{"id":1236872986,"date":"2026-09-23T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/variety.com\/?p=1236872986"},"modified":"2026-09-23T09:44:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T16:44:41","slug":"verity-colleen-hoover-anne-hathaway-dakota-johnson-erotic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/film\/features\/verity-colleen-hoover-anne-hathaway-dakota-johnson-erotic-1236872986\/","title":{"rendered":"Colleen Hoover and Michael Showalter on How Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson Made \u2018Verity\u2019 More Erotic, \u2018It Ends With Us\u2019 Drama and Sex in Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\tSPOILER ALERT:<\/strong> This interview contains minor spoilers for “Verity.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tColleen Hoover is the author<\/a> of the wildly popular novels \u201cIt Ends with Us,\u201d \u201cVerity\u201d and \u201cReminders of Him,\u201d to name a few. She\u2019s sold over 35 million copies worldwide, making her th e hottest author alive. And several of her page-turners have been adapted into Hollywood films, including Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni\u2019s domestic violence saga \u201cIt Ends with Us,\u201d<\/a> which grossed over $350 million globally and whose messy aftermath is worthy of a book \u2014 or really, a Netflix docuseries<\/a> \u2014 unto itself (more on that later).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tMichael Showalter<\/a> is a veteran comedian who first gained notice as part of the sketch comedy troupe The State before co-writing and starring in the 2001 cult classic comedy \u201cWet Hot American Summer.\u201d<\/a> Since then, he\u2019s become one of the most reliable directors in the biz, helming the Oscar-nominated comedy-drama \u201cThe Big Sick,\u201d Oscar-winning biopic \u201cThe Eyes of Tammy Faye\u201d and Hulu\u2019s Emmy-winning Elizabeth Holmes series \u201cThe Dropout.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tThe prolific novelist and filmmaker have joined forces for \u201cVerity,\u201d<\/a> in theaters Oct. 2. Adapted from Hoover\u2019s bestselling book, it tells the tale of Lowen (Dakota Johnson<\/a>), a struggling writer who has a chance encounter with Jeremy (Josh Hartnett<\/a>), a sexy stranger that gives her an offer she can\u2019t refuse: get paid handsomely to ghostwrite the final novel in author\/his wife Verity Crawford\u2019s (Anne Hathaway<\/a>) immensely successful book series. You see, Verity\u2019s experienced an accident that\u2019s left her confined to a wheelchair and unable to move her extremities, let alone write. Lowen reluctantly accepts, but when she finds a manuscript Verity had stashed away, she starts to wonder if the woman she\u2019s imitating committed a heinous crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\t\u201cVerity\u201d is, in many ways, an old-school erotic thriller filled with sex, intrigue and twists and turns. And Showalter had plenty of help from Hoover \u2014 who he calls \u201cThe Wizard of Oz\u201d \u2014 when it came to sharpening its screenplay, texting her day and night throughout the pre-production process (and beyond) with questions about the psychology of certain characters. The questions were so pointed that Hoover had to go back and reexamine the novel herself because she didn\u2019t remember it in such great detail. \u201cThe readers are open to changes,\u201d Hoover advised Showalter and screenwriter Nick Antosca, \u201cas long as the essential DNA of the story remains intact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tHoover and Showalter sat down for a lively conversation with Variety<\/em> about \u201cVerity\u201d and so much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\tMichael, I\u2019m curious how you got involved with directing \u201cVerity?\u201d This seems like a different pond to play in \u2014 or lake.\t<\/h5>\n\n\n\n\n\tShowalter:<\/strong> Yes, a lake with dead bodies floating around in there. \u201cIdea of You\u201d is a sexy movie and \u201cSpoiler Alert,\u201d the movie I\u2019d done before \u201cIdea of You,\u201d has got a couple of sex scenes in it. It\u2019s funny you say this because I did \u201cSpoiler Alert,\u201d which had two sex scenes in it, and it\u2019s the first time I realized that a sex scene can be more <\/em>than just a sex scene \u2014 you can tell story with a sex scene, you can learn about character with a sex scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\tLike \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d and \u201csexposition.\u201d\t<\/h5>\n\n\n\n\n\tShowalter: <\/strong>Yes. \u201cIdea of You\u201d has some great sex scenes in it and me and Anne [Hathaway] got along really well on it. So, I loved the erotic nature of this story and something that was very important in this story is to bring that stuff out. I have to credit Colleen, because in the script we added back in a lot of the more erotic aspects of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\tAnne Hathaway and Josh Hartnett in “Verity.”<\/span>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAmazon\/MGM<\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<\/figcaption>\n\n\t\t\t\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\tI\u2019m a \u201890s kid who grew up during the heyday of the erotic thriller, with films like \u201cBasic Instinct\u201d and \u201cThe Last Seduction,\u201d and it\u2019s a genre that\u2019s largely disappeared. But there does seem to be an audience yearning for it to return. And I think that\u2019s because sex in mainstream movies has largely disappeared. There\u2019s a lot on TV, but not in movies.\t<\/h5>\n\n\n\n\n\tHoover: <\/strong>I feel like, as a writer and someone who\u2019s been in the romance world for so long, I never felt the disappearance of it because romance is the bestselling genre \u2014 and dark romance, especially, is having a moment. But I do think it\u2019s disappeared from cinema. I don\u2019t know the answer to that. I just know that, as a writer, you fill it in one area and not in the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\tIs that why you think more people have turned to books for erotic stuff? Because it\u2019s not in movies?\t<\/h5>\n\n\n\n\n\tHoover: <\/strong>Yeah. And that\u2019s been great for me as a romance author!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tShowalter: <\/strong>I think that, for whatever reason, that primal sexuality you saw in those movies where there\u2019s carnal attraction \u2014 that deep, primal thing that you see in an erotic thriller \u2014 for a time was at odds with some of the things going on culturally, and maybe, for whatever reason, people are open to it again in a way that they hadn\u2019t been for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\tColleen, how much say do you have in the adaptations of your books? Do you get to choose the director and screenwriter?\t<\/h5>\n\n\n\n\n\tHoover:<\/strong> It really depends on the film. I started a production company [Heartbones Entertainment] with my production partner, Lauren Levine, and we did \u201cReminders of Him\u201d last year. She and I were the ones who chose the director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tShowalter: <\/strong>I didn\u2019t get a phone call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tHoover: <\/strong>You were a little busy with \u201cVerity!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tShowalter:<\/strong> I\u2019m just saying, I didn\u2019t get a phone call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tHoover: <\/strong>We wrote the script \u2014 every aspect. And with \u201cIt Ends With Us,\u201d I sold the rights to Justin Baldoni, who became the director. With \u201cVerity,\u201d I don\u2019t think I did [have a say].<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tShowalter:<\/strong> I didn\u2019t get a phone call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\tHoover: <\/strong>Until it took off and they got a director and it started being filmed was I truly an everyday part of it. It took a long time for this one to get off the ground, but the guys who bought it, Nick [Antosca] and Alex [Hedlund], so much wanted me to be a part of it. And when they brought Michael onboard, he also wanted me to be a part of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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