Sometimes these casting posts can be heartbreaking, because it’s hard to imagine anyone living up to the characters you love so dearly. Such is the case with Gayle Forman‘s “duology” (see, Gayle, we’re using the term you mentioned at YALLFest) “If I Stay” and “Where She Went.” They’re the kind of books that you read and weep through and then promptly re-read the moment you finish. “If I Stay” was optioned and even had Dakota Fanning attached at one point, but we haven’t read any production updates about the adaptation in a while. We do know the option is with Summit Entertainment (which distributed that little movie franchise about a girl who falls for a dazzling vampire), and we hope it eventually gets made — but only if it’s by a filmmaker who truly adores Gayle’s prose and the characters she created. As die-hard members of Team Mia and Adam, we are crossing our fingers for a lovingly made page-to-screen experience.
If I Stay and Where She Went by Stephanie Perkins
In a single moment, everything changes. Seventeen-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall riding along the snow-wet Oregon road with her family. Then, in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck…
A sophisticated, layered, and heart-achingly beautiful story about the power of family and friends, the choices we all make, and the ultimate choice Mia commandsAnd three years later: Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard’s rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia’s home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future-and each other.
Told from Adam’s point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.
Adam is, hands down, one of the very, very best guy(s) in all of YA. We pictured Adam as a tall, lanky hipster, because that’s pretty much how we picture all emo singer/songwriter rockstars. Although he’s not well known in “If I Stay,” Adam still looks the part. I know some of you will take a quick glimpse at Luke and wonder about his ethnicity; we assume given his name that he’s Italian, and we know Adam isn’t but who cares, when you could have Freddie from the second ensemble of “Skins” channeling all of that angsty intensity into the amazing Adam?
Vera Farmiga and Sam Rockwell as Mia’s parents
Mia’s parents are the essence of cool. They were punk scenesters who met and married and had Mia very, very young, so they are still extra young (and ridiculously hip) when Mia is in high school. We figured the Halls needed to be kind of edgy and not your typical sweet-as-pie-looking parents. Having seen many of Sam’s and Vera’s films, we’re confident they would make an awesome Mr. and Mrs. Hall.
Join us in the fun! Cast your own “If I Stay”/”Where She Went” ensemble and link up!
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Honesty Clause: In our development of this feature we discovered that the book blog Lit Snit featured “Casting Call Fridays.” Our Casting Call feature is in no way purposefully copying or stealing this idea and any similarities is purely coincidental. Also, you should check out their casting because it rocks!
gah! love your parent choices! and I can totally see Luke as Adam.
Did you see him on SKINS? And I’m so excited that he’s going to be young Bill Adama in the new BSG prequel.
Ooo, LOVE the choices for Mia and her parents! And Alia Shawkat is great. Not sure that’s how we pictured Adam… but we could get on board with it. 🙂
Well, Adam is sooo hard to get right, but I saw SKINS and have an obvious thing for British actors 😉 Thanks for stopping by — you guys should join us some time!
Oh I really like Lucy Hale! And Alia for Kim is PERFECT! I almost didn’t recognize her in that picture. Some really great choices 🙂 🙂
She doesn’t have long hair any more, but since Kim does, Diana found the perfect picture. Lucy was courtesy of my niece, but it was still fun to brainstorm all of the possibilities.
I love all of you casting, but oh my gosh, I LOVE your choices for Mia’s parents. Perfect! Exactly how I pictured them. Fabulous job!
Aren’t they tough and cool and exactly right for Mia’s parents? 😉 We had fun brainstorming.
Sandie and I have a lot of fun working on this together. My daughter was thrilled that we picked her Mia. She had just finished reading Where She Went on Thursday night so since it was fresh on her mind it was easy for her. I think everyone had fantastic choices this week.
I heard through the grape vine that Chloë Grace Moretz is going to play Mia. I think she’ll be great!
I agree; she would be great. Bring on the dye job. The only thing is that she is a tad young, so the Adam would have to be younger than 21 too.
Excuse me, I’m an italian student. Someone know the name of the book “Where she went”?
I think you guys should have just left it with the same actotes cuz now I think you just ruined the hole movie and you should have not change them they were prefect how they where when I was reading the book I pictured the same actotes but you guys just ruined the movie for me
We wrote this a long time ago before the movie was cast. We are sorry if this ruined anything. We really like the actors in the movie!
I AGREE !
You should use the same people as in the If I Stay movie. It doesn’t make sence to change the cast.
EXACTLY!
The whole movie is ruined you cannot replace the actors of Mia and Adam in a sequel movie. You need to have to same actors or else it won’t be as good as the first movie. All movies are like that the first is better than the second. I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case for if I stay but now the chances of that are very slim
You can’t change the cast for a sequel movie! And the cast that we have now is way better then what you have chosen!!!