Episode 6: Books to screen with Robert Harris

What do you usually prefer: the book or the film? Or do you enjoy both? In this episode, we delve into books that have successfully transitioned from page to screen. We'll also be chatting with best-selling author Robert Harris about his gripping thriller, Conclave, which has been adapted for the silver screen this November, starring Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini, and Stanley Tucci. So grab your books and your popcorn, and get ready for another book-filled episode.

Click the button below to listen or continue scrolling to explore all of the books mentioned in this episode.

Click here to read the transcript of this episode

Alongside the Penguin titles you can explore below, also mentioned is:

Room by Emma Donoghue

Episode 6: Transcript

Rihanna Dhillon:

Hello, I'm Rihanna Dhillon, and you are listening to The Penguin Podcast and another episode of Ask Penguin. Welcome back. As usual, I'm going to be joined by brilliant author to talk about their work, and I'll be putting some of your listener questions to the team here at Penguin. And if you've got a question for us, we would love to hear from you. Please don't be shy. You can email the podcast at Penguin podcast@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk, or click the link in the show description to go straight to the podcast page. Now, in my job as a culture journalist, I spend a lot of time discussing and critiquing books, TV, and films. And our episode today is bringing all of those interests together. So I'm feeling a little bit giddy on the podcast. This week we are going to be talking about books that have made the jump into film and tv, which is such a broad subject and it provokes a lot of strong feelings.

You excited when a book that you love gets adapted? How much say does an author ever have when their novel is adapted and will they ever want to do a cameo? My guest today is perfectly placed to tell us a little bit about what it's like for your work. To go from the page to the big screen, Robert Harris is the author of 15 bestselling novels, including the Cicero Trilogy. His work has been translated into 40 languages, and nine of his books have been adapted for cinema and television. The latest feature film adaptation is the psychological thriller conclave based on his novel by the same name starring Ray Fines, Lucian Mass, Matt Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossini. The plot revolves around the election of a new pope and the discovery of a secret that could shake the very foundations of the Roman Catholic Church. Robert, thank you so much for joining us. It's pleasure. It's such a pleasure to have you with us. So the first question, in your experience, what is it like as an author seeing your work on screen for the first time after you sort of thought it was all put to bed, you've published it, you could move on, and then it comes back on the big screen?

Robert Harris:

Well, we've just had our first grandchild, and actually it's a little bit like being a grandfather, that you can enjoy it, take some credit for it, but you don't take responsibility and you can hand it back as it were. So it's quite a good feeling. It's fun to have your work go into other media, talented people to work on it. A lot of great actors and people have been in adaptations of mine and some wonderful music as well. So that's very thrilling. And when it's really good, then it's great. Sometimes I'm afraid quite often it isn't that good and then you just have to swallow your comments.

Rihanna Dhillon:

And do you swallow, are you the sort of person that would swallow or?

Robert Harris:

Well, on one occasion when the lights came up in the screening room and the director turned or the producer turned around to me and said, what do you think? I said, I'm afraid there's too many people in the room for me to answer that. So he said, okay, we'll clear the room. And then I gave my honest opinion of it. Fatherland adaptation. I never much cared for actually, that departed from the story

Rihanna Dhillon:

Quite a lot. That's interesting. You were talking about the sort of additional things that we might not necessarily think of as a writer having in their head, for example, the music, but is it important for something to match what you have in your head or actually that doesn't matter whether it might still be excellent and not match what's in your head?

Robert Harris:

Well, I think that obviously films have their own grammar and they have to take off on their own. But some quite often you feel that you wrote better dialogue than they've actually put in. You wonder why they bought it and then took that out, which is quite strange. But if you sell your house, you can't go back 18 months later and complain if they've put a new kitchen in or knocked through downstairs. If you didn't want that to happen, you shouldn't have sold it.

Rihanna Dhillon:

How does a book in your experience go from being a book to getting picked up for TV and film? Is it something that normally happens when it's published and out, or are you already in conversations about adaptations before the public have started reading it?

Robert Harris:

It varies. Sometimes you can sell the film rights before the novel is even published.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Is that preferable?

Robert Harris:

I don't know. Really. You just hope that something's made? I mean, conclave, it's eight years since I met, since the book came out and I met the producer. So it takes a long time and sometimes things get sold over and over and that's quite good actually. And financially, it's rather disappointing when they make it because the constant renewal of the option comes to an end. Yeah, so it varies. I mean, Munich, one of my novels was optioned by Houston Films for a television series, and they couldn't get the first script sold and then they cancelled. They dropped the option, they said, I'm afraid we're not renewing it. And curiously, the head of Netflix happened to be in my agent's office saying, you don't have a thriller with a European angle, do you? Because that's what I need. And he said, well, why not this? On Monday they made an offer for it, and on Wednesday, Houston films came back and said, actually, we will renew the option. But by then they'd lost it.

