Love Happens
Love Happens is heading to the big screen next month and first time feature filmmaker Brandon Camp has brought together an great cast.
Jennifer Aniston joins forces with Aaron Eckhart as florist Eloise and self-help author Dr. Burke Ryan who are both struggling with their personal lives.
They have terrific support from the likes of Martin Sheen, Dan Fogler and Judy Greer.
While many writers struggle to make the move to first-time directors, Camp felt the transition was much helped by securing his perfect cast. "I hoped and dreamed that we would have this kind of a cast," the filmmaker says.
"But what was amazing to me is that every first choice I had we actually ended up with. Jen Aniston, Aaron Eckhart, Martin Sheen, Dan Fogler and the rest of our cast were my first choices for the film. That never happens."
When casting the role of Dr. Burke Ryan, director Camp and producers Stuber and Thompson found an actor who was both believable as a widower and one who could elicit empathy from the audience even when he’s being duplicitous.
Camp explains: "Although Burke is lying a bit, it’s very accidental and because of his own circumstances. There’s a great empathy for Aaron and he has such an amazing smile, you can forgive him on screen for his indiscretions. He is also nuanced, and when he delivers a line, it is complex."
Eckhart liked the screenplay for Love Happens and signed on to the project. Of his interest in joining, he says: "I loved the romance part of the script with Jennifer Aniston’s character, Eloise. Burke has many things going on in his own life.
"His wife died three years earlier, and it took everything he had to deal with that pain and loss. Now he’s helping other people to deal with their pain. He is a complex character in that he preaches one thing but doesn’t live what he preaches. Though he’s still a good, sincere guy.
"
Of his aspirations for the film, Eckhart states: "I hope the audience will find the romance to be fun and energetic, sweet and charming. I think they’ll find the grieving part of it to be heartfelt, sincere and touching.
"I feel that we have an obligation to treat grief and those who are grieving with a lot of respect, compassion and empathy."
When Thompson and Camp wrote the character of Burke’s love interest, Eloise, they imagined a woman who was also very broken. Again and again, she keeps falling for the wrong guy. Thompson notes: "Eloise is drawn to Burke due to her own dysfunction; her father abandoned Eloise and her mother when Eloise was very young.
"In many ways, she emulates Burke’s character. She has to go through this journey with him to come to the realisation there is somebody good and positive in her life."
Jennifer Aniston was cast as the free-spirited florist who sets in motion a profound change for Burke just as he helps her to move on. "Jennifer is radiant on screen and she’s so watchable," says Camp.
"Eloise is a character with whom you never know what you’re going to get. She writes on walls, pretends to be deaf, is quirky and eccentric, and has this girl-next-door quality about her. It doesn’t feel forced with Jennifer that human notion of being just a little left of centre, being a little bit different. As much as she’s a movie star, she’s also so relatable and accessible."
When she read Love Happens, Aniston was interested in the dynamic between two lost people in a screenplay that was, as she puts it, "not your typical love story. It’s about two people who are starting a scary, new beginning."
Describing Eloise’s world before Burke, the actress offers: "So far in life, she’s content in the choices that she’s made." But when she meets the self-help guru, "Eloise sees an opportunity to fix something, and Burke is looking to be healed. For him, it’s the first time he’s allowed his heart to feel. When you do that, you have to clean out the skeletons, whether you want to or not."
Though she’d not previously worked with Eckhart in a film, she felt her co-star was ideal for the role of the grieving widow. "You can’t imagine anyone else playing Burke," Aniston commends. "Aaron is spot-on and moves you so much. I found him extremely dedicated and focused. When you work with a performer like that, you constantly have someone giving you something good to volley with."
Stuber was glad to have Aniston back. In 2006, the two worked with Vince Vaughn on the producer’s first blockbuster, The Break-Up. "Working with Jen again was terrific," commends Stuber. "During our last film, she gave every bit of herself to perfect her moments be they comedy or drama. She has great complexity as an actress. She’s rare in that she has great comedic timing and real emotional depth."
Tony Award-winning actor Dan Fogler came aboard as Burke’s literary manager, Lane, whose megastar ambitions for Burke (and himself) entail a major corporate deal with a TV show. The filmmakers were wary of turning the character of Lane into a hackneyed archetype. Fogler took the role and blew away their expectations of who Lane could be.
Offers Stuber: "Dan has this effusive energy, which is good because Aaron’s character has to be a bit more reserved. Lane’s got heart to him, too, which is the beauty of his character.
