- [Mitch] Hi, how are you?

- Hi, thank you for having me, Mitch.

Thank you for visiting us today.

In high school, my teacher made us read "Tuesdays with Morrie" so I've been a big fan since about 2006, thank you.

And in 2021, you were very active on social media when "Frankie Presto" came out and you answered a girl's questions about what were your favorite snacks when you wrote?

What did you do on your free time to take a break from writing?

And one of the questions that she asked you was, who would you want to film in that movie if it became a movie?

You had mentioned Bruno Mars and some other people.

Now that you mentioned this could be a potential movie, the same little girl wants to ask you, who would you envision being Gianna and Alfie?

- Well, I asked the director who he had in mind, and I thought his selections were pretty good.

He wanted Gianna, who is dark haired and part Filipino, he wanted this actress Hailee Steinfeld.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- Who, when I had to look her up, but she's pretty good.

More than pretty good, she's really good.

And for the actor, he directed the film "About a Boy", which if you remember, was Hugh Grant, but the boy was named Nicholas Hoult, I think his name is.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- [Mitch] And he has grown into a man and a great actor.

- [Evan] He's a pretty big star.

- [Mitch] He's really good.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- And I think he might like to be reunited with him, so if they put those two together, I'd be perfectly fine.

- Do you take the position when a book is made into a movie, they've turned it into a movie, it's no longer mine?

- Well, I've written the screenplays for some of my movies.

- [Evan] Right.

- So I've been involved.

But there's a famous thing about Hemingway said that, you know, if you're gonna have your books turned into movies, you should run to the Nevada/California border.

Take your manuscript, throw it over to California and run the other way, because that's as close as you're gonna get to having any influence on it anymore.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- I've had four of my books have already been made into movies.

I've written some of them, some experiences have been better than others.

You have to accept that it's a book is not a movie and a movie's not a book.

- Right.

- And if you do that, then you can be okay.

As long as the essence of it is.

But if you're gonna fight for every scene, and say, you can't change that.

- [Evan] Right.

- That's what I wrote.

I'm married to those sentences.

You're gonna be very unhappy.

- Look, I'll tell you, the "Tuesdays with Morrie" movie, Hank Azaria as you.

- Right.

- And Jack Lemon, I think it was Jack Lemon's last.

- It was.

- Role.

- It was.

- As Morrie.

It's hard to top that.

- No, it was a great film.

- Right?

- But I have to tell you that, you know, I didn't write that.

I went to the set one day and it was so weird to hear, you know, them saying, Mitch, you know, like, here's Jack Lemon.

- [Evan] Right.

- And they had made a set that looked like his room office.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- And Jack saying, oh, Mitch, and I'm over here.

And every time you know, when you hear your own name.

- [Evan] You go, wait.

- You go, what?

You know, you wanna say what, what?

And so I never went back after that one day.

And then when the movie came out, Oprah Winfrey's people, they sent us a cassette and we watched it before it came out.

And I squirmed and so did my wife because it portrayed us.

And it had me throwing an engagement ring in a garbage can and all this kind of stuff that I never would've done.

- [Evan] Things that didn't happen.

- But then, you know, over time you watch it and you go, okay, the point isn't, did this happen exactly or is this exactly right?

The point is, is the feeling you get when you're finished, is it what you want people to walk away from?

And they did, it was beautiful.

- Right.

- And so once you can accept that, then you're at peace with it.

But yeah, if you don't have that philosophy, you're gonna be in trouble.

- Right, well it's not a documentary.

- Exactly.

- Nobody said it was gonna be entirely.

- That's right.

- Accurate.

- Yeah.

- Other questions?

Anybody else for Mitch before we let him go?

- [Production] We need to wrap.

- We need to wrap?

- [Production] Yes.

- Okay, give Mitch Albom a big hand.

Thank you very much for being here.

Thank you all, we'll see you soon.

(audience applauding) - Thank you.

(audience applauding)