Rihanna Dhillon:

So that was quite an amusing turn of events. It's quite exciting.

Robert Harris:

Yeah, they're always strange things to do with it. And the two that I was most closely involved with were the ghost writer or the ghost and an officer and a spy. I collaborated on the screenplay with the director.

Rihanna Dhillon:

So conclave is coming to the big screen very shortly, really soon actually. But as you say, eight years ago, for you when you first published it, where did the inspiration for it come from?

Robert Harris:

Well, I had just finished the last volume of a trilogy of novels, my trilogy of novels about Cicero. And while I was working on those, the present Pope was elected. And I remember watching on television and when the smoke comes out of the chimney to say they found a new pope, the windows around the balcony in St. Peter's square fill with the cardinals all peering out and before the Pope is revealed as he comes onto the balcony, and I looked at these elderly cunning faces, some very pious and holy others looking angry. And I thought, my God, that's the Roman Senate. That's what it must have looked like. All male, all quite old. And I thought, I wonder what the election was like of the Pope. And so I promised myself at the moment, I finished the trilogy, I would find out, and I finished the trilogy on the Friday. And on the Monday morning I googled papal conclave. And within two or three hours it was clear to me it was a brilliant story that the scheming that goes on and the weight, the successive votes gives you a, it's like a horse race. Someone comes up and then they fall back. And I thought that this is a natural for me, an enclosed world, 48 hours, scheming. But at the same time, everyone has to pretend they don't want it.

So there was just so many rich dramatic possibilities.

Rihanna Dhillon:

It's the campaigning, which you're not allowed to do.

Robert Harris:

Yeah, exactly. I just thought it was a terrific story.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Yes. I'd never thought about how political it really is, which you make so clear in the conclave and without spoiling much, has the film stayed very true to the book?

Robert Harris:

It has. There's a very, very good screenwriter called Peter Straun who adapted, if you remember the Gary Oldman Tinker Taylor Soldier spy where he played George Smiley. So he's very, very good. And I talked over, met him several times to talk about the screenplay and he said, this is a pretty easy job because I'm just going to follow your scenes and characters and even some dialogue. So it was very easy and he did a marvellous job. I mean, the moment that the script leaked from his agent onto some website of new screenplays and everyone says that's can be a disaster. But instead it was seized upon by people suddenly came and said, can we make it? So it was a very good screenplay, which is the foundation of a good movie. I mean, you can't have a good film without a good screenplay. Simple as that. So that was a great plus right from the beginning.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Well, one of those changes always intrigues me is the characters name. So Lomeli in your book then becomes Thomas Lawrence.

Robert Harris:

Yes, I, the director, Edward Berger and Ralph Fiennes, they came for lunch and Ray said, I very much want to play this part. He said, but I don't know about playing in Italian. And Edward wanted people to be in their natural language, and so he said, we want to make him English. And I cavelled a bit because an English Dean of the College of Cardinals is pretty unlikely frankly. But it works. It works. To be honest, I still don't see why he couldn't have played him as Cardinal Lomeli, but there we are, it great. It's a minor change. It doesn't really matter at all. You soon forget that.

Rihanna Dhillon:

And you mentioned Edward Berger, who is such a phenomenal director. I mean most famous of course for All Quite on the Western Front, which is a film so full of action and devastation. What does he bring to conclave, which is almost the exact opposite in terms of action. I first talked to him, I think it was during lockdown, and I first talked to him on Zoom and he was in, I think All Quite on the Western Front was shot in the Czech Republic if my memory serves. And he was there still finishing shooting. He came from a Catholic family and has always been interested in Catholic ritual and so on. And at the moment he read the screenplay, he wanted to do it. And I think partly because it was a contrast to this blood and Thunder epic. It was within this beautiful kind of Chapel and the Vatican, and it was a kind of chamber piece with a hundred, 110 cardinals and all the machinations. It was just a completely psychologically different movie. And I think that attracted him, actually. Of course at that point we weren't to know that he was the West Front was going to be something. I mean, that was another stroke of luck. You do have to have a lot of luck in these things. Ralph Fiennes coming free, great screenplay. And then Edward Berger, who knew, turned out to be one of the world's most sought after directors.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Worked out very well for you. Are you similar if you do a project, if you're writing a book, do you then look for something completely different or do you prefer to remain in a similar head space?

