Already hailed as a classic, Louis Sachar's novel, 'Holes', has been published in nearly 30 countries spanning North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and has received over 25 accolades, most notably the 1999 Newbery Medal for Best Children's and Young Adult Fiction, the Boston Globe Horn Book Award, and the 1998 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. In a recent poll by Read magazine of the most popular books among children, Holes ranked #1 - beating even Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Sachar, the author of more than twenty books for children, attributes the phenomenal success of his book to its thought-provoking themes and humor." I think it's a fun and uplifting story," he comments. "It's an exciting adventure where the main character rises above his miserable situation, and not only survives, but thrives. I never set out to teach a lesson. My goal is always to write a fun, entertaining, and thought provoking story. Any messages, and I think there are many in this book, come naturally out of the story."

Sachar' was stunned when he was offered the opportunity to adapt his novel into the screenplay for the film. "This was the only way we could make the movie," says Andrew Davis, who would direct the film adaptation. "I didn't want to make a movie from this amazing book that didn't reflect the book."

Sachar was delighted that Davis wanted to make a movie based on his work, but was a little hesitant about taking on the gargantuan task of writing the screenplay. "Louis was really nervous," laughs Davis. "He said things like, 'Oh, I don't know anything about Hollywood, I'm afraid, I've heard horror stories about what's happened to writers who sell their books to Hollywood filmmakers and producers. 'But I made a commitment to him and to my partners on this film - Louis was going to be a part of the making of the movie."

"I had never written a screenplay before, but I read a few that Andy sent me, so I had a general idea of what a screenplay looked like," says Sachar. "But writing a screenplay was a very different experience for me. When I write a novel, it's just me, alone in my office; I worked on Holes for a year and half without showing it to anyone. The screenplay, on the other hand, was really a collaborative effort. I'd try something, send it to Andy Davis and his staff, they'd make changes, and send it back. I learned a lot from them."

Though it may seem a departure from the type of film upon which Davis has built his reputation - such as The Fugitive and A Perfect Murder - in fact, Davis has illustrated his strength as a filmmaker in many genres, from the magical realism of Steal Big, Steal Little to the powerful human story of friendship between a group of interracial kids who dream about their big break in Davis' first film, Stony Island.

Holes is an extension of that work. "I had been looking for something to direct that was different from the traditional political- action thrillers that I've made over the past few years," says Davis. "But maybe Holes isn't that different for me. As in The Fugitive, it's about an unjustly accused man who proves his innocence."

Part of what makes the book so compelling is the story's three distinct but interwoven tales, spanning from modern day Texas to 18th-century Lama to the Old West. For Tim Blake Nelson (who plays Dr. Pendanski, one of the "counselors" at the camp), like Davis and the rest of the cast and crew, Sachar's complex story and screenplay was one of the major reasons why the project was so appealing. "Holes is a story for a young audience, but its structure is incredibly sophisticated," Nelson says. "It's telling three stories at once in two different centuries and two different continents and it intertwines these stories in some very inventive ways ... it's not your run- of-the-mill story. It really challenges your sense of narrative, no matter how old you are."

"Andy Davis has a tremendous visual sense," says producer Mike Medavoy. "He's got great enthusiasm for this project, and that's a great way of putting a picture together. When Andy sent me the book, it struck me as completely different than anything I had ever done before - and I've done over 330 movies. Louis Sachar really struck a nerve with a lot of kids."

"Teresa Tucker-Davies became aware of the book through early reviews and began to pursue it," Davis continues." I read the book right away and immediately fell in love with it. Everybody dreams of finding that great book to make into a movie; I think I was lucky enough to find it. Louis Sachar has written a classic."

casting the film
The filmmakers say that from the very beginning they had pictured Sigourney Weaver as the Warden for her ability to combine femininity and toughness that would give the character her edge. "I was searching for a woman who could be both sweet and tough enough to paint her nails with rattlesnake venom," says director Andrew Davis. "Who could possibly fit the bill? Well, how about Ripley from Alien?...

"My daughter read Holes when she was eight and she loved it," says Weaver. "It was the first book she really fell in love with. She said, 'There's this awful woman in it named The Warden and you should play her,"' she laughs.

"What I love about Louis Sachar's story is how he weaves together the three stories into one," says Weaver. "There's the story of the curse, and how that came to be; and then, there's the story of how the curse is broken, 100 years later; and then, there's the middle story of Sam and Kate. All of these are situations in which love and decency win out over cruelty and greed."

"The thing I found interesting about the Warden is that she hides her power," Weaver continues. "She's very soft-spoken. If one of the boys questions her orders, she doesn't get angry - it's Just, 'Excuse me?' She has a tremendous presence among these kids.

