{"id":805885,"date":"2026-07-16T15:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T15:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/805885\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T15:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T15:11:09","slug":"marissa-stapley-is-enjoying-her-lucky-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/805885\/","title":{"rendered":"Marissa Stapley is enjoying her Lucky ride"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Marissa Stapley\u2019s book Lucky became an international bestseller after it was picked to be a part of actress Reese Witherspoon’s book club.Dahlia Katz\/Supplied<\/p>\n

In August, 2021, Marissa Stapley\u2019s agent and editor invited her out to dinner to celebrate her fourth book, Lucky, about a young con-woman on the run. Stapley was 42 at the time, a married mother of two teenagers, a Toronto-based journalist and novelist who was proud to be a Canadian bestseller but also understood that those numbers don\u2019t necessarily translate into fame or big bucks. Nor did her side gig, writing holiday rom-coms under a pen name. <\/p>\n

When Stapley arrived at the restaurant, champagne was on the table, and her editor revealed a life-changing secret: Reese Witherspoon\u2019s book club had chosen Lucky as its December pick, the first Canadian novel to make that cut. Witherspoon\u2019s production company, Hello Sunshine, thought it could be a killer TV series, too. (They were right: Lucky, starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Annette Bening, arrives on Apple TV July 15.) <\/p>\n

Stapley burst into tears. She\u2019d worked hard on all her books, but Lucky was particularly close to her heart. In 2019, her mother, now deceased, had been diagnosed with incurable colon cancer; Stapley wanted to suspend work to spend time with her, travelling back and forth between Toronto and Markham by bus. But her mother had other ideas. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother was a velvet hammer, soft and lovely but no guff,\u201d Stapley recalled in a recent video interview from her cottage in Haliburton. \u201cShe said, \u2018I will not have my illness derail your career. Find something to write.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Always listen to your mother. On one of those bus rides, Stapley was thinking about lottery ticket winners, \u201cand it was as if Lucky just sat down beside me and introduced herself,\u201d she says. Instantly, Stapley knew her: Lucky Armstrong, evading both the FBI and the mob, a winning lottery ticket pinned inside her shirt. <\/p>\n

In Stapley\u2019s notebook from that time, pages of Lucky notes alternate with pages of notes about her mother\u2019s care. Her mom read the book as Stapley wrote it, a welcome distraction for them both, \u201clike Lucky was conning us into forgetting that my mom was going to die.\u201d Now for Stapley, the book is forever tied to her mother\u2019s strength and resilience.<\/p>\n

Witherspoon didn\u2019t know Lucky\u2019s backstory when she chose the book, but she\u2019s partial to women heroines who overcome obstacles. She also believes that success is meaningless if you hoard it all for yourself; you have to pay it forward. \u201cShe\u2019s Reese Witherspoon, I\u2019m not going to say we\u2019re best friends,\u201d Stapley says with a laugh, \u201cbut we have spent some time together now, and I can really see it gives her joy to make things happen for female storytellers.\u201d <\/p>\n

With the bump from Reese\u2019s Book Club, Lucky became an international bestseller, Stapley\u2019s other novels have been optioned or reoptioned \u2013 including Three Holidays and a Wedding, by Netflix \u2013 and she was able to realize her life-long dream of buying a cottage. <\/p>\n