Robert Harris:

No, I'm happy to go with whatever comes across my mind that I think is a good story. And if I can envisage it as a novel, I mean, I've done all sorts of things from the Roman era to novel set in the future, novels about ai, first person narration, present tense, you name it. I've tried to do it and do different sort of characters.

Rihanna Dhillon:

I do feel, I mean, reading conclave and the language of the Catholic church is so incredibly complex. And for you having to do all of that research, does it stay with your brain? Can you remember what everything you wrote about now?

Robert Harris:

And no, it goes out of my head. Almost immediately. A lot of my books are about, I don't like fanatics and I don't like Masters of the Universe. I quite like even rulers who are more flawed and who are moderate and try to bring people in and Lomeli or Lawrence therefore stands in the kind of tradition of the kind of characters I like to write. And one thing in the trailer of Conclave, I remember the morning that I had to sit and write the homily or the eulogy that is given by the dean of the College of Cardinals to the dead pope. And I thought, what shall I do? And I hit on this idea that he says, the great enemy that we have to be careful of is certainty, because if you have certainty, there is no doubt and without doubt, there's no need for faith. And it was just stunning to see Ralph Fiennes in the trailer deliver exactly those lines all those years after I'd written them.

Rihanna Dhillon:

It is an incredibly impressive piece of writing. And then the way that he delivers it as well.

Robert Harris:

Oh, the way he delivers it raises hairs on the back of your neck.

Rihanna Dhillon:

So tell us about your next novel, the one that's come out precipice. Tell us about what we can expect from that.

Robert Harris:

Well, I think that that could be adapted into a film, not a television series in my view, but a film. It's about a love affair or the curious affair between the liberal Prime Minister Asquith who was 61 and a 27-year-old glamorous socialite called Venetia Stanley, to whom he wrote obsessively and sent her secret documents. And I've invented a policeman, this is based again on a true story. There was a kind of leak investigation as to why secret telegrams were turning up in fields in southern England. What happened was the Prime Minister used to drive off with Venetia, show her a telegram from the ambassador in Berlin, or this is in August, 1914 or St. Petersburg, and then he'd screw it up and throw it out of the window, and members of the public started finding these, and so they were handed in and Asquith denied all knowledge of it, but of course he was responsible. And I thought if I invent the policeman who has to carry out the investigation, that would give me a way of describing the affair and give it some jeopardy and tension.

Rihanna Dhillon:

How much space would you leave before finishing something like Precipice then, which is here and it's a hefty book before starting the next?

Robert Harris:

It depends. I mean, as I say, with the Cicero trilogy, which was huge, I started almost the next day. And the same with when I finished Conclave with Munich. I started that almost the next day.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Do you have it lined up in your head already?

Robert Harris:

Yeah, sometimes. I Don't have anything. I have various vague ideas, but I don't have a specific one. The last two novels, active Oblivion and Precipice are long books. They required a lot of research and so it might take me a little while to finally settle on what I'm going to do next, but it could be anything, quite frankly.

Rihanna Dhillon:

You seem emphatic about it. It could be a film but not a TV series.

Robert Harris:

Well.

Rihanna Dhillon:

How do you sort of differentiate that in your mind?

Robert Harris:

I think that because I think it's about the relationship between these two characters and I think in essence it's quite a simple story and it's very beautiful locations. Her family had these great country houses in Cheshire and on the coast near Hollyhead, and so it's sort of quite glamorous, I think. I don't think one wants to get into the real detail of the First World War and the progress towards it. I feel that if you could get the right casting, the right director, it would be best as a film. I may be wrong, to be honest. Let's face it, at Kingsley Amis' advice, take the money and run remains not a bad one for an author.

Rihanna Dhillon:

And go on, give us, do you have dream casting for precipice when you're sort of writing, if you were thinking, oh, this could be a film, who would play?

Robert Harris:

Well, I without saying specific people, but maybe Ralph Fiennes. He's exactly 61. Obviously he's better looking than by and large actors. Movie stars are better looking than the people that they play. So I think that he'd be a brilliant Asquith, and I don't know, a young actress maybe, maybe not Kiera Knightly, but someone, it's that sort of, you need a chemistry so it doesn't look yucky as well. But yeah, no, I could see that working. I could see the poster now, actually,

Rihanna Dhillon:

You should design it. We interviewed your wife, Jill Hornby a couple of weeks ago. Does it ever get competitive at the dinner table between you two?

Robert Harris:

We hate one another, ahah.

Rihanna Dhillon:

If you have books coming at the same time, is there that sort of mine's climbed up the charts higher than yours?

