David Nicholls says “there is a lot more sex” in the new adaptation.
“I knew quite early on I didn’t want to write it myself,” Nicholls says.
“I spent so much time with it.
Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall in ‘One Day’.Credit:Netflix
It felt like it needed a fresh pair of eyes, but it’s been bliss.
Of course we’ve cut things.
We’ve had to condense things.
Nicholls says the idea for the series starting coming up five of six years ago.
Streaming TV is much more analogous to the experience reading a novel than a movie.”
But who would play Emma and Dexter and would they have the necessary chemistry?
The answer: Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall … and yes.
“We saw hundreds of people,” Nicholls recalls.
“We saw a huge number of really wonderful actors.
It wasn’t as if we were kind of looking and not finding anyone.
We found some real talent.
Leo, I’d never seen in anything at all.
They were just so good together, so playful and funny, and with such a rapport.
And so we all felt at that moment, this is Em and Dex.”
So that was very much the intention with the show, that they would age."
But like with any adaptation, there will be changes to the story.
“I tend to fade to black and Nicole doesn’t fade to black.”
After all, as Nicholls reminds us, “Adaptation means change.”
One Daypremieres Thursday, Feb. 8, on Netflix.
