The highly-anticipated film Julie & Julia, set for release Aug. 7, has sparked a renewed curiosity about both protagonists portrayed in the film: The late Julia Child, as well as writer Julie Powell, author of the memoir Julie & Julia. Over drinks, the self-effacing Powell, who was in town promoting the film, discussed the movie, the extramarital affair that is the subject of her next book, and her response to less-than-kind feedback from both Julia's editor, Judith Jones — and Julia herself. Get the scoop when you keep reading.
YumSugar: Do you feel like you were accurately portrayed on screen?
Julie Powell: Julie Powell in the movie, she's a fictional character. She's much softer than I am, and she doesn't curse nearly as much as I do, and — this is a nitpicky thing — perhaps doesn't have the sense of self-awareness that was key to the blog and the book. Amy Adams is lovely, and I'm happy with it. She [the main character] is just not me. You have to go into it thinking, this is a Nora Ephron movie — not my book. Then you can enjoy it.
YS: After completing the Julie/Julia project, you got a letter from Julia. What did it say?
JP: I'd written her a letter. Regardless of what she thought, I had to thank her, because her example and the blog changed my life. The letter that I received back was cordial, and, I'm sure, typed up by her secretary. She was glad that she had been an inspiration to me, and I was trying to learn to cook, and suggested an organization for aspiring chefs . . . It was kind of her to acknowledge my letter. She didn't address the project, because I'm sure I didn't articulate it well. But it meant so much more to me than learning to cook. It taught me a great deal about what I was capable of, how I could turn my life around. But at the time when I was so close to it, that was not something that I could have said to her with any clarity, and maybe not something she could have understood.
YS: What do you think of Julia's editor, Judith Jones, and her remarks about you "not being a serious cook"?
JP: I've only met her once, and I wasn't aware at the time that she was saying things like that. But honestly, she's right: I'm not a serious cook. I hope that I might get her to understand that that was never my goal. What I wanted to do was use Julia's book as a creative outlet. From that, I found my voice, I found my subject, I found my tone. That gets a little lost in the movie, because the movie Julie & Julia is about the cooking and food. But for me, the project was at least as much about finding my vocation as a writer. So I completely agree with Judith that I am not a serious cook. Maybe someday I will be, but I'd prefer to be known as a serious writer.
YS: Your new title, Cleaving, comes out in December, where it's said you'll chronicle your "insane, irresistible love affair."
JP: Never let the interns write your cover copy! Cleaving is about my six-month stint in upstate New York, learning to butcher at this shop called Fleischer's. Cleaving covers a crisis point in our marriage, and using butchery as a way to both escape the pain that was happening there and also to kind of explore and work through. Butchery is very clarifying, almost like meditation. The one thing I'm looking forward to about being off to the tour is getting back to it.
Cotswold Company
Julie Powell strikes me as a deeply unlikeable person.
"She [the main character] is just not me. You have to go into it thinking, this is a Nora Ephron movie — not my book. Then you can enjoy it."
Wrong pronoun honey, replace "You" with "I", because that is not how the general public is going to feel. But thank you for giving us permission on how to conditionally enjoy this movie.
1Wow, deeply unlikable? Seems kind of harsh. I thought, just based on this interview, she seemed fine. Having never had a movie made about me, I imagine it must be hard seeing yourself portrayed on film and wondering what your family, friends, coworkers, etc. will think. And I don't think it's out of line for her to point out differences between herself as a writer of a blog and an actual person and an actor's portrayal. I wonder what Julia would have thought of Meryl Streep's portrayal?
I haven't read Julie's blog, but I like the idea of it. Perhaps I'll seek it out and see if she is deeply unlikable there.
2I read her blog back in the day. I was in a similar situation, over educated and underemployed, and a little directionless. Some of the musings were clever and pointed...but it would also descend into whining or smug self satisfaction. I'm sure my previous experience with her story colors my read on this interview.
And I know her blog and book were never really about the food. She's almost like Chuck Klosterman; he's writing about music and pop culture, but it's never really about pop culture, it's just a vehicle and a frame for his personal stories and voice. But the main difference is that Chuck really loves music, and I got the feeling that after all was said and done, Julie Powell doesn't really love food or cooking. Yet she returns to this device (i.e. Cleaving) not from a point of passion or interest, but as a gimmick or a hook.
3I didn't like her blog, she seemed really heavy to me in it, the way she wrote. But I think her blog was genius! Julia Child rocked, and what a great idea, cooking her way through Julia Child's first cookbook! I may buy her book and read it, to get a better sense of Julie Powell.
4leslievanhouten, I TOTALLY agree. this woman has a blog turned into a book and now into a movie -- a Nora Ephrom movie, no less, who is a famous and successful Hollywood writer -- and you have the gall to 'bite the hand that feeds' so to speak. its just uncouth.