Robert Harris:

No, not really. I mean, we write completely different books for a start, although hers have become historical more now and mine are often historical, but mine tend to be about war and prime ministers and that sort of thing. And hers are more domestic family dramas. So there's a big difference. By and large, I tend to come out in the autumn. She comes out in the spring or summer, so we don't have that. It is been a really strange year because I write in the mornings, I start at seven or seven 30 and finish by lunchtime. She starts at lunchtime and works through the afternoon. So we don't meet very often, actually.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Is that a deliberate avoidance?

Robert Harris:

No, it's not deliberate. It's just I'm a lark and she's an owl. Really.

Rihanna Dhillon:

It made me laugh what you were saying about Jeremy Irons because she's got Max Irons in her adaptation of Ms. Austin.

Robert Harris:

It's such a small world.

Rihanna Dhillon:

I love that.

Robert Harris:

Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to seeing that. I've only seen clips. I haven't seen the main thing yet.

Rihanna Dhillon:

I know I'm very excited. Robert Harris, thank you so much for joining us,

Robert Harris:

Ben. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Conclave is going to be in cinemas in the UK at the end of November, and if you can't wait, buy the book. You'll find a link to the novel along with Robert's other books, including Precipice in the show notes. So if you are new to the podcast, this is the section of the show where I get to sit down with some of the experts who work here at Penguin and get the answers to your questions. And today, I'm delighted to be joined by Rachel. Hi, Rachel.

Rachel:

Hi.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Rachel:

Thank you for having me.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Tell us a little bit about what you do at Penguin.

Rachel:

Yeah, sure. So I'm a digital editor in the content teams. That essentially means that I write and edit and publish the articles that you see on the penguin.co uk website. I also work a bit on the happy foodie, which is our food and cookery vertical.

Rihanna Dhillon:

So our listeners have been sending in their questions to Ask Penguin. We were hoping that you might be able to help us with a few recommendations, if that's okay. Of

Rachel:

Course, yeah.

Rihanna Dhillon:

There is one catch. These titles have to be adapted for film, tv, or theatre so that once our listeners are finished reading the book, they can go and watch it or they have to be ones that in your opinion, absolutely should be adapted. So first of all, do you have a favourite adaptation?

Rachel:

Oh, that's a great question. I don't know. I mean, I feel like I've seen all of the adaptations of The Great Gatsby, which is one of my favourite novels

Rihanna Dhillon:

By

Rachel:

Scott Fitzgerald

Rihanna Dhillon:

And which is the best? There's only one right answer to this.

Rachel:

I know you want me to say, well, I think you want me to say V Luhrman here, but I hope you do not. It's Robert Redford quite clearly. It is one of the few books that I've so many times that actually I don't think that is the perfect adaptation of it. It exists in my head and that's about it. That's the perfect adaptation. That said, in all seriousness, I'd say Greta Go's adaptation of little women is just so, it's glorious. I feel like it's perfectly wintry to get into the Christmas season later in the year, and it's just, yeah, it's perfect. It's 10 out 10

Rihanna Dhillon:

For a book that also evokes incredibly sad emotions. It makes me so happy

Rachel:

That

Rihanna Dhillon:

Film

Rachel:

As well. Yeah, it captures the whole range of emotions and feeling for all the characters. Yeah, incredible.

Rihanna Dhillon:

I think it's such a cliche, and I'm really sorry, but for me, and it always has been the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

Rachel:

I mean, it

Rihanna Dhillon:

Just has to be, I grew up on it. It's a part of my life. And speaking of Greta Gerwig, I felt so seen when in Barbie she literally references the Colin Firth in the wet shirt in the lake as a sort of a mood for all sad female millennials. It was a cultural moment.

Rachel:

Exactly. Getting away from it.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Exactly. I also love Room by Emma Donahue because that book was insane and so incredibly well written and devastating, and I felt like Bree Larson just brought that so perfectly and never overplayed it. And I think that's another,

Rachel:

That's a book that I've been meaning to read. I'll definitely check it out. And the adaptation for sure,

Rihanna Dhillon:

I would definitely recommend. So our first Ask Penguin request from a listener is for a romantic comedy that pulls at the heartstrings and is as funny as a Richard Curtis film.

