So excited that the THE LONGEST RIDE opened. Have you seen it yet?
If you read my first post about The Longest Ride, I spoke about the first interview we had with the cast. Read that post — http://www.themamamaven.com/2015/04/02/the-longest-ride-1/.
THE LONGEST RIDE is based on the on the bestselling novel by Nicholas Sparks and centers on the star-crossed love affair between Luke (played by Scott Eastwood), a former champion bull rider looking to make a comeback after a horrific injury, and Sophia (played by Britt Robertson), a college student who is about to embark upon her dream job in New York City’s art world. As conflicting paths and ideals test their relationship, Sophia and Luke make an unexpected connection with Ira (played by Alan Alda), whose memories of his own decades-long romance with his beloved wife Ruth (played by Oona Chaplin) deeply inspire the young couple. Spanning generations and two intertwining love stories, THE LONGEST RIDE explores the challenges and infinite rewards of enduring love.
In other words– even though Scott Eastwood is really hot, the movie is more about just him!
I mentioned in my last post that Ira and Ruth’s love story really affected me. Oona Chaplin and Jack Huston were just so amazing together. Oona can show such emotion with her eyes and she just lit up the screen. This post is about our group interview with Oona Chaplin, Director George Tillman, Jr., and the legendary Alan Alda.
Photo Credit: Milena Barrett at BeYourBestMom.com
In the film, Oona Chaplin plays Ruth, a refugee from Vienna, Austria from a 19 year old to middle age. One of the bloggers asked,”I was just going to ask you about how difficult was it to play that range of age? You did it beautifully. But, was it hard to be 19 and then all the way into being married?
Oona Chaplin answered, “I think that was one of the juiciest bits about the job, is that you get to explore almost a lifetime, not quite a lifetime, but almost a lifetime, a pretty good chunk of life. And, yes, it sort of surprised me how far away my 17-year-old self felt. I was shocked by that.
And then I was also really inspired by the women that I had conversations with about life and love and everything as sort of ground my elder performance, particularly a couple women that I know that haven’t been able to have children. I think that was the biggest challenge I think for the part, was to get the depth of feeling of what that actually means.”
There was a scene near the end of the movie that was just heartbreaking that starred Alan Alda and the actress who plays an older Ruth. A scene that just brought me to tears.
I asked Mr. Alda about how he could expressed his emotions so vividly.
He answered,”I never had an easier time to feel what the character is feeling than I did on this movie because it could happen to me [referring to his relationship to his own wife] . You don’t have to imagine yourself into that. I guess there’s not much more I can tell you about that.”
Director George Tillman, Jr. had a difficult job — besides making the movie, he had to weave two stories together, one present day and one in the past.
Denise from Shhs Mom’s Reading asked, “What element of the book was the most difficult for you to translate onto film?”
Mr. Tillman replied, “I think overall just really the challenge is that you have two stories. And how does each story kind of impact the others? So, we had a lot of great moments and great scenes. But, when do you move into the second story? When do you move into Ira and Ruth’s story? When do you move back to Sophia and Luke? And when does Ira and Sophia’s story start to affect both stories and start to come together in a very collaborative way and kind of inform the other in the third act?
So, it was always a combination of do you move these scenes around? Try that here. Move it there. It was so much great stuff and so much emotion that you have to sometimes sacrifice and get out of scenes a little sooner. So, that was always the challenge. That is always a challenge when you’re doing two stories and then two decades.
But, what really made it very fun and very organic is you have a very strong theme. They’re very bound by the same theme, and that really made it really challenge, but fun, as a director.”
Mr. Tillman, you did a great job.
Check out the trailer.
The Longest Ride is in theaters now.
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This press event was hosted by 20th Century Fox
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