With the new Jack Reacher adventure Personal out now, RTÉ TEN's Harry Guerin met author Lee Child at the recent Mountains to Sea dlr Book Festival in Dún Laoghaire to discuss the book, the big screen - and Roy Keane.
Harry Guerin: In terms of the plot of Personal, was there a light bulb moment – say, something you saw on the news?
Lee Child: Yes. What tends to happen is stuff that I've seen quite a long time ago percolates. I do remember... It goes back to 2008, with the [US] Presidential election - November 2008 when Obama won his first term. His victory speech that night in Grant Park, Chicago... There were big huge bulletproof screens that he was behind, which is kind of, you know, sad that you need that, but also interesting in the technological sense. Because if you are the Secret Service then you will be, 'Ok, you've got two angles taken care of.'
In this Reacher book, it feels like he has more of a sense of his own mortality.
I think that's definitely true. He has a sense of getting older and also does it matter, really, whether he lives or dies. I think, in a sense, that is something that's occurring to me as well as him - 'How long is this going to go on for?!'
Like Reacher, you're very laidback and an easy person to talk to. But with the success you've had, it must make you more career-focussed – it's like a miniature industry.
Well, yes and no. There's a lot of stuff to take care of, obviously. As you say, it's a miniature industry all its own with a lot of people working on it, so it means there's a lot to deal with. But how did it come about? It came about just by winging it. And so if you put those two things together maybe that's the way to make things successful: to not over-think it. Just do whatever you feel like and maybe it'll work.
How much of Reacher's Zen attitude has bled into you, then?
It's kind of the other way around! That's how I approach things so it bleeds into him.
Well, then, has it become amplified in you?
Well, yeah, because in entertainment, generally, it's virtually impossible to 'plan' a success. We've seen numerous examples that fail and the only things that are really enduring successes are, generally speaking, distinctive or accidental. Whatever comes up, whatever decision has to be made, I generally speaking just go with a gut feeling rather than trying to think it through.
Were you taken aback by how angry some fans were with Tom Cruise playing the lead role in the film Jack Reacher?
Yeah, I was, because I thought, in and of itself, it was a fine movie. I was somewhat taken aback by the way people reacted to it; but on the other hand, I also took it as a huge compliment. Way back at the beginning [of my career], if somebody had said to me, 'You're writing a character that people are going to care about so much that people are going to be furious about who plays him in a movie...' I would've said, as a metric of success, that's amazing.
Have they got as far as thinking about a director for the next big screen Reacher adaptation, Never Go Back?
Director is the one thing I don't think that we've filled in yet. The same producers are there; the money's there, the writer is there. I'm not sure where we are with the director.
And a release date?
You would assume Summer 2016. If not, Christmas 2016. One of the two.
You've a big Reacher anniversary coming up – the 20th book. How far are you into it?
I've got about a page or two done. I'm not sure exactly where it is except that it's 'lonely' again – it's lonely, rural, isolated again. That'll be out a year from now.
You've named many characters and places after Aston Villa players. Is there any possibility of a character called Roy Keane?
You never... Absolutely, why not? And probably some scathing references to prawn sandwiches!
What kind of character would your Roy Keane be?
Roy Keane would probably be a sergeant or something like that, some uncompromising NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer). Keane is pretty typical of the types who, to them, it's about getting the job done. They don't care who upset along the way! I had a friend who was like that in Granada [Television, where Child worked before embarking on writing career]. He was proposing some course of action and somebody said to him, 'You won't be very popular'. And he said, 'I'm not here to be popular; I'm here to get the job done!' That's how I see Roy Keane.
Who was the youngest Jack Reacher fan you've ever met?
A nine-year-old boy. First of all, he wrote to me. He sent me a packet of stuff, mailed by his mother. He was in Bedfordshire somewhere. She mailed me this stuff which was his primary school art project. He had designed his version of the cover for one of the books. I was very impressed by this and, as it happened, I had the mock-up of the next cover which the publisher had sent me. So I sent that to him and said, 'This is how it looks when the publisher sends it to me'. And I also sent him a signed picture of myself. And then he sent me a signed picture – his primary school photograph with a little green sweater! And he signed it and sent it to me! The oldest I ever met was a 101-year-old woman at a signing in Scotland.
As people saw in your public interview here at the festival, you've never lost your humility and are very grounded.
That is actually one of the good things about being a writer, as opposed to being a film star or rock star or something: it generally happens later in life. So that even if you do become successful, you're old enough that you are set in your ways. Your personality is developed, your tastes are fixed. I don't feel that I've changed at all, really. I'm the same as I was before. If I'd become successful at the age of 20, like a rockstar, or at 25 like Brad Pitt, then yeah, you can see how that would change your life because you haven't got any previous reference.
You mentioned your father's Irish roots during your public interview at the festival - what are they?
He was born in Belfast and his parents were, actually I think, born down here somewhere, pre-partition. So on my father's side is Scots-Irish going back several hundred years 'til whenever they got kicked out of Scotland!
Would you be interested in doing Who Do You Think You Are?
There are legends about various nefarious activities and all that stuff – gun-running here and there and so on – so who knows? I would [be interested]. My Dad at one time was interested in that genealogy thing that a lot of people were doing, and I think he got a certain way and then it dries up. In fact, we had a dog once with a longer pedigree than we have!
Personal is published by Random House.
