name Darren Shan, I thought it was a nice nod to my granddad, it's nice and short and close enough to my real name so it won't confuse readers.
Also I started 'Cirque du Freak' saying it was a true story and I figured if I used the name Darren Shan for the key character as well that would blur the lines between fantasy and reality and it would make readers think, 'could it be true?' All these years later I still get children who come up to me or write to me and say: 'Are you really a vampire?' And I always say…maybe and I laugh bloodcurdlingly!
TLG: Tell us how the film adaptation of your book came about.
DS: Universal had been involved with it for years now after they bought the rights and it was in pre-production and my agent and I were often wondering if it would go ahead. Paul Weitz then got involved and he wrote the script and made it his own and then they started casting and it all went through.
TLG: Were you involved in the whole process?
DS: I stayed out, I love movies but I'd read lots of interviews with writers who sold their books and what I found was the best thing to do was to stay out of it. That’s what Stephen King does – he sells the rights off and some get turned into classics and some don't, some get turned into rubbish but it all happens independently. I believe in learning from the experiences of others so I stayed out of it and I said that if I like it I'll be happy to promote it and if I don't, I'll stay quiet.
I saw it about a month or six weeks ago over in London at a private screening with my agent and he said beforehand: 'My shoulder's here if you need it. Sometimes these things go horribly wrong.' We both went in thinking okay, holding our breath, let's just see what they've done and if we need to we'll head for a few stiff drinks afterwards but no, we both really enjoyed it. We both came out afterwards; sort of laughing at each other and thinking they did a great job, great cast.
TLG: Did you initially approve of their casting prior to seeing the film?
DS: A lot of fans didn't like the sound of John C Reilly being cast because they've only seen him in his last few movies, his comedy films. They hadn't seen in 'Boogie Nights', 'Gangs of New York' or 'The Perfect Storm'. I've been a fan of his since I saw 'Boogie Nights' over ten years ago, I love his stuff. It's like if you only saw Robert De Niro in his 'Meet the Fockers' films you wouldn't believe he could play the role of an iconic boxer ['Raging Bull'] or gangster ['Godfather', 'Goodfellas']. Now though everyone has singled out John C Reilly [who plays Larten Crepsley] as being at the heart of the film, he really is the one who keeps it all together. He actually read all the twelve books and got really involved with the whole thing and kept on fighting to keep the whole film as close to the books and Mr Crepsley is in the books as possible.
TLG: What's next?
DS: Lots more books! I've a book for adults coming out in March called 'City of Snakes' and my next children's book is a one-off fantasy book called 'The Thin Executioner' – a very life affirming book about a boy who wants to grow up to become an executioner! Regarding the future in film, it all depends on how this film does. It cost about $80million to make and so they have to make a big profit to enable them to do a second film.
Anyone who has an imagination can write a book, it's cheap to do but movies are big money. The plan is to make four films in total; if the first one does well then there will be one of each trilogy so the second film will be of books four, five and six and so on.
The great thing is the books are all out, even if they don't make another film fans can still find out what happens and how it all finishes. Hopefully they will make another, the cast are all tied in and it's all looking good.
TLG: What does the future hold for books?
DS: I think e-books are going to be the future and it'll be with children that it'll all start, they'll get them up and running. We grew up attached to reading physical books, children will grow up reading them on screen and they won't have the same ties to books as we do.
An e-book is way better because you can have the one console and as many books as you'd like on it. I think it's a really exciting time for books, I know listening to some people you'd think it’s the death-nail but I think books are on the up and over the next ten years it's going to sky rocket.
'Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant' is in cinemas nationwide.
