Louise Harwood Talks Kiss Like You Mean It

09 March 2010

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Louise Harwood has penned novels such as Six Reasons to Stay a Virgin, Lucy Blue and Where Are You? And is back with her new book Kiss Like You Mean It.

I caught up with the author to talk about the new book, which mixes the modern movie industry with World War I and what lies ahead.

- Your new book is Kiss Like You Mean It so can you tell me a little bit about it?

Basically in the First World War they had the first moving movie cameras, as in filming with moving film rather than moving stills, a few very very brave young camera men went out onto the Western Front and started filming the soldiers, lived with them, ran with them into gunfire and died with them.

This wonderful footage was brought back of what it was like during the war and I was reading up about that and was wondering how it could possibly get moved into a chick flick, rom com.

I wanted to do something with a strong historical angle to it and what I came up with was to use this character Ambrose March, who is a camera man, and then have this modern Hollywood movie company making a film about him. So a hundred years later you have a Hollywood bad boy, gorgeous hero playing the part of this incredible serious World War One cameraman.

Rory is fantastic on set and playing the part brilliantly well but off set he is causing havoc amongst the make-up girls and wrecking the prospects of the film, to the point where it looks like it might all completely collapse. And so out make-up artist Ella has to step in and sort him in.

- So where did the inspiration for the story and the characters come from?

First of all I was wanting to do a war artist, which is how they had always used to depict the battles; they would have people painting out there. Because battles were moving so much faster they were superseded by stills cameramen and then moving cameramen.

It's funny with inspiration like that I just had an image of a cameraman being filmed by modern day cameras and the book just grew out of that. I don't really know how I just always find that I start with a scene, write that and then just allow everything else to gain momentum behind it.

- The movie mixes the First World War and the movie industry so what kind of research did you do for the book?

I had a fantastic day following make-up artist Jenny Shircore, who has just won a Bafta for her work on The Young Victoria, and they happened to be filming The Young Victoria when I was writing the book.

So through a friend of a friend of a friend I managed to meet someone who as working on the film and she asked Jenny if she would mind if I sat in the trailer for a day, she had to check with Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend because they were being made up that day.

They didn't mind, which was very nice, and so I just crept in at about six o'clock in the morning and just sat in the corner. It was brilliant, just the best day; it was like being in an incredibly glamorous hairdressers (laughs).

- So what did you learn about the role of a make-up artist and how did you find watching Jenny Shircore?

Well I learnt that they are incredibly brilliant at their jobs and technically, without thinking, the hair person, who is this young man, could just roll and twirl and twist in five seconds and make it looking stunning, in a way that if I tried to do it on somebody it would be like The Generation Game (laughs).

The skill that they have without even thinking about it lifts them to such a level. And they do so much research for it, with The Young Victoria they had thought and discussed for months about what she would look like and what colours they would use and they have a very close relationship with wardrobe which helps bring the look together. They are just so talented!

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