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You are here: Home / Features / Casting Call / Casting Call: If I Stay & Where She Went by Gayle Forman

Casting Call: If I Stay & Where She Went by Gayle Forman

November 16, 2012 by Sandie 20 Comments

Casting CallSometimes 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

If I StayWhere She Went

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 commands

And 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.

 


Lucy Hale as Mia Hall
Our pick for Mia comes courtesy of Diana’s 17-year-old daughter who didn’t hesitate when asked who she pictured as Mia.  We agreed that Lucy has the perfect look for Mia. Although we aren’t familiar with all of her work, we recognize her from some roles with Disney, and her starring role as Aria on “Pretty Little Liars.”  There she demonstrates some of the sweetness that we believe is part of Mia’s personality. Plus, we can imagine her with her hair up, her eyes closed getting into the cello music she has to play!


Luke Pasqualino as Adam Wilde
Luke Pasqualino  as Adam Wilde

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?


 
Alia Shawkat as Kim Schein, Mia’s best friend
Mia’s best friend Kim is such an important part of her life that we knew we had to cast her.  We have loved Alia since her breakout role as Maeby on “Arrested Development.” We knew she could play Mia’s strong and loyal friend who bonds with Adam over trying to convince their beloved Mia to “stay.”


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!


Check out our full schedule!

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!


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Filed Under: Casting Call, Features Tagged With: books we adore, casting call, gayle forman

« Selective Collective: Opposites Attract in Meant to Be
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Comments

  1. Dixie says

    November 16, 2012 at 2:08 pm

    gah! love your parent choices! and I can totally see Luke as Adam.

    Reply
    • SandieSandie says

      November 16, 2012 at 6:13 pm

      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.

      Reply
  2. We Heart YA says

    November 16, 2012 at 3:44 pm

    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. 🙂

    Reply
    • SandieSandie says

      November 16, 2012 at 6:11 pm

      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!

      Reply
  3. Brittany @ The Book Addict's Guide says

    November 16, 2012 at 3:59 pm

    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 🙂 🙂

    Reply
    • SandieSandie says

      November 16, 2012 at 6:10 pm

      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.

      Reply
  4. Tee @ YA Crush says

    November 16, 2012 at 4:09 pm

    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!

    Reply
    • SandieSandie says

      November 16, 2012 at 6:09 pm

      Aren’t they tough and cool and exactly right for Mia’s parents? 😉 We had fun brainstorming.

      Reply
  5. DianaDiana says

    November 17, 2012 at 1:35 pm

    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.

    Reply
  6. Tori says

    November 18, 2012 at 6:31 pm

    I heard through the grape vine that Chloë Grace Moretz is going to play Mia. I think she’ll be great!

    Reply
    • SandieSandie says

      November 20, 2012 at 3:12 pm

      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.

      Reply
  7. efwer says

    April 13, 2013 at 4:29 pm

    Excuse me, I’m an italian student. Someone know the name of the book “Where she went”?

    Reply
  8. Ancd says

    August 30, 2014 at 7:25 pm

    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

    Reply
    • SandieSandie says

      August 30, 2014 at 7:28 pm

      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!

      Reply
    • Crystal Grijalva says

      September 2, 2014 at 10:28 am

      I AGREE !

      Reply
  9. Marsha says

    November 3, 2014 at 1:30 pm

    You should use the same people as in the If I Stay movie. It doesn’t make sence to change the cast.

    Reply
    • Crystal Grijalva says

      January 23, 2015 at 2:02 pm

      EXACTLY!

      Reply
  10. A says

    February 28, 2015 at 1:58 pm

    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

    Reply
  11. Jennea says

    April 16, 2015 at 11:00 am

    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!!!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Answering Readers' Questions - Teen Lit Rocks says:
    March 12, 2015 at 7:00 am

    […] is obviously needed about this: Readers keep landing on this old Casting Call of IF I STAY and WHERE SHE WENT that my Selective Collective friends and I published two-and-a-half […]

    Reply

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