'Angels & Demons' Actor: Dan Brown 'A Terribly Bad Writer'

STOCKHOLM — Actor Stellan Skarsgard says he's no big fan of Dan Brown's writing and accepted a role in "Angels & Demons" only after reading the script based on Brown's book.

"I think Dan Brown is a terribly bad writer, but he has cliffhangers after every chapter which makes you continue reading," Skarsgard told Swedish broadcaster SVT.

"It's like eating peanuts at a bar. You don't like them, but you keep on eating them anyway," he said.

The Swedish actor, who plays the head of the Pope's Swiss guard in the movie, said director Ron Howard's script was significantly different from the book.

Tom Hanks returns in the lead role as Harvard professor Robert Langdon in "Angels & Demons," a sequel to the "The Da Vinci Code" _ also based on Brown's novel with the same name. It will be shown around the world starting Friday.

"Angels & Demons" is better than the first film, Skarsgard said in the interview aired late Wednesday, because "the story is more simple and straightforward but just as dramatic."

Comments

[Ergon]

Well he can't say "the script is crap" can he? Still, for all his literary Swedish snobbiness, here's a list of writers who never received the Nobel Prize in literature: Tolstoy (even though he was considered for the first prize in 1901) James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov, Henry Ibsen, Bertold Brecht, Graham Greene. Even Ernest Hemingway was passed over repeatedly until he won in 1954. All the above authors translated into great films, and much of what passes as literature is unreadable, imo

[PaxMundis]

"Tolstoy (even though he was considered for the first prize in 1901) James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov, Henry Ibsen, Bertold Brecht, Graham Greene. Even Ernest Hemingway was passed over repeatedly until he won in 1954"

Surely you can't be comparing any of these writers with Dan Brown.

" All the above authors translated into great films"

Actually, not so much. Kubrick's Lolita barely resembles Nabokov's original book, and Conrad's Heart Of Darkness has often been called "unfilmable" (Apocalupse Now notwithstanding.) I can't recall any good movies of Kafka works, and the movie of Ulysses was a disaster.

No, if Brown's works make good movies - something I don't believe - it's because they are formulaic potboilers that translate easily into film plots. Real literature often makes for less interesting movies. Pulp fiction (In the broadest sense,The Godfather, Gone WIth The Wind, and Jaws) is what makes for a truly good movie plot.

[Ergon]

Stanley Kubrick may have changed around the order of the book in making Lolita, but it was a great movie nevertheless. I enjoyed both versions of Kafka's The Trial and all of the Hemingway movies, and Peter O'Toole was sublime in Jungle Jim. I'll grant you Ulysses but there's still a great film to be made there. You proved my point by mentioning Hearts of Darkness, an 'unfilmable novel', may have the words taken out and still, a director can capture the heart of a book and use his or her imagery to give its essence. Yes, literary merit may be argued any number of ways, but my original comment was about literary snobbishness as exempified by the exclusion of certain writers from the Nobel Prize for Literature,and that great movies have their base in great writing.
Not that there isn't a place for potboilers and formulaic scripts of course.

[EugeneStovall]

Neither Tolstoy's, "The Kreutzer Sonata", nor his, "Family Happiness", can ever be topped as truly great literature, on the other hand. neither would have made successful movies.

On the other hand, though "The DaVinci Code" was rather enjoyable, "Angels & Demons" was extremely boring, In a Marshall McLuhan society, Dan Brown's movies speak far more articulately than do Leo Tolstoy's writings.

[PaxMundis]

What ar eyou talking about? None of the above authors "translated into great films," mostly due to the quality of their writing which was lost onscreen. (Apocalypse Now takes the basic plot of Heart Of Darkness, but little else; Lolita the movie bears little resemblance to the book). In any case, none of these authors should be mentioned in the same sentence as Dan Brown.

For the most part, the novels that make the best movies are pulpy potboilers, like the Godfather or Gone With The Wind.

[DC]

Angles and Demons, a phony story (with no plot line) being promoted with phony controversy. It is really about nothing.

Just like Pirates of the Caribbean, an incredibly boring and empty movie, with no story.

[PresidentRobertBooth]

"Or, it just makes the reader too dim-witted to quit reading"

But why would it make a reader "dim-witted" if they simply happen to be interested in the story he is telling?


This whole thing smacks of literary snobbery

[PaxMundis]

Or good taste.

[TonyFairfax]

Did he actually go over the script for Pirates of the Caribbean II and III because he found the ride they were based on to be poorly written? Oh well, someone is too full of himself...

[PaxMundis]

Nobody had any pretensions that Pirates was anything more than a silly movie based on a theme park ride. Brown, OTOH, seems to think he is really doing something groundbreaking.

[AbeMartin]

You mean critics. You have hurt Dan Brown's feelings by writing that he is a terrible writer. And, as Liberace used to say, "he is going to cry all the way to the bank."

[PaxMundis]

Jacqueline Susann and Grace Metalious could have said the same thing. However, who reads them now?

[jerrypl]

I totally agree--Brown is a terrible writer. Childish in a way, but the story can keep one reading.

I read a really well written and interesting novel, which was written in the 1970s, that would make a really good movie--it is called Spartina.

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

[yorfutrxhsbnd]

To each his own. I loved the books but thought the movies were terrible.

[MyDogIsADemocrat]

So right! I always find that the books are so much better than the movies. It took me two days to read the da Vinci Code, hardback. I could not put it down.

