Film adaptation of Japanese Breakfast's Crying in H Mart book to be directed by The White Lotus' Will Sharpe

After confirming in June 2021 that her Crying in H Mart memoir is being adapted into a feature film, Japanese Breakfast's Michelle Zauner has revealed that Will Sharpe, who plays Ethan Spiller in The White Lotus, is on board to direct.

Speaking about the book, which spent 60 weeks on The New York Times' best-sellers list, Sharpe told PEOPLE, "There were lots of things that resonated with me as somebody who is half-Japanese, half-British, spent my childhood in Tokyo. Some of the descriptions of being jet-lagged in your family's kitchen felt very familiar to me."

Zauner said that Sharpe's "sensitivity as a director and an actor, his ability to find humour and grace within the tragedy of the everyday, and his own personal experience, having grown up between two cultures, make[s] him the perfect director for this film."

https://t.co/mjh5Lg8ufD

Very excited to finally share the brilliant Will Sharpe will be directing the Crying in H Mart adaptation.

— Japanese Breakfast (@Jbrekkie) March 20, 2023

Crying in H Mart started off as a 2018 essay in The New Yorker.