{"id":96177,"date":"2014-09-15T08:31:45","date_gmt":"2014-09-15T12:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=96177"},"modified":"2023-08-29T16:25:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T20:25:19","slug":"best-selling-author-wally-lamb-heads-to-the-big-screen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/09\/best-selling-author-wally-lamb-heads-to-the-big-screen\/","title":{"rendered":"Best-selling Author Wally Lamb Heads to the Big Screen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Even best-selling fiction writer Wally Lamb \u201972 (CLAS), \u201977 MA admits he never could have envisioned it: The house in which he spent roughly 16 years penning several of his celebrated novels is now part of a movie set for a forthcoming feature-length film based on one of those books.<\/p>\n<p>Lamb\u2019s fourth book, the comic novella <em>Wishin\u2019 and Hopin\u2019<\/em> (HarperCollins, 2008), is the first of his works to be adapted for the big screen. Filmed in Connecticut by Rocky Hill-based Synthetic Cinema International, the movie \u2013 slated for limited release across the country later this year \u2013 was shot in part just minutes from the UConn Storrs campus, in a quiet, residential neighborhood in Willimantic. There, inside the same unassuming, three-story home where the UConn alum had for many years rented space as a writing sanctuary, his characters will now come to life on film.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Wishin&#039; and Hopin&#039;: Behind the Scenes with Wally Lamb\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/spvv8mmTbZk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Among the stars cast are Molly Ringwald, Meat Loaf, and Annabella Sciorra. Lamb himself will also make a cameo appearance in the movie, playing the role of a school janitor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI still scratch my head sometimes and say, \u2018How did all of this happen?\u2019\u201d Lamb says. \u201cI have a pretty good imagination, but I couldn\u2019t have imagined a life for myself that has become this cool and this interesting and this challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Leap of faith<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Set at Christmastime in 1964, <em>Wishin\u2019 and Hopin\u2019<\/em> tells the story of 10-year-old Felix Funicello, a parochial school student growing up in the fictional town of Three Rivers, Conn. Lamb \u2013 who is more well-known for his lengthy, powerful, often heartrending novels \u2013 refers to <em>Wishin\u2019 and Hopin\u2019<\/em> as his \u201ccomic-relief novel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wanted to try to remind myself that you can walk on the sunny side of the street,\u201d he says of writing the book, which followed <em>The Hour I First Believed<\/em>, a novel based on the 1999 Columbine massacre.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_96478\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-96478\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Wally-Lamb-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-96478 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Wally-Lamb-1.jpg\" alt=\"The interior of the Willimantic house in which Wally Lamb penned several of his celebrated novels was transformed into the home of the Funicello family. (Angelina Reyes\/UConn Photo)\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Wally-Lamb-1.jpg 630w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Wally-Lamb-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Wally-Lamb-1-150x100.jpg 150w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 620px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 620\/413;\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-96478\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The interior of the Willimantic house in which Wally Lamb penned several of his celebrated novels was transformed into the home of the Funicello family. (Angelina Reyes\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The lighthearted, nostalgic story of young Felix is not only a departure in style for Lamb, but also a marked shift for the production company Synthetic Cinema, which has traditionally developed horror movies. Yet Lamb says it didn\u2019t take much convincing to get him onboard with the project. Andrew Gernhard, president of Synthetic, is one of Lamb\u2019s former students from Norwich Free Academy, a high school in Norwich, Conn., where Lamb taught for 25 years. Gernhard approached Lamb with the idea for the film.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wanted to take a leap of faith with this company, not only because it\u2019s a Connecticut company and because I had personal connections with the producer, but also I wanted to see what moviemaking was like,\u201d says Lamb, who serves as executive producer for the film. \u201cI wanted to study the process, and they invited me into that process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although the movie rights for several of his other novels had been sold previously, none of those deals has yet led to the development of a feature-length film. \u201cSuddenly, this project was a go,\u201d Lamb says. \u201cIt\u2019s been a very fast sort of turnaround, and I have nothing but praise for this company, the crew, and the casting of both the major stars and the kids. It\u2019s really been a peak experience for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bringing the story home<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Throughout the 23 days of filming, interacting with the young members of the cast was among the highlights for the former high school teacher and university professor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI got along famously with the kids,\u201d says Lamb, who spent time between scenes entertaining the child actors with his skills as a caricaturist. On the cast\u2019s occasional days off, Lamb also took the children and their parents on area field trips \u2013 from the UConn Dairy Bar to a Chinese restaurant\u2019s karaoke night, where he joined the children in singing \u201cWishin\u2019 and Hopin\u2019,\u201d the Dusty Springfield classic after which the book and film are named.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_96482\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-96482\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Wally-Lamb-5.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-96482 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Wally-Lamb-5.jpg\" alt=\"Lamb particularly enjoyed interacting with the young members of the cast of the movie based on his novel Wishin' and Hopin'. (Angelina Reyes\/UConn Photo)\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Wally-Lamb-5.jpg 630w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Wally-Lamb-5-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Wally-Lamb-5-150x100.jpg 150w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 620px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 620\/413;\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-96482\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lamb particularly enjoyed interacting with the young members of the cast of the movie based on his novel Wishin&#8217; and Hopin&#8217;. (Angelina Reyes\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The movie, which wrapped up filming last month, was shot in the Connecticut towns of Willimantic, Jewett City, and Norwich \u2013 another source of excitement for Lamb, who was born in Norwich and still lives in Connecticut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the delightful things for me about this experience was the chance to bring the story back to home port,\u201d says Lamb, who had suggested to the film\u2019s producers the idea of using the house in Willimantic as one of the movie sets. The interior of the house was subsequently transformed into the Funicello family home, and the office in which Lamb wrote the novel <em>Wishin\u2019 and Hopin\u2019<\/em> became Mr. and Mrs. Funicello\u2019s bedroom in the film.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was kind of surreal,\u201d says Lamb, though he believes the late owner of the home, his friend and former landlady Bernice \u201cBunny\u201d Bennett, would have approved. \u201cI knew she would have gotten a kick out of using her house,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>With the film now in post-production, Lamb is looking forward to its theatrical release this November. He hopes to have one of the movie\u2019s premieres scheduled at a nonprofit performing arts theater in Connecticut to help raise funds benefiting charitable organizations in the area.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, he continues to write, with work underway on a prequel to <em>Wishin\u2019 and Hopin\u2019<\/em>, titled <em>Vote for Miss Rheingold <\/em>and slated for release next year through the publisher eBook Extreme. According to Lamb, this latest work promises to offer a multimedia experience for the reader, incorporating narration and some documentary-style elements, as well as some original filming. Whether or not this will lead to another Lamb cameo appearance, however, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Behind the scenes with UConn alum Wally Lamb, whose novel Wishin&#8217; and Hopin&#8217; has been made into a recently released feature-length film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":96481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,1855,70,2195],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[49],"class_list":["post-96177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-neag","category-video","category-windham-county"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 20:42:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96177"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204120,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96177\/revisions\/204120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/96481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96177"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=96177"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=96177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}