Author: Movies Central

A sensitive teenager learns to navigate the soaring highs and perilous lows of adolescence in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a powerful and affecting coming‐of‐age story based on the wildly popular young adult novel by Stephen Chbosky. Starring Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson and the Olympians), Emma Watson (the Harry Potter franchise) and Ezra Miller (We Need to Talk About Kevin, Another Happy Day), The Perks of Being a Wallflower captures the complexities of growing up with uncommon grace, humor and compassion.

In 1987, a then‐17‐year‐old Stephen Chbosky (pronounced sha‐bos‐key) attended a film festival at the Fulton Theater in Pittsburgh where he met one of the city’s most famous citizens—horror king George Romero. The aspiring screenwriter and director asked Romero to sign a poster for him that now hangs in his office. The inscription reads: “Steve, stay scared. I hope you get your first script produced. George Romero.”

Chbosky felt an enormous sense of accountability toward his multitudes of fans as he adapted the popular novel into a screenplay. “In the 13 years since Perks was first published, I’ve received hundreds of letters and emails,” he explains. “Some of them would break your heart. You realize that a lot of kids feel terribly alone. They think that that no one is listening, that no one cares. Some of them say they were thinking about ending it, but then they read the book and chose not to. When that happens, it changes you, and you realize what a responsibility you have.”

Hearing that Chbosky was working on an adaptation of his novel, Lianne Halfon, Russell Smith and John Malkovich, partners in Mr. Mudd Productions, reached out to him. The company is responsible for films including the Oscar‐nominated Juno, Ghost World, Art School Confidential, Abel and Jeff Who Lives at Home, as well as acclaimed documentaries including Which Way Home. The partners agreed that Chbosky was the only director they would consider for the project, even if that made putting together a deal a bit more difficult.

Finding the right actors for any film is a delicate process, but filling the shoes of characters beloved by a generation presents unique challenges. Chbosky meticulously put together an extraordinary cast for his directing debut, including a gifted trio of young actors playing the central characters of Charlie, Sam and Patrick: Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller.

Emma Watson plays Sam in her first major role since she completed the Harry Potter films that made her a star at the tender age of 11. “To me, Sam is the perfect girl,” says Chbosky. “Emma is absolutely luminous in the role. She took it very seriously. It took about five minutes for me to realize that she was the perfect person for the character and the movie. She grew up in the middle of a hurricane, and she did it with such grace and such class, but there is this loneliness about her. I knew when I met her that this was a part of her that was just dying to come out. She just needed permission.”