CS Video: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

You might not expect the director of “American Horror Story” and the acclaimed horror flick The Town That Dreaded Sundown to direct a coming-of-age film like Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, based on the novel by Jesse Andrews, but if you cut a bit deeper and realize that Alfonso Gomez-Rejon also directed “Glee” and the short-lived “Red Band Society,” it starts making more sense.

The dramedy, starring Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, RJ Cyler, Nick Offerman, Molly Shannon and Jon Bernthal, received rave reviews out of the Sundance Film Festival this year before winning both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award, a feat that’s only happened a few times in the festival’s history. 

Mann plays Greg, who is literally too cool for his school but has to find his humanity when he’s urged to befriend Olivia Cooke’s Rachel, a classmate who has just been diagnosed with leukemia. Ultimately, Greg is convinced to make a movie for the girl with his colleague Earl (Cyler) while he starts getting further behind on his schoolwork. 

ComingSoon.net sat down with Gomez-Rejon a few weeks back to talk about different aspects of the film including the casting and the home-made movies that Greg and Earl make based on bad pun versions of movie classics. 

Fox Searchlight has also provided ComingSoon.net with some new exclusive stills from the movie, which you can check out in the gallery below. 

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl opens in select cities on Friday, June 12. You can also check out our interview with Thomas Mann right here.