- Author Sigrid Nunez shared that Julianne Moore’s character in The Room Next Door was based on her
- The 2024 film was based on Nunez’s 2020 novel What Are You Going Through
- Nunez’s 2018 novel The Friend was also adapted into a film of the same name starring Bill Murray and Naomi Watts
Sigrid Nunez is opening up about her book-to-screen adaptations.
During a panel on the subject at the PEN America World Voices Festival on May 2 in New York City, the author spoke with writer André Aciman (Call Me By Your Name) and moderator Soraya Nadia McDonald about her experience seeing her books developed for the big screen.
In 2024, Nunez’s 2020 novel What You Are Going Through was adapted by Pedro Almodóvar into his first English language film, The Room Next Door, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.
The film follows friends Martha (Swinton) and Ingrid (Moore), as they deal with Martha’s terminal cancer diagnosis. And while Swinton has an interesting role — in which she plays both Martha and Martha’s daughter, Michelle — Nunez also shared that Moore’s character is especially intriguing for the author.
“Two Januaries ago when they started rehearsing in Madrid, I met with Julianne Moore for a while,” the author recalled. “We didn’t talk about her role or anything like that. We just talked about other things.”
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“I guess we just wanted to get some sense because [Almodóvar] wanted to base that character, to some extent, on me, which is why he calls her Ingrid,” Nunez said. “So that’s the way it was.”
The film was first released in Spain in October 2024, before it arrived on Netflix in the United States on April 19.
Nunez’s National Book Award-winning 2018 novel The Friend was also adapted into a 2025 film of the same name, starring Bill Murray and Naomi Watts. The story centers on a woman (Watts) who gains custody of her late mentor’s Great Dane. During the panel, Nunez shared that the film’s canine actor, Bing, was a star in his own right.
“One thing that was hard to teach him was how to hold something,” the author recalled. “There was this very important scene where he has to hold the Bill Murray character’s T-shirt in his mouth. And that was difficult for him. But he did it and he learned and he did a beautiful job.”
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Nunez, who has written nine novels in total, noted that despite her wide audience, she doesn’t write with the intention of affecting readers.
“I try not to overthink because I think that can give you the writer’s block or at least temporary writer’s block,” Nunez said. “I always just start with something that is interesting to me, some idea or some character.”
“People wouldn’t be interested in making a movie and adapting your book into a movie if they were thinking of making a transcription,” Nunez said. “It’s usually that there’s something in it. And in both of my novels, there’s a lot of interiority.”
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