Sally Rooney - Normal People: The Scripts

Sally Rooney is the author of the novels Conversations with Friends and Normal People. Alice Birch is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter whose recent plays include [BLANK] (Donmar Warehouse/Clean Break), Orlando (Schaubhne, Berlin) and Anatomy of a Suicide (Royal Court Theatre). Birch wrote on the TV adaptation of Normal People, alongside Sally Rooney and Mark ORowe, for which she and Rooney were nominated for an Emmy. She also worked as Story Editor on Season 2 of Succession for HBO and is currently developing a series for Annapurna and Amazon with Rachel Weisz. Her first feature was Lady Macbeth which won five British Independent Film Awards in 2017 including Best Screenplay. Her second feature will be an adaptation of the Graham Swift novel Mothering Sunday for Number 9 Films and Film4. She said. She said.

Revolt again), and the Arts Foundation Award for Playwriting. Mark ORowe is a playwright and writer for film and television. His plays include Howie the Rookie (winner of the George Devine Award), Made in China, Crestfall, Terminus, Our Few and Evil Days (winner of Best New Play at the Irish Times Theatre Awards) and The Approach. ORowe won an IFTA Award for his screenplay for Intermission directed by John Crowley, and further collaborated with Crowley on the BAFTA-winning Boy A. ORowes third film, Perriers Bounty, was nominated for three IFTAs and his adaptation of Daniel Clays novel Broken won Best Independent Feature at the BIFAs in 2012. He also wrote and directed The Delinquent Season starring Cillian Murphy and Andrew Scott. For television, ORowe has written Temple starring Mark Strong for Sky, and Episode 11 of Normal People for the BBC and Hulu.

Copyright 2020 by EP Normal People Limited All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Hogarth, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. H OGARTH is a trademark of the Random House Group Limited and the H colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC. Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Faber and Faber Limited. ISBN 978-0-593-44779-6 Ebook ISBN 978-0-593-44780-2 Cover design: Faber Cover photograph: EP Normal People Limited/Enda Bowe 2020 a_prh_5.8.0_10088613_c0_r0

When Ed Guiney from Element Pictures first approached me with Normal People I knew, as soon as Id read it, that I wanted to be involved in making it for the screen. Its such a beautiful book, which with seemingly effortless simplicity dives deep into the interior worlds of its two main characters. I also knew that it would be difficult to adapt precisely because of how much of the story lives inside Marianne and Connells heads.

In the end, the process of bringing the novel to screen was unusually swift and satisfying. From a standing start, it took less than a year to go from the BBCs commission and Hulu coming on board to stepping on to set to begin filming. Its rare for things to move this quickly, with development periods of several years just to get to a full commission being pretty standard. Part of the reason for this unusually short timeline was that the BBC were bold enough to give a commitment to make the show based only on the book and the creative talent attached, so we could start working towards production from the very beginning. The other part is down to the fact that Sally Rooney, who we all knew to be a great novelist, turned out to be a wonderful screenwriter also, particularly when paired with the gifted and agile playwright Alice Birch, whose experience writing for the screen was key to making the transition from book to show work. Adaptation is never simple, and behind what I hope feels like a faithful rendering of the book are countless reconfigurations, transpositions, additions, subtractions and shifts of emphasis that turn the inner landscape of the novel into the external and linear unfolding of a screenplay.

Sally and Alice, along with Mark ORowe, who took on one of the later episodes, managed to create spare and elegant scripts which still somehow capture the richness and interiority of the novel. I want also to acknowledge the broader creative group who brought Normal People to the screen. The extraordinary cast, the cinematographers, designers, editors, composer and producers made the show what it is. Their work is not only apparent on screen, it is also reflected in a very real way in this book. The scripts printed in the pages which follow reflect the finished episodes and so diverge to a greater or lesser extent from the shooting drafts with which we started. These differences are the result of countless ideas, improvisations and discoveries made by cast and crew during filming and in post-production and they add greatly to the strength of the episodes.

Of course, all of this work would have counted for much less indeed this book would probably not exist if we hadnt found two extraordinary actors to play Marianne and Connell. It was a privilege to work with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, to see every day on set how much depth, subtlety and emotional power they brought to their roles. Much of the success of the show is down to them and how beautifully they brought Sallys characters to life. Lenny Abrahamson September 2020

An Element Pictures production for BBC and Hulu Produced in association with Fs ireann/Screen Ireland Based on the novel by Sally Rooney The series was first transmitted on BBC Three on 26 April 2020. Executive Producers Ed Guiney Andrew Lowe Emma Norton Anna Ferguson Sally Rooney Lenny Abrahamson Executive Producers for BBC Tommy Bulfin Rose Garnett Writers Sally Rooney Alice Birch Mark ORowe Directors Lenny Abrahamson (eps 16) Hettie Macdonald (eps 712) Producer Catherine Magee Assistant Directors Daire Glynn (eps 16) Gail Munnelly (eps 712) Directors of Photography Suzie Lavelle (eps 16) Kate McCullough (eps 712) Editors Nathan Nugent (eps 16) Stephen OConnell (eps 712) Composer Stephen Rennicks Production Designer Lucy Van Lonkhuyzen Costume Designer Lorna Marie Mugan Casting Director Louise Kiely Sound Post-Production Steve Fanagan Niall Brady Sound Mixer Niall OSullivan Chief Make-Up Sharon Doyle Hair Designer Sandra Kelly Location Manager Eoin Holohan Line Producer Catherine Dunne Post-Production Supervisor Tricia Perrott in order of appearance

• MARIANNE Daisy Edgar-Jones
• CONNELL Paul Mescal
• ERIC Sen Doyle
• ROB Eanna Hardwicke
• LISA Meadhbh Maxwell
• RACHEL Leah McNamara
• KAREN Niamh Lynch
• MR KERRIGAN Muiris Crowley
• JACK Killian Filan
• KIERNAN Clinton Liberty
• LORRAINE Sarah Greene
• DENISE Aisln McGuckin
• ALAN Frank Blake
• MS NEARY Liz Fitzgibbon

Directed by Lenny Abrahamson Written by Sally Rooney and Alice Birch INT. SCHOOL CORRIDORS DAY Rear view of Marianne walking through school.

She is determined. Uniformed teens are milling about the corridors as she passes by without a glance at them.