| Passionate Fan
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,226
|  It is a great interview, but insanely long 
Here, B:
Quote:
At the film’s press day, co-stars Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls) and Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights), spoke about how fortunate they were to find success in their own chosen career paths.
Q: Early in your careers, did either of you go out on your own and then have to move back home?
Alexis: I’ve not personally had that experience. I definitely feel like I’ve experienced setbacks, where I’ve had to regroup and start from scratch, which I think is similar, but not entirely the same thing.
Zach: I was fortunate enough not to have to move home. Both of us pretty quickly got our first job.
Alexis: We’re spoiled.
Zach: But, it’s still early. I could move back home next week.
Alexis: Yeah, things could go terribly wrong tomorrow.
Q: One of the things this movie is about is the danger of over-planning life? Are either of you over-planners?
Alexis: I’m not. I really go with the flow.
Zach: I’m definitely the exact same way.
Alexis: I’ll make a list, every now and then, so I don’t forget something, but I don’t stick to one plan with blinders on, the way that Ryden does, at the beginning.
Zach: A bird in hand is better than two in the bush. I can plan all that stuff, but if something presents itself to me right there, I’m like, “All right, I’m going to do that.”
Q: What was it like to work with Vicky Jenson, as a director, since this is her first live-action feature?
Zach: She was very specific.
Alexis: You could tell she’s an animator because, at one point, she told me to hold my hands a certain way and then to move, as if she were animating me. My idea was to just do everything exactly the way she said, to try to be consistent with whatever she had mapped out in her mind because I didn’t want to stray from it, if she had a vision.
Zach: The upside to that is that she does have a vision, and she knew what she wanted. She never really seemed like she wasn’t sure. She knew.
Alexis: She had it in her mind.
Q: Did that feel like too much direction?
Alexis: I don’t mind it. I really go with the flow. I really want to make the process work for everybody. I really am quite adaptable, so it didn’t bother me.
Q: Alexis, this is your first adult role, where you’re playing someone out of college. Were you specifically looking to play someone who wasn’t in high school?
Alexis: Yes, and who wasn’t quite so sweet. She makes some mistakes. She really is a bit blind, at times, especially with Zach’s character, Adam. She forgets that they’re supposed to get together. She’s not perfect, which really attracted me to the role. She felt very relatable.
Q: With a character like that, isn’t there also a danger of her becoming unlikeable because of some of the things she does?
Alexis: I think they worried about that, but they edited it in such a way that you still, hopefully, like her, by the end of the movie. But, some scenes were cut out, for that reason.
Q: What horrible things did she do?
Alexis: It was little tweaks. She was a little more careless with Adam’s emotions, to the point where I think an audience would have thought she was just mean. They really wanted it to be more than she was distracted, and she was focused on her stuff and was oblivious.
Q: Zach, what was the process of you getting this job? Wasn’t it during the writers’ strike, when you had to stop Friday Night Lights?
Zach: Yeah. I got really lucky with it, timing wise. The part opened up, last minute, and I was in Texas, and someone convinced them to let me come in and read. So, I flew in and read with Vicky, and I think Ivan Reitman was there, and the casting directors. And then, they were like, “Okay, now we’ll have you read with Alexis.” And then, after that, they let me have it, and it started filming three days later.
Q: Did they ask if you could play guitar and sing?
Zach: Yeah. They were like, “Do you know how to play guitar?,” and I was like, “Well, yeah, I know how.” I’m not a guitarist, by any means, but in high school, I knew how to play every Dave Matthews song. Since then, I pick it up once a year. So, they were like, “Oh, you know how to play guitar? Great!”
Q: Did you just have a great rapport with each other?
Alexis: He thought I didn’t like him.
Zach: That’s just my insecurities.
Alexis: We were asked to do these acting exercises.
Zach: It’s really awkward. They shove you in a room and they’re like, “You need to charm this person and have great chemistry with her, in order to have this job,” so you’re like, “Okay!” So, with every little thing, you’re like, “Oh, she rubbed her nose. Oh, no. That means she doesn’t like me!”
Alexis: It’s a bit forced. You can’t force chemistry. You just have to read the scenes. But, I think it worked out well for the characters. We’re buddies.
Q: Zach, your character struggles with academic pursuit over his music. How did you feel about your characters decision, and what advice do you have for college students going through that?
Zach: Go to law school. No, I’m just kidding. I don’t know. It’s the struggle that pretty much everyone goes through. I went through a very similar situation, when I finished school. I could have gone to teach high school, or I could go and be an unemployed person trying to be an actor, and I opted to do the latter. With music though, he went to New York to go to law school and New York is a great place to be an independent artist, so he made a good decision. For other people, it’s such a personal thing that I don’t think there’s any real advice to give. Just make sure you’re going to be happy, wherever you’re going.
Q: At the time you made this film, did you realize it was going to be this topical? Given this current environment, how do you think this film will be received?
