VIDEO: Author Toby Young takes the time to reflect on the experience of seeing his book brought to life.

As a self proclaimed ‘professional failure who has forged a career from writing about his disastrous career’, Toby Young is not doing too badly. A Journalist and Author, his latest project, ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People’ is a successful British romcom set Stateside. The film’s premise is loosely based upon his experiences as a renegade British Journalist in New York, originally documented in his memoir of the same name.

When self-assured London hack Sydney Young (Simon Pegg) is offered the job of a lifetime at Sharps magazine in New York, he jumps at the chance. The film tracks the painful but funny demise of his career through a series of self-inflicted nightmare scenarios, involving a slovenly piglet, a prime-time punch up at a glitzy Hollywood awards night and a spot of pet-slaughter.

Stephen Woolley hardly needs an introduction - as one of the leading British film producers on the scene, his career spans classics such as The Crying Game, Mona Lisa, Interview with the Vampire, Stoned (as Director) and Michael Collins.

We met up with Young and Woolley at the preview of the film, which formed part of the programme for the 28th Cambridge Film Festival. In the 2 videos, Toby Young candidly tells BBC Film Network about the story behind the film and his role in bringing it to the big screen, while Stephen Woolley recounts how the film came about, his eye-opening experience of the Hollywood development process, and offers some gems of advice for budding British filmmakers.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is released in UK cinemas on Friday 3rd October 2008

Claire Spencer Cook, Stephen Bailey | Published 1 October 08

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