It’s been over a decade since Lois Lowry’s award winning novel “The Giver” was first optioned for film, but now it will finally hit screens on August 15. In the interim, Lowry has written numerous books, including three more in the series (ending with 2012′s “Son”), and clearly “Giver” is being positioned as the next “Hunger Games” or “Divergent.”

While the post-apocalyptic YA novel shares elements with both, the thought-provoking story of a boy who’s life is suffused with “Sameness” until he finds color, song and maybe love has a lot more on its mind.

Oh, and the movie adaptation has Taylor Swift. So there’s that.

In advance of the film’s opening, MTV News hopped on the phone with Lowry to talk about Swift’s role, changes from the book to screen, and how she almost filmed a nude scene for the movie:

MTV News: Obviously this had a very long development as a movie, I’m curious to hear what went on on the process on your side…

Lois Lowry: Well, I wasn’t behind the scenes, so I’m not exactly sure about the details, but I will say from my point of view it involved a whole lot of waiting! Getting to know a number of people involved.

From the first, Jeff Bridges was one of them, he’s hung in there for all of these years and gotten old enough over those years to play the leading role himself, which is great. He does a great job. For me, I was just sitting at home, ...

Ashley Tisdale is having a moment. Her “High School Musical” days now long behind her, the 29-year-old actress is engaged, slated to star in a TBS series from the creators of “Will & Grace,” and producing her very own ABC Family series, “Young & Hungry.” And while “Hungry” stars “Hannah Montana” alum Emily Osment instead of Tisdale herself, the actress formerly known as Sharpay will be making a huge guest appearance in the July 9 episode — as a gay character, named Logan.

“I’ve been trying over the past couple of years to push myself out of my comfort zone and play characters that people wouldn’t think of me for,” Tisdale told MTV News over the phone. “It’s awesome, when you produce a show you get to come up with those characters. So when ABC Family asked me to do an episode, I was like, ‘Oh, for sure.’ There was no question about it.”

Of course, the reason that people wouldn’t necessarily think of Tisdale for the role is because Logan is a lesbian — a lesbian who kisses Osment’s character Gabi, who is straight — and Tisdale has never taken on an LGBT role like this before. But according to the actress, having her old Disney channel friend as her kissing costar made things a whole lot easier, and not only because she’s attractive.

“[Emily] is obviously really cute,” Tisdale said with a laugh. “She was great, and we had a lot of fun playing the characters and doing what ...

As they’ve traveled the country in search of online imposters, “Catfish” detectives Nev and Max have collected more than a few memories. One, in particular, is especially indelible for Nev because he has a permanent reminder of it.

“I don’t think we should go into all the details,” he says of one crazy evening after the duo had just finished filming Season 2 in Pensacola, Florida. “Let’s just say that I got this scar, [and] in the same night, Max and I got kicked out of our hotel.”

He also describes the evening as “rock star” and “epic” — despite the fact that they had to pack their belongings in just five minutes and high-tail it out of town at 4 a.m.

Max, meanwhile, insists that he and his partner aren’t “troublemakers,” but that their wild night came at “the end of a very, very long season, and we definitely let off some steam.”

So how exactly did Nev wind up his wound? Watch the clip below, and be sure to tune in to the Season 3 finale at 10/9c!

Jordana Ossad

Even before rapper-on-the-rise Mac Miller signed up for his own reality show last year, we had a pretty good idea that he had an awesome life. But “Mac Miller and the Most Dope Family” proved exactly what we suspected: Mac’s got it made!

Now, with Season 2 about to kick off and take us on yet another wild ride, we’re looking back at last year’s highlights. Check out five of Mac’s “Most Dope” moments:

1. His whip is probably worth more than your house.
On the very first episode, Complex mag gifted Mac with a brand new 2013 Fisker — a present valued at over $100M. You know, NBD.

2. Mac and Miley partied in the U-S-A, no matter what the cops said.
Police tried to break up Mac’s “End of the World” party, but with a superstar like Miley Cyrus as a guest, there was no way this shindig was ending anytime soon. Fortunately, Mac sent his boy Big Dave to calm down the cops.

3. His real family proved they’re most dope, too!
Mac’s brood kept him grounded by beating him at Scrabble while supporting his big-business dreams at the same time.

4. Mac showed he can morph into, like, anyone.
And that includes his jazzy alter-ego Larry Lovestein.

5. He’s a high-roller.
No one does Sin City quite like Mac Miller — and this video shot from his lavish Vegas suite proved it.

Not convinced that Mac’s livin’ it up? Check out this MTV.com playlist for the ...

Sorry Kanye West, Stacey Dash definitely doesn’t understand where you’re coming from. Over the weekend, ‘Ye performed at the Wireless Festival in London, and his ranting made headlines once again. He was quoted as comparing the paparazzi’s intrusion in his life to rape, which drew plenty of criticism.

One of those critics was Yeezy’s “All Falls Down” video co-star Stacey Dash, who voiced her opinion on the matter on Fox’s “Outnumbered” talk show.

“For Kanye to say ‘rape,’ maybe he needs to spend some time on Rikers Island,” Dash said, referring to the New York City penitentiary. “Go to Rikers for a while, and then he’ll know what rape is.”