Alexis: We had no idea it was going to be so topical because we shot the film before the economic crisis and recession. It was topical, anyway, at the time, but now more than ever. I hope that people can relate to it and are entertained by it, and can enjoy the comedy of it.
Zach: I agree. It’s something that everybody goes through, in a way, when they finish school, but now not having a job is a little more what everyone is thinking about. Maybe that big CEO of some company that lost his job is really going to relate to Alexis not finding a job after college.
Q: At any point, in either of your lives, did you have a Plan B, in case the acting thing didn’t work out?
Alexis: Definitely, yeah. I’ve never really been in a situation where I’ve had to really think of something, but I’m basically interested in any of the humanities, like photography, writing and any art, really. I think I would have a hard time choosing because I have so many different interests and I can’t really pinpoint one. I guess you just choose something, when you have to. I don’t know.
Zach: It wasn’t a Plan B so much as I just always grew up working with kids and teaching, in different aspects. After awhile, I probably would have done that. When I was in New York, while I wasn’t really working, I was teaching an after-school program and stuff like that. I probably would have just found my way into that. As I found myself needing a more substantial income, I probably would have found myself more heavily there, into the point where it was my career.
Q: Were you teaching acting?
Zach: No. I never had any desire to teach that. I don’t know anything about it. I don’t know how I convinced them, but there was this after-school program and I made a movie with the kids. We ran all over Queens, and I had this little camcorder. I don’t know how I did this, but it was with a group of 5th graders and then another group of 7th graders. We came up with a script and a story, and then we ran all over the school and the neighborhood, filming stuff.
Q: Where is that film now?
Zach: Oh, dude, I don’t know. It was stressful, but it was fun. It was trying to get these kids, who have no attention span, to do anything for more than five minutes. It was harder than I expected.
Q: What came out of it?
Zach: It was me filming it, literally just on a camcorder, and then just making it on my laptop, which wasn’t even a Mac. It was my college laptop that had six gigs of memory in it.
Q: So, directing is not in your future?
Zach: No, it is. It’s going to be crazy. It was fun, but it was hard.
Q: Alexis, in the movie, your family is really crazy and the dad is totally overbearing. Was that at all relatable for you?
Alexis: No, my dad is not that bad. He’s very creative. He’s always playing music in the living room. He has projects, in the same way Walter does. He can basically build anything, so he’s always working on something on the house. He might be up on the roof, when you don’t expect him to be. He’s always attempting a new project, so in that way, he’s similar, but he doesn’t drive me completely insane.
Q: Have either one of you fallen for a best friend?
Zach: Yeah. It stresses you out a bit. Maybe it would work out next time, or not. Who knows? It was high school.
Alexis: No, I haven’t fallen for a best friend, the way these two characters are best friends. But, guy friends, I guess, yeah.
Q: Alexis, did you like the fact that you’re the one going after the guy, instead of the other way around? Was that attractive to you?
Alexis: I think so. I didn’t really notice it, until I was asked that question, but I like that she’s a strong character. It’s different. Usually in scripts, it’s the guy who has the important storyline and the woman is just very reactionary to his character, so the fact that it was reversed was attractive. It’s something different. But, ideally, you have a male and a female character in a movie, who both have their own objective. And, Zach’s character is really well-written as well. He has such a different viewpoint than Ryden. Ryden has everything so planned out, and Adam is more relaxed and balanced about things, and goes with the flow. He tries to tell her that you can’t plan everything, but she has to learn for herself.
Q: Zach, there have been reports that Matt Saracen is getting an exit arc on Friday Night Lights this season. Is that the case?
Zach: Yeah, as far as I know.
Q: Do you know how many episodes that’s going to be?
Zach: No, I don’t know any specifics, really. I wish I did.
Q: Are you excited to see what they have in mind?
Zach: Yeah. I love that show, with all my heart. I think they do a great job writing stories. They’ve always done really well by me and they’ve got a lot to work with, between who this kid is and his grandmother and all his relationships in that town. I’m curious to see what they have in store.
Q: So, you didn’t ask to be released from the show, right?
Zach: We all knew, at the very beginning, that it was going to be this revolving door of characters ‘cause it’s supposed to be about high school. If you’re not in high school anymore, it’s going to be straying from what the show’s supposed to be about. So, we all expected it. We were all really interested to find out that certain characters we thought were seniors in the first season were, in fact, not. And then, in the second season, we thought they were second-year season, and they, in fact, were not. Some people’s life-spans have been prolonged. I think everyone is going to come back for a few episode, I just don’t know any specifics.
Q: When do you guys go back?
Zach: September.
POST GRAD opens on August 21st
| __________________ never seen
nobody shine the way you do ♥
Alice |
Thanks!
That animation is just adorable 
hehe
I really enjoyed reading their interview they are so alike 
