E. L. James

I feel like I know all about what it is just from, from pop culture.

But the whole story is, you know, this, this writer, so E.L. James, real name Erika Mitchell, she wrote it, and it started off as, like, fan fiction to Twilight.

I mean, if there's ever some- something that's gonna put me off watching-

My God

Sure.

And then E.L. James just took it that next step that this didn't have, which is like s- let's, let's not d- instead of the vampires, what if they just fucked all the time?

[laughs]

And it wasn't necessarily healthy.

You're into the home straight here.

Erica Mitchell, who uses the pen name E.L. James... is best known as the author of which steamy bestseller of 2011? Fifty Shades

of Grey.

Correct.

Listen, I know a lot of people.

say oh it's terrible it's terribly written all of these things and whatever but i will say this i think that that book series opened up a very new not new but maybe newer genre of read for people and i appreciate el james for that because it did for me it was my first spicy book before that i was reading books like scarpetta and irish johansson those types of books And I still read those books, but also I really, really enjoy a good spicy book.

And I never would have read that probably before E.L. James.

So I have to give her credit for that.

She was naked more than she was clothed in that movie.

And it was like a tug of war between E.L. James, the author, Dakota, the director, Jamie Dornan, her co-star.

Like they were trying to make a movie that felt grounded in reality.

And it sounds like it was so tough to work with that author specifically.

so I I interviewed him for that and I can't remember if I asked him about Christian Grey I really can't remember but he was originally cast as

yeah

the the titular character and And then, and then dropped out citing a scheduling conflict that comes out up here because apparently EL James was so enraged that she wanted to scrap the script and like start all over.

And I, yeah, I don't know.

a two.

You're asking a lot from him and EJ James.

If I have to hear one more beat writer gloss over EJ Jenkins, I'm going to lose it.

There's a reason why he's been on the practice squad for a lot of years.