MMA fighting is taking the world by storm, having skyrocketed in popularity in recent years. And now, a new “sports romance” film based around MMA is hitting the masses. Perfect Addiction centers on trainer Sienna (Kiana Madeira), who thinks that she and champion boyfriend Jax (Matthew Noszka) are the perfect team.

That is, until the day she discovers him cheating on her with her own sister. Bent on revenge, Sienna starts training the one man capable of dethroning Jax: his arch-nemesis Kayden (Ross Butler). What begins as payback quickly turns into something much more heated as boundaries are blurred and workouts get steamy.
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Book-to-film adaptations are still an extremely popular trend in Hollywood these days — and that includes Perfect Addiction, which is based on the wildly popular Wattpad web-novel by Claudia Tan, with over 86 million reads. We recently caught up with Tan, who opened up about the creative process behind her unique story. Plus, she spills about what it was liking completing the novel when she was just 16 years old! Read our exclusive interview below.

Writing a ‘Sports Romance’

MW: How did you come up with such a cool idea for your book?

Claudia Tan: When I was 16, which was when I wrote the book, I was experiencing a lot of teenager angst, of course, and I wanted to channel that into a book. But more importantly, I was interested in writing a sports romance. I was reading a lot at the time, too. And I always thought that it was always the guy that was kind of taking the limelight, because he would typically always be the one that’s the fighter, I guess. And I wanted to see what it was like to write from a female fighter perspective and see where that led me, you know?

MW: What was it like writing a novel at such a young age?

Claudia Tan: I was in high school, and I was a bit of an introvert anyway. So as soon as I got back from school, like, that was all I did. I just kind of wrote, and I think that concerned my parents, because I don’t think they knew what I was doing. So they probably thought I was just, like, bumming out or something. But yeah, it was kind of like leading a double life.

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MW: Once your novel was greenlit as a movie, how involved were you in the production process? Were you consulting a lot with the screenwriter?

Claudia Tan: I wasn’t that involved in the process. I did receive some scripts, and I gave my feedback and stuff. But other than that, it was kind of off my hands. And yeah, casting and stuff, that wasn’t me. I didn’t have any input in any of that, though I was really grateful of the casting choices that they made […] I did go to set. It was really nice visiting everybody and talking to the cast and director, the producers and stuff. It was all great. It was a fun experience for me.

MW: What were your favorite parts of the movie?

Claudia Tan: The apartment paint scene between Kayden and Sienna, that was in the book. That was the one that readers were most anticipating to watch. And obviously, the fighting sequences were really fun. It’s one thing to write these MMA training sequences on paper versus watching them in real life, employing these techniques, because it could be really dry reading them, but it’s really fun to watch them. So yeah, that was really nice to see.

MMA Reseach and Future Projects

DECAL

MW: Do you do any sort of MMA fighting in real life?

Claudia Tan: No. For writing this book, I had no idea besides, like, the basic stuff. I had to do a lot of research and make sure that I was portraying the sport as accurately as possible, because the group of people that are really passionate about MMA, they can be very vocal. And I don’t want to offend them in any way.

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MW: Are you working on any books or projects at the moment?

Claudia Tan: Right now, I’m knee-deep in edits for Perfect Redemption, which is kind of like a spinoff/sequel, which is already posted on Wattpad. I’m just getting ready for publication for that. So that’s what I’m working on right now. But yeah, I feel like after I wrap up that series, I’m probably going to be writing a few romance books.

MW: In seeing Perfect Addiction turned into a movie, has it inspired you to try writing a script?

Claudia Tan: Well, I don’t know. I feel like it’s a really interesting art form. When I was getting the scripts, I’m like, “Wow, this is so different from writing a novel.” I don’t know if it’s for me, but anything could happen.

From DECAL Releasing, Perfect Addiction will be released April 14.