Interview: Bill Bryson goes back to the woods
BY Farhana Gani
1st Jan 2015 Film & TV
The American travel writer talks about the film adaptation of his bestselling memoir A Walk in the Woods starring Robert Redford, Emma Thompson and Nick Nolte.
After two decades living and writing in the UK, Bill Bryson, author of Notes from a Small Island and The Lost Continent, returned to the US with his family. Hoping to rediscover his homeland he decided to hike the 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail, which happened to run past his doorstep.
Fearing he might not return alive, his wife (played by Emma Thompson) insists he can’t do the walk on his own. Bryson contacts friends far and wide to join him but has zero luck. So when a long-forgotten friend Katz (Nick Nolte), a dissolute recovering alcoholic, calls him out of the blue, Bryson reluctantly accepts his offer to accompany him on his crazy venture.
Bryson discusses the film, his encounters with grizzlies and human oddballs, and trekking across one of the most stunning landscapes in the United States.
