Film-maker Ryan Murphy felt a strong connection with Liz Gilbert's Eat Pray Love.
For Nip/Tuck and Glee creator Ryan Murphy - a man who likes change - discovering the best-selling memoir Eat Pray Love proved a real boon. The 44-year-old film-maker read the book on its 2006 release and felt an immediate connection. He'd even go as far as saying that the book
altered his life.
"It spoke to me on such a personal level," begins Murphy, the man who adapted the screenplay and directed the cinematic incarnation.
"I had just come through a terrible break-up, and what it said to me is that it is never too late to reinvent yourself. It is never too late to try to be happy. If you are in a bad relationship try to get out of it, and if you don't like where you are living, try to change it."
The book, and indeed the film, tells the true-life tale of Elizabeth Gilbert, a successful travel writer who falls out of love with her husband and suffers a painful divorce. Gnawed at by guilt, she takes a year out, heading first to Rome in Italy, where she indulges her passion for food (Eat), then to an ashram in India, where she tries to find a spiritual meaning to her life (Pray), and finally to a familiar haunt in Bali, where, out of the blue, she meets, and falls for, a Brazilian man (Love). It is a hugely popular book, which spent three uninterrupted years on the New York Times best-seller list.
"It is about a general way of living your life. I love the phrase that they're using to market the movie which is, 'Let yourself go'. I know that not everybody can afford to take a year off from work and travel round the world. I can't. But I don't think you need to leave your house to find something spiritual and find joy. You don't need to go to India to be spiritual. You don't need to go to an ashram. You can burn a candle in a room and have a moment with yourself and ask yourself who your God is and what you want from them. There is a reason why that book is a phenomenon across the world. So the book expanded my world view. It got me out of my shell. It made me feel that it is okay to try something that you are not comfortable with. There is always hope, a hope to be happier, a hope to change your life, to go anywhere, to try to find a sense of spirituality."
In fact, the book had such a profound affect on Murphy's life that he adapted a screenplay and ensured that he got the job directing the movie. Murphy already had movie-making experience, having adapted and directed the film version of Augusten Burroughs' controversial memoir Running with Scissors, although adapting and shooting Eat Pray Love gave him the chance to step up to the next level, to make a truly commercial movie, with a positive message, and to assemble a dazzling array of major movie stars.
Among the impressive supporting cast, Murphy draws performances from Javier Bardem (Liz's Brazilian love interest), Billy Crudup (her ex-husband), James Franco (a lover who awakens her interest in spirituality) and Richard Jenkins (an older man who encourages her to let go of her guilt), while the role of Liz Gilbert herself is played by one of the biggest movie stars in the world, Julia Roberts, which is something of a coup for Murphy; not since her Oscar-winning turn in Steven Soderbergh's 2000 drama Erin Brockovich has Roberts appeared in every scene of a film.
For Murphy, change has been a constant companion throughout his life. He says that he was restless when growing up, and even as an adult he feels the need to tackle multiple projects at once. He began his writing career as a journalist, interviewing celebrities for the likes of New York Daily News, the Miami Herald, LA Times, Entertainment Weekly and Vogue. "After Nip/Tuck, I wanted to do something that was much happier, a lot more optimistic, and much more mainstream, so I wrote Glee and I wrote the screenplay for Eat Pray Love back to back. And it was a lifesaver for me. I felt much happier and more optimistic.
"I changed my energy of writing from something really dark to something much lighter, and that was something I needed at the time. The characters on Nip/Tuck had no morals and they would have sex with everyone and it was so violent! That said, my next movie is going to be something that's very dark. I do want to go back to the darkness."
Which should come as no surprise really. After all, Ryan Murphy is a man who likes change.
