GO Rom Com Spotlight: @themisspool
The most excellent @themisspool (also Rokikurama on AO3) has claimed Bridget Jones’s Diary to adapt for Good Omens in the Good Omens Rom Com Event.
For reference, here’s a little background about the source material!
About Bridget Jones’s Diary: At the start of the New Year, 32-year-old Bridget (Renée Zellweger) decides it’s time to take control of her life – and start keeping a diary. Now, the most provocative, erotic and hysterical book on her bedside table is the one she’s writing. With a taste for adventure, and an opinion on every subject - from exercise to men to food to sex and everything in between - she’s turning the page on a whole new life.
We spent some time chatting about how the adaptation is coming so far, as well as future plans for it! Now, get to know @themisspool a little better!
goromcom: A little about you! You know how if you open a Tumblr chat with someone you haven’t chatted to before, Tumblr tells you two things they post about? I wanted to tell you that yours reports that you post “about #1920s art and #art nouveau”. Oh, those are great styles! What do you especially like about them?
themisspool: Hah! I’m terrible at tumblr, so I didn’t actually know that. I’ve always loved the art of the 1920s and art nouveau; something about how it’s simultaneously geometric and full of fussy detail really appeals to me. P.G. Wodehouse is one of my favorite authors, just because of his style. After reading LieutenantLiv/JustKeepTrekkin Good Omens fic “Celestial Bodies” set in the 1920s, I was off and running with merging that interest and Good Omens.
goromcom: Oh, yes, I think it’s a lovely style as well. But let’s move on to your rom com project!
You chose to adapt Bridget Jones’s Diary as your rom com. Has this movie been a favorite of yours, or is there some other reason you chose it?
themisspool: Bridget Jones’s Diary is a long time favorite of mine! I greatly enjoyed the book as well. I also chose it because I like playing with unusual formatting, and the “diary” aspect is a great way to incorporate unusual formatting into a fic.
goromcom: I really like it when authors get creative with online presentation of their works, so this should really be a treat. What’s your favorite moment of your movie, and are you looking forward to presenting it in your adaptation? Any loose plans for that scene that you can share?
themisspool: It’s definitely when Bridget quits her job and publicly humiliates her boss/ex in front of all of their co-workers. I’m greatly looking forward to that scene, though I don’t want to give too much away! All I’ll give are three little teaser details: Crowley works in social media, I needed a contemporary analog for then-Global Bad Guy Saddam Hussein, and I’m American.
goromcom: Can’t wait to see who the mystery bad dude is… Other than adapting that scene, do you plan to stick very closely to the beats of the original story, or make bigger changes?
themisspool: I’m somewhere in the middle, I’d say. Bridget Jones’s Diary is itself a loving modern AU of Pride & Prejudice, so Bridget’s family is a big part of the movie. I’m downplaying that aspect and instead enlarging the love interest’s (Mark Darcy/Colin Firth) role. Otherwise, while I’m changing a lot of the actual scenes, in terms of what actions play out and what dialogue is used, the emotional beats are staying fairly consistent.
goromcom: I think I can ask one more question for a final tidbit from you without asking you to give too much away. Other than what you’ve already outlined here, what’s an interesting decision you’ve made in your planning so far–a notable casting decision, a changing of venue, or some other plan you have to paint Good Omens all over your rom com?
themisspool: The big decision that seems to have surprised people is that I’m casting our beloved Anthony Crowley as Bridget Jones! He just has “Big Gay Disaster” painted all over him, and I have trouble seeing Aziraphale as anything but an intellectual. That makes Aziraphale Darcy our resident love interest and socially awkward upper-class do-gooder.
goromcom: Lovely! And now I am a woman of my word and I’ll stop myself there before I entice you to give too much away. Into my last question. I am blatantly stealing it from The Good Place: The Podcast, but here goes: Tell me something “good”. It can be something big or small. It can be a charity you think is doing good work, or you can talk about how great your pet is.
themisspool: I love this question because it’s so important to seek out the “good” things in the world right now, when everything seems to be crumbling into a flaming trash heap. (See earlier: Rokikurama is American.) I subscribe to the philosophy that some good things decrease world suck while other increase world awesome. Mijente does really essential work with migrants, particularly those imprisoned at the America-Mexico border. National Novel Writing Month increases world awesome by helping so many people start (and keep!) writing.
goromcom: Such lovely things!
And while we’re talking about lovely things, it’s not long now before we’ll all get to read the GO adaptation of Bridget Jones’s Diary!
Bonus preview: Movie poster!
