SAFE HAVEN
Rating: PG-13
Run time: 115 minutes
Safe Haven is coming out to theaters on February 14th, just days away. I was able to attend an advanced screening of the film and did read Safe Haven before attending the event. Josh Duhamel (Alex Wheatley) and Julianne Hough (Katie Feldman) are two people in search of happiness and second chances.
For those of you have already read the book, this movie is a thriller, which created a unique opportunity and challenge for the producers. It was adapted with heightened suspense and done with new twists and turns to the storyline. It creates an element of surprise for even those of us who already familiar with the book. Just to forewarn Safe Haven readers, the character Kristen was changed to Lexi by Nicholas Sparks for the film. I read it is his daughter’s name and she wanted to have her name included in one of his films. Aw, what a sweet dad!
For those of you new to Safe Haven, it brings you romance and emotion, but also has scenes of action and suspense, a win-win for both sexes. Click on the YouTube link below and view the trailer if you haven’t seen it on television yet.
Interview with Nicholas Sparks, Josh Duhamel, and Julianne Hough from Jan. 23, 2013 in Minneapolis–
Josh, what are you doing in North Dakota and you are involved in something big there?
Nicholas: The restaurant, perhaps?
Josh: Well, we’ve done a few things, like the flood benefit.
Nicholas: He’s from North Dakota.
Josh: Yea, I’m from there so there could be a lot of things.
Okay. Nothing specifically big and exciting right now? When was the flood benefit?
Josh: The (Black Eyed) Peas came in and did a big concert last September and it was really cool for the flood benefit.
I read you wanted to really dig dipper into your characters so how do you go beyond what Nicholas wrote on the page? How do you give your character depth and learn more about your character?
Julianne: Obviously what was written was so great and informative. For my character, with what she’s gone through and what’s she’s trying to overcome, I went and visited some female shelters and therapists that I actually know, personal experiences, friend’s experiences, people who I’ve talked to and…
Josh: She learned how to ride a bike. She didn’t know how to ride a bike. (laughter in room)
What did you do when you were five?
Josh: We took the training wheels off earlier.
Julianne: It was a joke. He’s joking. (laughter in room)
Josh: For me, I wanted to get inside of a guy that is raising two kids on his own and what’s it like to lose a loved one and having to raise kids. I spoke to my therapist and a couple other people who had dealt with stuff like this. A friend of mine, who was actually at the screening last night, I was apprehensive about even asking him to come because his wife just died of cancer a month and a half ago and he has two twin boys and so he’s going through what this character goes through and I just talked to him, “How are you?” and “How are you dealing with all of this?” and all that stuff was important to me because with the kids I wanted to have a real specific relationship with both of them because it was so important. To me, these relationships with them were as important as my relationship with her (Julianne’s character, Katie Feldman) because I couldn’t just all willy nilly jump in and be like, “gosh, a beautiful woman, she’s gorgeous,” and not consider how it might affect the kids.
Julianne: You think I’m gorgeous? Just kidding. (laughter in room)
Josh: I had two weeks before the shooting, just sitting on the beach of North Carolina, writing, reading, boogie boarding, and just thinking about it and absorbing this little town that we were in and getting to really live this character for a while before shooting it and that was invaluable.
Nicholas , Safe Haven has been noted as your first love story with the twist of also being a thriller. Do you think your future works might contain the thriller element as well?
Nicholas: Sure, absolutely. How that will unfold will of course depend on the story I choose to write, but basically you have three dangers, a dangerous person, dangerous place, or a dangerous thing, like Jaws. So in time, absolutely. You want to keep these stories feeling very fresh and in order to do that, you want to vary them and add threads of familiarity. North Carolina, two nice looking people, flawed, they struggle, but they’re not sure and come together and they realize the way they feel about each other is healing. You know, you want some of these small town threads, but you want to make it different. You don’t want people walking out and saying “gosh, I could have just rented The Notebook last night. You wanted them to say Safe Haven was great in its own rite and I really think that’s really the what they pulled off. You have to vary. There could be mystery, danger, all sorts of things.
Josh: I think with your books too, there is a demographic of girls who have grown up with them, her (Julianne) being one of them.
Julianne: Oh yea.
Josh: That’s the key demographic. There’s an evolution of sorts with these books. This one doesn’t deal so much with “first love”, but it deals with people who have had their first love and are now getting a second chance where they may have felt they did not have that before and it’s a little scarier than the stuff he’s done before, which I like because it was different in that way.
Did you actually set up to do a thriller first or did you come up with the character first?
Nicholas: It was very interesting. Once I had the idea, the first character I created was Kevin Tierney and I wrote him from start to finish, 60 pages, 70 pages, or whatever it was. One voice over a period of 5-6 days and just labeled them sections 1-8 and that way I stayed in this crazy person’s voice. And so I wrote then to do a love story between Katie and Alex and I would get to a certain point and say, “section 1 of Kevin will go here and I will call it Chapter 14”, or whatever. I never start a novel unless I’m very clear on themes, pacing, development, the ending and it all.
