Now everyone has Georgia on their minds...
By BAZ BAMIGBOYE
Last updated at 08:56 07 September 2007
U.S. and teenage girls have heard
my accent, they'd ask: "Do you
know Georgia Nicolson?"
I had no clue as to who they
were talking about until I
spotted a book featuring Georgia
Nicolson's name at an airport
book store. Then I Googled the
name and there were thousands
upon thousands of hits. Now I'm
wiser.
Gurinder Chadha, who made
stars of Keira Knightley and
Parminder Nagra in Bend It Like
Beckham, told me all about
Georgia. It turns out she's the
fictitious narrator of writer
Louise Rennison's series of eight
books about a schoolgirl who
lives on the South-East coast of
England.
The books have been bestsellers
in the UK, and are even
more popular in the U.S., where
readers enjoy the slangy English
phrases such as: "Oh my God,
I'm having a nervy B", or "I'm not
going to your poxy party!".
The first book - Angus,
Thongs And Full-frontal Snogging
- goes before the cameras
on September 17, and Gurinder
has chosen Georgia Groome,
who is just 15, to play the precocious
Ms Nicolson.
It's a major break for Ms
Groome, who was last seen as an
abducted child in the acclaimed
dark thriller London To
Brighton.
Her best friend, Jas, will be
played by Eleanor Tomlinson,
another up-and-coming young
British actress, while the role of
Robbie (aka the Sex God) has
gone to Aaron Johnson, another
Brit who has been working
steadily in films and television.
Gurinder and her husband,
Paul Berges, worked on the
script while waiting around in LA
for something to happen on a
planned film of Dallas. Nothing
happened.
"Paramount sent me Angus,
Thongs And Full-frontal Snogging,
and they'd spent five years
working on it with blokes who
hadn't got it.
"I looked at it and realised it
was just like my schooldays in
Ealing. The thing is to keep it
English and not Disneyfy it,"
Gurinder explained.
"It's basically a coming of age
story. At the beginning, Georgia's
a tomboyish girl - at the end
she's a young woman."
The story will unfold in Eastbourne
and, although much of
the film will shoot in that South-
East coastal town, some streets
in Twickenham will also feature
as Eastbourne.
"Much will be
made of the fact that we're filming
in the poor man's Brighton,"
Gurinder joked.
The director wants some
scenes to be shot in a school
dinner hall. "I want dinner ladies
serving goo onto plates and all
the chatter you get. We recognise
such scenes, but in America it's
different. But one of the reasons
the books are so popular is
precisely because they're
English," she told me.
Gurinder gave birth to twins in
June, but is highly organised.
"I've got the block-long trailer
Nic Cage used on National Treasure,
and it will have cots for the
babies, a sterilising unit - we
have a wonderful nanny - and
my husband will be there, too.
"Either have your babies young
when you've got the energy or
later in life, like me, when you
can afford to have the help."
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