5I loved the book and I can't wait for the movie!
to leslie - I never really thought about it, but perhaps you're right in that she's hooking herself to a gimmick by writing yet another "food" book. Did she take the job at the butchery with the intent to write a book about it and her marriage crisis? Or was she just like, "I have to get away. I know! I'll cut meat!" I don't know. I guess I'll have to read the book.
6les - I totally agree! She is so unlikeable in the book that it was tough for me to get through the whole thing. I kept thinking, Why does ANYONE want to be around her?
I was really bummed because its such a good concept but she totally ruined it. Thank God she said the movie is like a Nora Ephron movie, I think I may actually see it now. Because if it were like the book? No thanks.
7Julie Powell is a seriously disturbed woman. I hated her book for many reasons, mostly because she is thought that by using Julia Childs name she could get famous and it unfortunately worked. She cannot write, her blogging was both a disgusting foray into disliking republican/9/11 widows/and anyone else she deemed hateble. Did they show the maggots in her kitchen in this movie? did they show her laziness in recreating Julias Recipes? Did they show what a miserable person she was throughout her blog and book? I doubt it. Julia Child was an amazing woman, Julie Powell is a tick on Julias Apron ready to suck dry any amount of publicity she can.
8oh and BTW casting Amy Adams as Julia? wishful thinking.
9*i mean as Julie.
10i agree the disappointing thing about the book (and i assume the blog as well) is that it was more about julie powell's personal life with tidbits about the cooking thrown in. she hated her job and loved buffy the vampire slayer, which is fine, but i bought the book thinking it would be a fun journey about cooking through a famous cookbook, not some jaded chick's musings on how miserable she was. i think the publishers behind julie's book could have been a little more forthright about the majority of the book's content, which was not about cooking. there's nothing wrong with writing a memoir about your sucky life, but don't advertise it as something about food. obviously, i think the movie will be more to my taste, as it appears to be about food and cooking.
11I'm pretty amazed at all the negative feedback on Julie here. I have not read the book, but I am currently (inspired by all the hoopla) going back and reading the original blog. So needless to say, I can't judge her writing in a published novel. But I find the blog to be pretty damn funny, and am amazed at her perserverence in the project. I think it's pretty safe to say that she started the whole endeavor never dreaming that a book and movie deal would come out of it. The blog starts outlining the project, and sending shoutouts to her few initial readers. So I don't think it's fair to say that she at all is "biting the hand that feeds" here -- she's just trying to separate the fact from fiction so no one confuses her with the movie character.
12The blog isn't around anymore people.
13I loved the book. I think it helps that I think I am a lot like her, over-educated and under-employed, I was living in New York and wondering what I could do to get out of this rut, I did not start a blog and cook my way through Julia Child, but went to grad school...hmm...anyways, I enjoy her humor and I was inspired and am starting to try Julia Child's recipes from MAFC, about to attempt a chocolate cake and Beef Burgoyne.
14I read this book when it first came out and was highly disappointed. As the story progressed, I had hoped that Julia would become a more likable character. She did not. Throughout the story she seemed irritable and...well, b*tchy. She never let up. I remember thinking, "if this project is so overwhelming, why is she doing it?"
The maggot incident, however, made me harden what little soft spot I might have had.
Ugh. Just ugh. And completely unnecessary.
Now, having said all that, I will go and see the move, because it is - as Powell pointed out - a Nora Ephram film, and I have usually found her films to be entertaining. Also because Meryl Streep seems to capture all the qualities of Julia Child that I enjoyed seeing on PBS for all those years.
15When I first heard about the book deal I tried to read the blog but it was already gone by that time. So I got, not the book, but Julie Powell READING her own book in her own voice.
I agree with everyone who said she's an insufferable, self-pitying waste of space. And that's based not on my inserting something into it but Powell's own version of her story.
I also read "My Life in France" and loved Julia that much more than I did when I watched her WGBH show decades before. Julia deserves much better than to be linked to Powell. ...even if any Efrons or Meryl Streep are part of it.
16I guarantee that if Meryl (or anything else about the movie) receives any kind of award-nomination recognition, that Julie Powell will no longer be trying to disassociate herself from this "Nora Ephron" film.
17Wow, you people really do eat your own. The sanctimony is so thick you could cut it with a knife and saute it.
18Books based on a true story can pretty much stay true, but when its remade in to a movie... it has to be shortened into a 2 hour or less... its does not take two hours to read one good book with all the key details and specifcs that make that book so great. Then they gotta find actors that look good to the camera and censor their speech suitable for the audience and ratings. So all this and that, by the end they capture the essence of a real person but becomes fictional because its not all like that person. If they sticked completely to the biography of that person then it would be a documentary..... I love documentaries!!! But in movies that are based on a true story they capture the inspiration, the spark the intimacy in between the story and the truth to it.... something that you cant really capture when you are going through life itself. I can say that in a story of myself (although boring, im not gonna go into it promise) it would be a messed up mess, I would be in my pajamas a lot, with no make up on and with slurs and mumbo jumbo that i wouldnt even understand but looking back on that there would be something i learned and something i when through that was really captivating. So I would like to be cleaned up for a movie!!! lol but it would slightly fictionalize me.