Mr. Sir, the ornery overseer of the camp, is played by Jon Voight, whose transformation into the character not only involved a physical transformation - he added a ten-pound body pad (for that extra girth around the waist) and several hours in the hair and make-up chair to affix a pompadour-style wig and pencil-thin moustache - but in personality as well, creating a caricature of a villain that also manages to be a three-dimensional character. Voight comments, "Mr. Sir is described pretty well in the book; he looks like he would be an inmate in another circumstance. It's always fun to do something people have an expectation for and then to see if you can match it with your imagination and portray it properly."

Sachar, who was on hand to watch the filming, found a special Joy in watching Voight portray the larger-than-life Mr. Sir. " I couldn't have asked for anyone better than Jon Voight to play Mr. Sir. He takes a character that could have easily been just a caricature on screen and rounds him out until he's Just like you picture him in your head. Each of the actors added a lot, but Jon Voight's impromptu dialogue had me in stitches... it was often funnier than anything I thought of."

For the psychiatrist Dr. Pendanski, the filmmakers cast Tim Blake Nelson, who was attracted to the project by the hopeful elements within the story. He comments, "This film is affirming in the best possible way. It's a story about an innocent boy who through no fault of his own is put into a horrible predicament ... and, simply by behaving time and time again in a manner which he feels is right, regardless of the situation, purges a curse which has been afflicting his family for over a century."

"Pendanski is really there at Camp Green Lake to get the treasure - Just like Sigourney Weaver's character and Jon Voight's character," Nelson notes, "but he does that under the guise of being a youth counselor. Pendanski is a fairly uptight, high-strung, and neurotic gentleman Nelson continues. "He's very afraid of the sun and the ramifications of the sun on his skin - he's always wearing zinc oxide on his nose."

For the Old West tale of Kissin' Kate Barlow and her heartfelt story with Sam the onion seller, the filmmakers cast Patricia Arquette and Emmy norminee Dule Hill (best known for his role of Charlie on the Emmy Award-winning NBC hit drama, "The West Wing") as the star-crossed lovers.

"Holes is a story about redemption," says Hill. "It's about righting wrongs. It's never too late to correct past mistakes - we don't have to fall victims to the curses of our ancestors."

the kids
To play Stanley Yehiats IV, the latest male in the YeInats family to suffer the curse of his no-good-dirty rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather, the filmmakers turned to Shia LaBeouf, the star of the Disney Channel series, "Even Stevens."

"I needed an actor who could combine the best qualities of Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, and Gene Wilder in the body of a sixteen-year-old, and I think I found him in Shia LaBeouf," says Davis. "He's tremendously talented, and that's unqualified. He's not a talented actor for his age - he's talented for an actor of any age. "

"When Stanley gets to Camp Green Lake, he can't even solve his own problems, much less anybody else's," says LaBeouf. "He's a caterpillar when he arrives, and when he leaves he's a butterfly. He can control things like never before - he's not going to be the same guy, and because he's got his life figured out a little more, he can help the other kids in the camp, especially Zero."


LaBeouf credits Andy Davis and Louis Sachar with helping him find the character of Stanley Yehiats. "Andy doesn't force anything on you, but everything he's thinking, he gets out there. He's great at explaining how he sees the character and what he wants. He really cares about every detail and win do everything to make sure that every detail is right - from how you read your lines to the way your shoelaces are tied. He's a genius.

"Having Louis Sachar on set was amazing," LaBeouf continues. " It kind of struck me - he was the whole reason we were here. He had a great idea, and he wrote it down. At first, I was gobbling down Twinkies, because Stanley is chubby in the book. But Louis said that it's more about the attitude - at the beginning of the book, Stanley's unsure of himself and quiet; it was more important for that to come through. Louis helped me find that."

The one kid at Camp Green Lake who everybody feels free to pick on is Zero, who never says anything until Stanley shows up. Khleo Thomas takes the part of a kid who keeps all of his natural talents hidden. Thomas describes Zero as a kid who "doesn't like to talk much, but you can tell what he's saying by the way he looks at you. He's very quiet, but he has a warm heart.

"Before we started the movie, I only knew Sigourney Weaver from the movies - especially 'Alien,' because I've seen every trilogy ever made," says Thomas. "When I saw her, I freaked out, because she looks exactly like she does in the movies. But it was cool working with her - she gave me some good hints about how to stay focused. Jon Voight, too, was great. These guys are legends, but they don't have a big head or anything. You can just talk to them straight."

As great as that experience was, though, it couldn't rate with Thomas' favorite scene. "When Shia and I are trapped in the hole, with lizards crawling all over us - that was the best," he says. " I had one lizard, named MochaJust staring at me. He was great. Another one was on my shoulder, and he kept licking my ear."