Rachel:

Okay. It's a great, great question. Yeah, so I think Richard Curtis, there are so many strands to pull from. You can choose from the kind of quirky Britishness of it, which if that's what you really enjoy about Richard Curtis film, I'd suggest anything by Nick Hornby, like he literally wrote about a boy, which Richard Curtis adapted. I'd maybe recommend romantic comedy by Curtis similar to Notting Hill in that it sort of deals with this, the tension of fame, but finding love and all of the scrutiny that can come with that. It's also really funny and it's a great overview of what it's like writing late night comedy in the us, which is really good fun. Yeah, I think those are the main ones. I'd also really recommend Paul Nobel in Case of Emergency. It's the interior monologue of the narrator. It's just so, so funny. It feels like the perfect kind of rom-com voiceover kind of that wit instead of sardonic humour of a Bridget Jones. So this my

Rihanna Dhillon:

Recommendations. Amazing. Love all of those. Thank you. Our next question dear Ask Penguin, can you recommend a Bronte that's not W Ring Heights or Jane Air? And I think that's a very fair question. We do get a lot of adaptations of both of those,

Rachel:

Definitely. And I feel like there are so many unsung heroes in the Bronte cannon. I feel like not least Anne Bronte herself, she's so often overlooked. If you're interested in exploring Anne Bronte's work, I'd definitely recommend the tenet of Wild Fell Hall. So I'd argue it's a little bit more readable than some of the other Bronte novels. The start of it especially feels kind of gossipy. So if you love gossip as much as I do in the relaying of Gossip, it kind of opens with this Epitol area as a novel. So it's letters back and forth from the main character. It's about this mysterious widow who's quite young, and she moves into the newly vacant Wild Fell Hall, and it kind of peaks the interest of the very nosy kind of surrounding community, but that there are sort of darker sort of secrets at play here. So yeah, I'd recommend that definitely. If you want something similar to Jane er, I'd definitely recommend Charlotte. So that is inspired by her own experiences, quite miserable experiences of being a ESS in Brussels. And it's that similar kind of protofeminist, strong, intelligent heroine at the centre of it. Yeah.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Thank you. Those are all excellent recommendations. Finally. This is a good one, dear. Ask Penguin. I just watched and I need a similar book. I love the word need there, I need a similar book. What would you suggest? I felt like this is quite open-ended because it could mean sort of crazy family dynamics. It could mean a really sort of aristocratic house. It could be an unhinged young man.

Rachel:

Yeah, definitely. And I think there are so many that hit on those notes, but if not all together. So helpfully, Emerald Fennell, who directed Saltburn, has talked at length about the literary influences that went into creating it, and that includes adaptations of classic books. So it's kind of a given maybe. But Brideshead Revisited by Evening Wharf, the Go-between by PJ Hartley. Oh, I love the Go-between,

Rihanna Dhillon:

That was a beautiful film,

Rachel:

Definitely. And they both sort of captured that sort of class dynamics, intentions, that sense of place and setting in a stately home, the idea of an outsider coming in and inevitably coming enthralled by the family dynamics around them and the romance and lust of it all. It would definitely recommend, similarly, another great book to maybe Adaptation Atonement by Ian McEwen. It's a similar kind of thing where it's that beautiful sense of place. It's that uniquely British stately home countryside setting. And then I think I'll go off pieced a little bit and say that if you like the sort of dark twisted side of Saltburn, especially anything kind of within the dark academia genre is definitely worthwhile. A recent release that I thought was a perfect kind of foil for Saltburn is the things we do to our Friends by Heather Darwin. I really think that that could almost be like the female Saltburn to some extent. It's about a protagonist, Claire, who travels from whole to go to university in Edinburgh, and she's kind of a bit of a striver. She's a bit ambitious, and she kind of falls in with this very enigmatic, very privileged girl in one of her classes called Tabitha. She then sort of falls in with turn with a circle of friends and things kind of take a dark and twisted turn from there.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Love the hat. Well do. I love that. It sounds horrifying.

Rachel:

Yeah, it's something, it's a wild ride. Definitely. I

Rihanna Dhillon:

Do really love the idea of the infiltrating aspect of it all.

Rachel:

Yeah, that's ambition. That's really driving you to form these friendships.

Rihanna Dhillon:

Yeah. Rachel, thank you so much for joining us. Those are all excellent recommendations. Don't worry if you've not been jotting these down as we go. They're all going to be in the show notes. So now along with my usual pile of reading recommendations, I'm also leaving with a loads of things to watch. I don't have time, but I'm going to find time. Thank you so much to everybody who submitted a question. You can find episode transcripts and details for all of the books and films and series that we've mentioned@penguin.co uk slash podcasts. And if you've got a question or a message for us, you can email Penguin podcast@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk or click the link in the show notes to go straight to the podcast page. Thank you so much for listening and thank you again to our brilliant guests, Robert Harris and Rachel from Penguin. I'll be back next week when I'll have author Jody pco in the studio to talk about her new novel by any other name. I really hope you'll join us. And in the meantime, happy reading.