19Actually, the blog is still around, though not being updated. You can find it by looking for The Julie/Julia Project.
I have not read the book, so I don't feel qualified to comment on how Julie portrayed herself there. As for the blog, I enjoyed it. I liked that she didn't put a freaking happy-go-lucky spin on everything or hide her misery. Quite frankly, I think when a person is depressed it's pretty common to navel-gaze and complain - it's a method of coping with the weight of unrealized expectations, exhaustion, etc. From what I've gathered reading her blog, cooking and writing were her outlet from all of the crap. That certainly doesn't mean she had to enjoy every second of the project or give it up.
20As miserable as the fictional Julie is to her husband in the film, she had not, at that point, cheated on him and then attempted to profit from it by selling a book that also glorifies hacking up animals. She doesn't seem like much of a person.
21I enjoyed the movie very much, but then I went online curious to learn why the characters never met in real life. I'm treated then to this New York Post article that highlights the fact that Powell cheats on her husband after all the hoopla with the blog/project is over! I was disgusted by that tidbit of information, but much more by the fact that I was sucked into this Hollywood chick flick fallacy! I loved how both marriages were portrayed during the movie and was amazed at how supportive and kind Julie's husband was. If someone was bound to cheat, I would have thought it would have been him. She wasn't particularly nice to him during the whole experience, and she also managed to neglect him almost all the time. That old adage that nice guys finish last proves to be true one more time, he was a class A guy and gets cheated on, on top of that your cheating spouse is capitalizing on that hurtful episode in a new book. UGH!
22I too found Julie Powell to be quite an unlikeably character I think narcissistic (excuse spelling) is an understatement from what i have read or her and her story she seems very self absorbed I didn't warm to her character at all. I believe she has piggy backed on Julia Childs fame and the legend Julia Child is fascinating Julie Powell is not and I can understand Child's reluctance to have anything to with her. I can't understand how anyone made a book/movie relating to Powell at all.
23A tick on Julia Child's apron? Wow, that's a lot of venom. I certainly wouldn't want to be in a dark alley with you.
24Having watched the movie yesterday, read a few of the blogs, plus other articles, I think I now understand better why Julie feels disenchanted with the film. The film was so much better than Julie's cynical blog that was smothered in self-interest (as much as all the butter), rather than a genuine sharing of food.
25I wonder how many of the detractors have ever done anything so difficult or daring as Julie Powell has done? I imagine not. The sheer effort of what she committed to do in her project was awesome. She has made a whole new generation of aspiring cooks aware of Julia Child's book and life, and that's a good thing. My children all want to learn how to cook and are on the way out to buy their own copies. The point of Julia Child's book was to inspire the servantless American to learn to cook fine food. If anyone says that goal was not served by Julie Powell's efforts, then you are a jealous underachiever. I have started and stopped reading a lot of blogs because they were empty, gratuitous, boring self promotions. Obviously any personal journey blog is going to be self-centered - why would you expect otherwise? I am not personally a big fan of french cooking, but I too plan to read JC's bios, and her cookbook. Congratulations and thank you, Julie Powell!
26Just watched Julie and Julia, and checked out the blog. Interested in reading the book. It seems to me that several people who comment on things are basing their comments off a perfect world. There are many people who are not likeable, we probably love some of them or are some of them, that doesn't mean we have to attack them. Who cares if she did it as an ode to cooking or as a method of stepping up, or as a narcassitic bid for attention. The beauty of America is that you don't have to read the book or the blog or watch the movie, and on that note I'm not reading anymore of your comments. Have a lovely evening.
27Cheated on her hubby, she is awfull!
28You know a lot of people, and I mean A LOT (I have made my way through the blogosphere to see this) really dislike Julie. Research it for yourself. It's actually quite funny how true it is. It really turned me off. I think the people praising her are praising Amy Adams as Julie Powell, not the actual person. Some have even suggested not reading the book or blog beforehand because you'll go in with a bad taste for Julie in your mouth when watching the film.
29I have just finished the movie Julie & Julia. I loved it. I loved everything about it, and was deeply disappointed that Julia did not like Julie's blog. I was crushed. Then, I went online to find out why she hated the blog. I found out real quickly. I found the Julie/Julia project and read through several weeks. It was filled with negativity and crude language. I must preferred the Julie portrayed in the movie.
30I must agree with post 30. I have just finished watching the movie and I was honestly fascinated. It was a relaxing watch, before bedtime...I came to my computer, curious to google the contents of the movie. I found the blog and was excited like a child come Christmas eve.
However, an hour later, I come to be a little bit sad and wishing I haven't googled anything. I don't read scandalous posts or anything of that sort - I read interviews..and then the old and new blog posts...And the feeling I am getting from them is not close to the feeling I got from Amy Adams..
I guess I will go to sleep trying to think of the actor's portrayal of this story, and not the actual real Julie..
And I was so excited....but it's gone now...
31
ditto
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