She also added that the paparazzi are “just doing their job,” and pointed fingers at Kanye for being disrespectful to them. “If you’re nice, if you’re polite to them, they leave you alone,” she said. “It’s when you start to call them names and act crazy and put your hands up and do all this drama that they make it a big deal.”

Yikes.

Nadeska Alexis

A native of Grenada, a product of Brooklyn, a student of hip-hop.

@neweryork

Happy sunshine! As One Direction fans, we have our shades on, our inflatable bananas blown up and ready, and our “Where We Are” tickets in hand. We’re ready for summer, because summer’s the best time to be a Directioner.

But if you want the ultimate One Direction treatment this summer, enter MTV’s Ultimate Fan Experience, where MTV will fly you and a friend down to New Orleans, sit you front row at their concert, and give you a chance to meet Harry, Niall, Louis, Zayn and Liam. Go to One Direction’s MTV Artist page at OneDirection.MTV.com to enter, and you could win the trip and some cool autographed swag.

And hey, if you don’t win (which you will… maybe), then you can celebrate your Directionship by doing these summery One Direction things! Cheers!

1D Soccer
Er, um, football, as the lads would say. Is there a better season for them to get their game on?

Getty Images

1D Tats
Flaunt your temporary tats while having fun in the sun. These replicas of the ones the boys have are perfect.

1D Tanks
Rid yourself of farmer’s tan with a 1D tank top.

1D Dancing
Now that you’re in your summer outfit, take your ...

Losing when you’re the home team is degrading enough, but Brazil’s soccer players received an extra pounding to their pride after yesterday’s 1-7 World Cup loss to Germany: A bunch of internet jerks laughing at their expense.

It didn’t take long for Pornhub users to upload clips from the game under the adult site’s “Public Humiliation” category, which apparently exists. (We only watch the “Romantic Partners Treated With Tenderness & Respect” category.) For example, here’s a screengrab:

In a tweet that’s going viral, Pornhub implored its fapping fans to cease and desist, perhaps due to fears of a FIFA lawsuit — or perhaps because its servers couldn’t handle the massive load:

At least they have a sense of humor about it, although maybe there’ll be a compromise when some adult film company releases “World D-Cup: The XXX Parody.”

Marty Beckerman

There’s a Beacon Hills baddie on the loose that makes the terrifying Darach-Deucalion-Nogitsune trifecta look like child’s play — and not the Chucky kind.

As “Teen Wolf” executive producer Jeff Davis teased before the Season 4 premiere to Access Hollywood, “There’s a central, core mystery. It’s all based around a hit list that our supernatural creatures find themselves on… we call it a season of assassins and bounty hunters.”

*shudder*

But the question on everyone’s mind is, who is The Benefactor?

Thank the werewolf Heavens for new pack addition Liam, ’cause it sounds like Scott & Co. have their work cut out for them, especially if The Benefactor is as evil as we hear. We don’t know much about the mysteriously named villain, but we do know it gets its kicks hunting down our friends and building upon greed, money and power.

Don’t you wag your finger at us, you lipless lunatic!

One theory surrounding Beacon Hills’ latest nightmare centers on The Mute — a hatchet-wielding, mouthless serial killer who wears big black boots and dislikes sharp-toothed, flesh-eating wendigos. He might be the man responsible for the Hale family fortune disappearance, and he also seems to have a strange connection to Lydia (shocker!) — both Creepy McCreeperson and the banshee appear to have an affinity for nonsensical* computer codes.

+ Do you think The Benefactor and the lipless villain are one and the same? Cast your vote, be sure to leave your alternate theories in the ...

So the horse head meme may have just jumped the shark (so many animals…). Tuesday night, a man in Denver, Colorado, shook hands with U.S. President Barack Obama while sheathed in equine-shaped rubber, therefore throwing the phenomena squarely into the middle of the mainstream.

The saga of the horse head meme is a strange one. According to David Wahl of Seattle-based novelty dealer Archie McPhee & Co., they helped the trend flourish. Originally, he told MTV News, the mask was an off-the-shelf factory item created some time in the early ’90s.

“It sat there and didn’t sell, and then we kind of discovered it and we thought that it would connect with our special brand of weirdo that likes our stuff,” Wahl said, adding that Archie McPhee started importing the mask in the early ’00s.

“We marketed it as not a Halloween mask but a dash of surrealness in your day,” he said. “That’s when it kind of exploded.”

By “exploded” he means that it became an Internet craze — especially on sites like reddit. Some of the mask’s weirder appearances — like in the videos of a Japanese performance artist known Wotaken, according to Know Your Meme — may be a bit too obscure for the average Internet lurker. However, you’ve probably heard of Dobbin Horsome of Aberdeen, Scotland, who appeared in the mask on Google Maps. You might also have seen Jimmy Kruyne of Washington, DC, jogging by in the horsey head during ...

There’s a stereotype that New Yorkers are rude, but it’s really just that good manners are a little different here. You don’t take up a whole sidewalk while posing for an Instagram with your crew; you don’t enter a subway car until the other passengers have exited; you don’t complain when your salad wrap comes with the occasional dead rat. But who’s going to enforce these rules? The NYPD? Nah, leave it up to comedian Yoni Lotan, who dressed as a FIFA referee for this “Ref In The City” prank, just in time for today’s Netherlands-Argentina World Cup game:

RELATED: Tearful Brazilian Grandpa Seen Handing World Cup Trophy To German Fan

Marty Beckerman