"Our Letter to Amanda..."

For many, their first memory of Amanda Seyfried is of her lying dead on the concrete from a blunt force trauma wound to the head. That would be her breakout role as Lily Kane, the deceased best friend of the title character on Veronica Mars. Still others’ first impression of Seyfried was as Mean Girls halfwit Karen, the girl with the unusual talent for predicting the weather and a thing for her first cousin. But on this warm and sunny day in SoHo’s Crosby St. Hotel, Amanda Seyfried is both alive and… well, smart. Since the two roles that put this doe-eyed blonde on the map, she’s been one very busy girl. Roles in Mamma Mia!, Jennifer’s Body, the TV show Big Love and Dear John followed.

Seyfried enters the room looking strikingly approachable in a cool grey shirt and blazer. She sinks into her chair to discuss her latest film, the sweet romance Letters to Juliet. Seyfried plays Sophie, an aspiring writer who goes to Verona with her restaurant owner fiancé (Gael Garcia Bernal). While her beau distractedly meets with suppliers, Sophie is left to her own devices. After some snooping, she discovers that it’s tradition for lovelorn women to leave letters to Juliet (of Romeo and Juliet fame) and a group of women who call themselves the Daughters of Juliet painstakingly answer each one. When Sophie finds one hidden letter that was never given a response, she makes it her mission to find the mystery women and reunite her with her lost love. Sophie ultimately bonds with that woman, Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), and the woman’s grandson, Charlie (Christopher Egan).

“[Director] Gary Winick was my number one reason for doing [the film],” Seyfried explains. “I met with him right after I read the script that morning. It was an instant connection… It’s funny, it’s not the type of movie I’d normally wanna do because it’s pretty broad and light but at the same

"Our Letter to Amanda..."

time there was so much – especially after Vanessa got cast – there was just so much more to it. After I signed on it became something different and even though it’s just this romantic movie the character became deeper and the storyline meant more to me.”

Seyfried‘s worked with some big names recently, Meryl Streep and Redgrave being among them. So how does she prepare to play scenes with such legends? “I never have expectation anymore,” she says. ” I stopped having expectations when I was a teenager because it always ended in heartbreak or disappointment. I had maybe a tiny bit of expectation working with Meryl because I was so intimidated the whole time and I learned that that little bit of expectation was just wrong and you have to just be open to whatever happens.”

She adds, “Having confidence just takes you from being a decent actor and doing a really bad job to being a decent actor doing a really good job – or at least not having any hindrances in doing what it is you’re supposed to be doing.”

According to Winick, Seyfried was not hindered in the least. He credits her with being a completely natural performer – whenever she felt like something wasn’t playing true, she’d be sure to change it. “I still look at the movie and see moments where I feel like it’s too much but also I can be too subtle which is why I think I’d be really bad on stage,” Seyfried admits. “But I don’t like being false and even though I’m playing a character and it is all false, I want it to be as real as possible without it being actually real. I don’t like melodrama, I hate it. I think there’s always a way to make everything feel natural.”

And how does she get that natural feeling? Part of it is talent, the other part is rehearsal – a process in

"Our Letter to Amanda..."

which Seyfried revels. “You can just be pushed in rehearsal and go too far and come back and when you’re just shooting it you may never find the moment that’s there unless you really get to know a scene and it becomes second nature,” she says.

Seyfried had to have a certain amount of chemistry with both Gael Garcia Bernal, who plays her passionate yet clueless fiancé, and Christopher Egan, who becomes Sophie’s potential real-life “Romeo.” When playing opposite Bernal, she had to convey why Sophie may have been hesitant to leave this unhealthy relationship.

“I think she was just frustrated and I think she didn’t really know how to go about telling him that it just didn’t feel right,” she says. “I mean I don’t think she realized it didn’t feel right. I think she was just frustrated that they weren’t spending any time together but I’m sure she was a bit confused by how she felt because she knew he had to get the work done and that’s why they went to Verona. She’s also very used to him being dramatic and passionate and sometimes because she can’t relate to that she just has to let it blow over.”

But then she meets Charlie. At first the two don’t hit it off. Charlie comes off as a cynical, stuck up British brat. What’s Seyfried‘s take on American-British relations? Considering she’s dating British actor Dominic Cooper in real life, we’d say she doesn’t have any problems. And we’d be right. “I certainly don’t have any issues,” she said. “But I think Sophie for some reason kind of had assumptions about Charlie. I mean he was really tight-assed and just snooty and probably if she had any inclinations about Brits then he definitely proved her right. But that’s just how some relationships begin – on the wrong foot.”

The more they travel together in search of Claire’s long lost love, the more they start to see

"Our Letter to Amanda..."

the good in one another. The fact that Claire’s love is played by Redgrave‘s real-life husband, Franco Nero, was just icing on the cake. “They’ve had a 30 year relationship, long distance, back and forth,” Seyfried says of the two. “He lives in Italy, she lives in the UK. It’s ridiculous – it’s amazing! It’s so much more powerful because they are really together than if they weren’t. They had this connection; they have this energy between them that you can’t fake no matter how hard you try. When he rides in on the horse and she looks at him – that’s my favorite moment. That’s like one of the best scenes I’ve ever witnessed and it’s in our movie so I’m very proud of that.”

And apparently, Italians were proud to have them filming in their country. “All the managers of the restaurants in the piazza and all the owners of the houses that we shot at and the hotel owners and the vineyard owners, they all just were so happy to have us in their midst,” Seyfried said. “And Italians are just cool and warm and they just wanna feed you. It’ such a funny thing, ’cause I just wanna eat so it was a good match.”

While craft services got off to a rocky start – Seyfried says they were only given cookies and oranges at first – it eventually got better. “They weren’t giving us any food at first,” she said. “And then came the spinach and mozzarella sandwiches – woah! Those were amazing. And mortadella sandwiches, that’s my favorite meat.”

But her favorite meal in the country might surprise you – and might outrage some PETA supporters. “Don’t get grossed out,” she warned. “It was a rabbit bolognese. I ate rabbit. Sorry, Carrot. I had a rabbit named Carrot when I was 10. It died.”

She was so sweet and nice, we can’t really fault her for her taste in cuisine. Hey, when in

"Our Letter to Amanda..."

Rome, right? Or in this case, when in Verona!