E. L. James Talks 'Fifty Shades Of Grey' Casting, Criticism

E. L. James never imagined that her kinky bondage trilogy, which kicked off with the hugely popular Fifty Shades of Grey, followed by Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, and was innocently enough inspired by the Twilight series, would take the female fantasy realm (not to mention the book-reading population) by storm and sell 30 million copies in just six months, but now that it has, James is making her rounds on the interview circuit and letting her real name, Erika Leonard, be known.

Leonard, a.k.a. James, stopped by Katie Couric's new daytime show, Katie, to talk about the trilogy, and Couric dressed up for the occasion, donning a black leather dress and black stilettos, walking out on stage while Rihanna's "S&M" played in the background.

"Relax — this won't hurt at all," Couric said, joking around before she got down to brass tacks with James, reports CNN. James' input on how newcomers to S&M should start playing out bondage fantasies? "I would start with a tie, honestly," James said, before opening up on exactly how she would respond to her book's harshest naysayers. "Somebody likes it!" was James' response for haters. James insists that she won't let it the criticism get to her. "It's just noise."

While James also had some advice for her fans who are aspiring writers — "Write for yourself. That's it. And write every day" — she was vague when it came to answering the question that everyone is oh-so-pleasantly-aching to find out: who will play the parts of Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele?

James isn't revealing any names, but she is admitting that she has three actors and four actresses in mind for the coveted roles. Some names that have been floating around the Internet to play Christian include Matt Bomer, Chris Pine, Chris Hemsworth, Henry Cavill, Ian Somerhalder, Bradley Cooper, Alexander Skarsgard and Ryan Gosling. Anastasia's a bit more up in the air, but Alexis Bledel of Gilmore Girls and Elizabeth Olsen keep popping up.