[Colloquielle]

...? Is the paperback shorter, or something?

[jazzman]

Angels and Demons is a good flick. I just saw it tonight. It's alot of fun and very suspenseful. Of course, Ron Howard and Brian Glazier always hit more than they miss with their films.

[neoprimordial]

What does that mean, "a terribly bad writer"? What exactly is so terribly bad about his writings? Are they too terribly simple, too terribly facile to be entertaining? Will you suffer brain damage if you read too terribly much of them? Are they some kind of fraud that don't hold terribly true to some (apparently consensus-free) standard?

How about this: Stellan Skarsgard is a terribly bad actor. His outsized Swedish skull is a constant distraction with his every performance, but he has an interesting accent.

I cannot stand critics! Always with some perspective that is either entirely irrelevant or sensationalist or obscure and quasi- or outright elitist. Has Mr. Skarsgard written anything lately besides e-mail?

[jazzman]

He is a bad writer.

[KansasWrangler]

This was pretty much a planetary (and perhaps interplanetary) consensus when the DaVinci Code came out, but it was an interesting story.

[neoprimordial]

Where's your proof that he's "a bad writer"?

[YeWight]

LOL! You "cannot stand critics" but you just turned into a vicious one!

Mr.Skargard's vocation is not to be a writer, so you can't fail him for writing nothing but e-mails if he choses so. He spoke his mind out which ain't very far from truth, but will certainly offend an army of DB's fans. Who wants to be told they're reading brain-dead trash? Even if it sells millions. Who says there has to be any correlation between quality and commercial success?

The world actually needs D.Brown and guys like him so that people would not read relevant stuff, whether it be real literature or politics, or sociology, philosophy, science... The list goes on and on. Did you ever wonder why entertainment pays so well in almost every society and why the pool of ignorant people continues to grow? Distractions are priceless, my dear... For everything else, there's MasterCard :)

[neoprimordial]

No, I didn't turn into "a vicious one," I was venting over what Mr. Skarsgard said. I actually have liked his work. The point was that someone could make that kind of statement and hold it as a standard--as if there were some consensus supporting such a statement. This is what I disapprove of regarding the comments of critics, paid or otherwise.

[djccq]

I found the DaVinci Code a crashing bore; could never figure out why it sold so well. (Not to me- got it at the library). I did finish it; the short chapters made it bearable, and I figured out who the villain was long before the end. Can't imagine wasting a moment reading Brown again. As for Harry Potter, why in the world would any adult read such stuff? Have watched bits of my grandkids' DVD's (captive audience in their Dad's van), and prayed the trip would be short.

[chicamorena]

Rowling never pretended to be anything but a writer for children. She set out to write a book for the money and succeeded beyond her wildest expectations. The Potter books are fun, and that's all they are supposed to be.

Rowling at least can write a coherent paragraph, which is more than one can say of Dan Brown. He's an absolutely lousy writer. I'd rather get a root canal without anesthesia than have to read another of his books. I think forcing a POW to read a book by Dan Brown would be a violation of the Geneva Convention. As if his writing wasn't bad enough, he doesn't have an original idea in his head. Everything he says has been said by somebody else, and said better the first time around.

If you want to read an interesting take on did Jesus have a wife and family, check out The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago. The guy is a brilliant writer.

[PSM42]

BREAKING SEAN HANNITY

Wanda Sykes "I could break Sean Hannity by giving him a middle seat in coach".

That, or making him read The Da Vinci Code over and over again ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKYHiQqEK3o

[PSM42]

BREAKING SEAN HA. NN1TY

Wanda Sykes "I could break Sean Ha. nn1ty by giving him a middle seat in coach".

That, or making him read The Da Vinci Code over and over again ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKYHiQqEK3o

[RustyNeverSleeps]

Hollywood is archaic. The film is: too little, too expensive, too late.
I like the reality of the Conspiracy, and it can be followed at a faster, freer speed on the Internet.

[overcat]

Dan Brown is formulaic and repetitive - if you've read one of his books, you've basically read them all.

[lylo]

lol
Good to see someone agrees.
By the way, how does he make money?
Does he even BOTHER to edit? Either I'm much, much more proficient at the language than my education level should allow, or the people doing the publishing should be slapped.

[Soundofthunder]

I've been saying this for a while now. Yet people still sop up Brown's mediocre prose. Or is that the hook? Like eating blow fish, the thrill is in the danger. In this case, the danger is being bored to de a th.

SOT

[ResistanceisFutile]

Stellan? Who?

[bugsbonzai]

He's a good actor, average looking and therefore not a star. Put down your People magazine and watch some real films for once.

[CaptainHowdy2]

Try watching some real movies, instead of Hollywood drivel, and maybe you would know who guys like this are.

[leftcoastindy]

Not to pick on just you, but why do people post comments with no clue as to what they are talking about? The comment "Stellan? who?" was meant to establish the fact that he is a nobody and that Dan Brown has sold more books than the sky fairy.
(and this from a fan of Skarsgard, even for the ABBA movie) Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Get a clue folks.

[Manchurian]

As with movies and television, books don't have to be great works of literature in order to entertain. Sometimes you're in the mood for Cormac McCarthy or James Joyce, other times (especially on airplanes, for some reason), you're in the mood for Trevanian or even Dan Brown. Personally, I'm just glad people are actually reading.