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Hub author turns real life into Hollywood-ready stories

Boston author Ben Mezrich has a great track record when it comes to taking real events and turning them into made-for-Hollywood stories. His writing resume includes “Bringing Down the House,” which became the film “21,” and “The Accidental Billionaires,” aka “The Social Network” on the big screen.

His latest, “Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History's Most Iconic Extinct Creatures” is the saga of Harvard scientists attempting to bring back gigantic herbivores from extinction.

The Herald caught up with Mezrich in his Hub man cave/office.

HERALD: So this is where all the magic happens?

MEZRICH: I've written all 18 of my books here that's why I can never leave. It looked like

Charlie Sheen's apartment before ... with black and leather ... Tonya (Mezrich's wife) helped me brighten it up. HERALD: The view is stunning.

MEZRICH: The view is great ... You can see MIT from here, which served as inspiration when I wrote `Bringing Down the House' ... There's Harvard ... Boston is the center of my writing career — it's where I do everything.

HERALD: Tell me about your latest book. MEZRICH: It's about a Harvard lab and the eminent geneticist, George Church, who is just around the corner in his lab making a wooly mammoth. ...I Googled him and randomly wrote an email and he said come on in! So I embedded myself in his lab ... The idea that there's a wooly mammoth being made like a mile from here is just spectacular. HERALD: Twentieth Century Fox is already making a movie about it — will the movie come before an actual mammoth is born?

MEZRICH: We are only a few years away from an actual mammoth — the fetus will be put in the womb of an elephant ... an elephant will give birth to one, as they are very closely related. The movie is already in the works! Marty Bowen (of “Twilight” fame) is producing it and Oscar Sharp ... who is like the next Spielberg ... will direct. Check out our video with Mezrich and of our chat with the celeb author on bostonherald.com.

STAFF PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER EVANS Ben Mezrich, seen above in his home office, is known for turning real life into Hollywood. His next book involves a Harvard lab’s effort to bring back the wooly mammoth.