It’s an age-old question: If you could choose who would play you in a movie, who would you pick? Michael Ausiello, author of Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, got to make this choice for the adaptation of his memoir, and he went with Jim Parsons. Ausiello tells TIME that the choice dates back about five years when he asked the actor and producer known for The Big Bang Theory and The Boys in the Band to moderate a Q&A at The Grove in Los Angeles in September 2017—the week his moving memoir came out.