She and her family also visited the set of the series, where they watched an elaborate car-flip stunt that took a full day to film. (\u201cThe stunt co-ordinator is Eric Norris, Chuck Norris\u2019s son \u2013 how cool is that?\u201d Stapley enthuses. She also plays the show\u2019s opening song, by Fiona Apple, on repeat.)<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Hanging out in the makeup trailer with Bening, petting Drew Starkey\u2019s Pomeranian (he plays Cary, Lucky\u2019s dubious boyfriend), having Taylor-Joy throw her arms around her and ask, \u201cDid you manifest me?\u201d \u2013 that was thrilling, Stapley says. \u201cBut more than that, seeing hundreds of people working because of a character I created, I felt such a sense of joy. Hollywood is hard, publishing is hard. Being able to put something out in the universe where people are able to pay their bills because of me, it\u2019s the most rewarding career experience I\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fans of the novel are in for a leaner, more propulsive ride in the series \u2013 the showrunner, Jonathan Tropper (Your Friends and Neighbors), told Stapley he wanted to \u201cthrow all the characters into boiling water.\u201d But the spirit of the book, the high-octane family drama among Lucky (Taylor-Joy), her father John (Timothy Olyphant) and her de facto mother-in-law Priscilla (Bening) remains. Stapley is especially delighted by Bening\u2019s take on Priscilla, \u201cher cool glasses and great suits, and Annette\u2019s dark, unhinged maternal energy. Priscilla has been carrying water for the patriarchy for a long time, so to see her turn that around \u2013 more of that, please.\u201d <\/p>\n

Resistance to patriarchy runs through many of Stapley\u2019s novels, including her most nineties-era singer\/songwriters loosely inspired by Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. Woven through her tales of \u201cfamily dynamics, redemption and what we owe the world\u201d are trenchant observations of inequity: How a man does a woman wrong, yet she has to manage his feelings about it. How it feels easier to the world if the woman is the problematic partner, and how \u201cproblematic\u201d can be as simple as defending yourself or not smiling enough. <\/p>\n

She wrote The Last Resort (2019), about a charismatic evangelical cult leader, in a fit of rage after Donald Trump was first elected U.S. president. \u201cBut I get nervous about seeming too angry,\u201d she says. \u201cYou have to couch the rage in a great story: \u2018Oh by the way, you should realize this is happening.\u2019 That\u2019s why I love writing Lucky \u2013 she represents how all women constantly have to be reading the room, staying one step ahead, how we can never fully relax.\u201d<\/p>\n

2022: Author Marissa Stapley\u2019s Lucky break came from Reese Witherspoon<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, she\u2019s writing Lucky, present tense: The sequel, No Such Thing as Lucky, will be published in October, 2027. (The TV series writers already have a copy for a potential Season 2.) \u201cI would love for Lucky to become a Jack Reacher-esque character, I could write her for the rest of my life,\u201d Stapley says.<\/p>\n

She also wants to add screenwriting to her resume. Being a writer on Lucky season one wasn\u2019t possible; her kids were too young for her to decamp to Los Angeles for six months, and it can be hard for a novelist to be present when other writers are critiquing their material. <\/p>\n

\u201cI could see myself having to go cry in the bathroom,\u201d Stapley says. \u201cBut now I think I\u2019m ready for it.\u201d (And her kids are in university.) She\u2019s currently shopping an original series idea around Hollywood \u2013 at least 17 buyers have been interested, thanks to the power of Witherspoon\u2019s imprimatur \u2013 and one of her requirements is that she gets a seat in the writers\u2019 room. \u201cI\u2019m just so ready to take these opportunities that are coming my way,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

As we\u2019ve been talking, Stapley has finished making breakfast sandwiches for her husband and kids; we\u2019ve switched from video to phone because of a weak WiFi connection; her two cats and the two contractors renovating her cottage have been roaming around; she\u2019s getting ready to fly to Los Angeles and New York to walk red carpets for Lucky\u2019s premiere and then settle her daughter in Montreal for university. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the most amazing \u2018problems\u2019 to have, so much fullness in your life,\u201d Stapley says. \u201cLast night I was floating in the lake, looking at my cottage. My husband and kids were on the dock, and I made myself sit in the moment and take it in: \u2018You are happy! This is success. You have accomplished this.\u2019 But I don\u2019t want to stop being ambitious. It\u2019s okay to still be striving. I\u2019m a naturally anxious person, so I\u2019m trying to remind myself that whatever happens now, it\u2019s the icing on the cake. But I have the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Marissa Stapley\u2019s book Lucky became an international bestseller after it was picked to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75,2922],"class_list":["post-805885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-noastack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}