Josh: You know the beginning and the end?
Nicholas: I know exactly what the end will be. You are trying to move the viewer through all the emotions of life so if you look at Safe Haven, you’ll see love, anger, betrayal..
Josh: So you write yourself out of any holes, I guess?
Nicholas: That’s right. If you get to the end and say, “oh my gosh, I forgot anger or I forgot love or loss.” You have to cover it all. You want people laughing and crying.
Josh: You shouldn’t give away so many of your secrets. You’re gonna make us think we can all do this. (laughter in room)
Julianne, the scenes near the end were very scary. How did you prep for that?
Julianne: I don’t want to say that it wasn’t hard to play, but it was REALLY fun because I’m a very active, athletic person so to do these fight scenes was so much fun for me. It’s like choreography for dancing. You have your routine, your fight routine, plus David (Lyons) is like on of my closest and best friends so there was a safety there with him. We’d be laughing hysterically between takes and get it going again. Yea, I enjoyed it. Being hit, it’s a hard thing to experience and go through, but I’m very fortunate that I liked the guy and he liked me. We also had a great director. You could be vulnerable and not exposed. It was good.
Are you as romantic in real life as you are in your books?
Nicholas: Yes, I try to be. My wife likes romantic things. “Happy wife, happy life”, those rules. You do those things. Yea.
What does your wife think of all the success with The Notebook and things?
Nicholas: Not too much. She doesn’t make a deal about it, nor do I. For the most part when I’m home, where I work, I’m not a famous author or anything. I mean I’m just not the famous author. That’s just what it is. It’s not like you can write a book in a day. I wrote a section of chapter 14 or whatever. I’m a husband, I’m a father. I think it’s always befuddling to her when I head out in public though. (laughs)
Julianne: He’s being VERY humble right now. (laughs)
How is being in movies/entertainment changed from before you got in? Is it what you thought it would be?
Josh: It’s not nearly as glamorous as it seems. It’s a lot harder work than I think people realize. You know, the movie making and everything is nothing. It’s this, it’s the interviews. That was a joke (laughter in room). It’s not as glamorous as it seems, but at the same time, I always wanted an outlet creatively because that was the only thing I was ever good at, whether it was writing, or drawing, or anything art related. If it involved crunching numbers, I couldn’t do it. I never knew what this would bring and I think you have expectations, you dream about what it will be. Nobody leaves this business without being very humbled and I’ve had a lot of humbling experiences in this business too. It’s easy to fall into certain traps and you learn as you go that at the end of the day it’s just about literally the reason I love it is because I get to be creative. Other than that, my life hasn’t really changed much. After you go full circle, you first think it’s going to be premieres…
Nicholas: Fans, taking photos..(laughter)
Josh: You literally find someone you love and literally do what anyone else does. Live a regular life. I just love doing it. Does that make any sense?
Nicholas: Is it what you expect?
Julianne: I don’t know. The one thing that I’ve just always wanted to be is an entertainer, be an actress, a dancer, a singer. You think it is glamorous, you think you go to these parties and these premieres and everything. I remember somebody telling me you are going to get to a point where it is work and I was like, “that’s not true, this is incredible.” Now it’s like, I love doing the actual creative process, but sometimes the life that comes with it does become work and you just want to go home and play with your dogs and cook and do those things. Having to be constantly on and happy, like everybody has a rough day. That said, a little different. Not to say that I don’t love being on and being around people, I do love that. Now not everybody is mysterious in the entertainment world, every body’s accessible. You have to be accessible. It’s almost like to keep up, you have to be accessible and there’s a lot more that comes with that. It’s more of a serious side, but I do love what I do and it’s so worth everything.
Josh: I wonder if there’s too much accessibility with all the Twitter and stuff? I’m constantly going back and forth. I have a Twitter account. You wonder…
Julianne: If you take it out though, you’re not keeping up.
Josh: There’s a fine line between staying in the game and becoming overly accessible and people won’t be hungry for it if they get everything they want.
Julianne: Yea.
Josh: Because part of it is keeping mysterious, keeping people want it so you have to maintain some air of mystery.
Julianne: It’s like a relationship, giving them what they want. (laughter)
Many thanks to Anna of Girl With Blog, Chrysa of Thrifty Jinxy, Andrea of Living Changerously, and Samara of Simplicity in the Suburbs for the great questions they shared during the Safe Haven press junket.
For the official Safe Haven Website: http://safehavenfilm.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/safehavenmovie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/safehavenmovie
Instagram: http://instagram.com/safehavenmovie
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/safehavenmovie/
Thank you to the staff of Allied THA for allowing me to participate in this wonderful event and Nicholas Sparks, Josh Duhamel, and Julianne Hough for stepping away from their busy schedules to candidly share a bit about themselves and Safe Haven.