"We’ve seen the clichéd manager-agent who’s just a killer. But this is a guy who’s Burke’s friend; they’ve done this together, and he obviously wants to be successful. But most importantly, he wants his friend to be happy. The humanness that Dan brought to the character is a virtue of the movie. Dan made the character real."
"Love Happens was a different kind of story for me," adds Fogler. "It had a lot of big issues in
it, like surviving the death of a loved one. There’s something appealing about this character. Lane’s dream is to become the global visionary that he thinks he is.
"If Burke succeeds, then Lane will succeed. He’s like a ball of stress in the entire movie, constantly playing mother to Burke."
Long known for stealing scenes in such comedies as 27 Dresses, 13 Going on 30 and The Wedding Planner, Judy Greer was cast as Marty, Eloise’s wild co-worker who chastises her about her love life.
Marty thinks (correctly) that Eloise has a pattern of choosing unavailable men. For her role, the actress was able to take what was on the page and create a unique improv dialogue. "At first, Marty is not a big fan of the Burke-Eloise relationship," notes Greer.
"She has her own issues, because she was pretty badly hurt in a relationship and has turned into a militant feminist. Marty feels like Eloise’s mom a nurturer and a caregiver. She says it like it is, and tries to shake Eloise out of her reverie."
The performer gave the filmmakers more than they expected of the character. Says Thompson: "Marty’s a bit more aware of Eloise’s dysfunction than Eloise is and calls her out on it. The energy and physical comedy that Judy brings, in addition to the lines she literally made up, are fantastic. Everything this woman does is funny."
John Carroll Lynch, most recently seen in Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, was brought on to the project as reluctant workshopper Walter Mayfield. Lynch reflects on what drew him to the role: "The script appealed to me because I found it emotionally messy and complicated. I like scripts that aren’t wrapped up so neatly that you walk away thinking everything is perfect."
He continues: "There’s a kind of circus quality to these kinds of self-help seminars. They really play on your emotions. It’s like a revival meeting, and Walter doesn’t buy any of that. He’s affected by Burke’s dealing with the loss of his own wife more than the hot coals or the field trips into the streets of Seattle.
"It’s not the bells and whistles that get these people through. What does is seeing how other people in grief actually work through it. The irony is that Burke is having the same journey as Walter is and, in some ways, he is a little behind him."
Multi-award-winning performer Martin Sheen was cast as Burke’s father-in-law, who becomes the catalyst to force Burke to confront what he’s been running away from for the past three years. Stuber sums up what the cast and the crew felt about Sheen’s participation: "This was a dream for all of us.
"Martin was who we had hoped to get in that part from day one. He’s an icon, and we are all enormous fans. We just kept coming and coming and coming at him to get him to agree. He jokes, 'I think we wore him down into doing the movie. He might have even said, ‘I’ll do it so I don’t have to hear from you people anymore.’
After he read the screenplay, Sheen was happy to take the part. The actor offers: "The biggest appeal of the story is that it’s one of redemption, a story of how we come to accept ourselves as human. And part of being human is being broken.
"Most of us are broken sometime during the journey that we’re given to travel. When we are able to focus on the brokenness and heal ourselves and each other, then we become strong."
Rounding out the main cast is Rocky, a 20-year-old, white-feathered, yellow-crested parrot also known as APOLLO. Burke eventually releases Rocky into the wild a promise he’d made to his now-deceased wife. But getting rid of Rocky for good proves harder than anyone thinks.
Love Happens is released 9th October.
Love Happens is heading to the big screen next month and first time feature filmmaker Brandon Camp has brought together an great cast.
Jennifer Aniston joins forces with Aaron Eckhart as florist Eloise and self-help author Dr. Burke Ryan who are both struggling with their personal lives.
They have terrific support from the likes of Martin Sheen, Dan Fogler and Judy Greer.
While many writers struggle to make the move to first-time directors, Camp felt the transition was much helped by securing his perfect cast. "I hoped and dreamed that we would have this kind of a cast," the filmmaker says.
"But what was amazing to me is that every first choice I had we actually ended up with. Jen Aniston, Aaron Eckhart, Martin Sheen, Dan Fogler and the rest of our cast were my first choices for the film. That never happens."
When casting the role of Dr. Burke Ryan, director Camp and producers Stuber and Thompson found an actor who was both believable as a widower and one who could elicit empathy from the audience even when he’s being duplicitous.
Camp explains: "Although Burke is lying a bit, it’s very accidental and because of his own circumstances. There’s a great empathy for Aaron and he has such an amazing smile, you can forgive him on screen for his indiscretions. He is also nuanced, and when he delivers a line, it is complex."
Eckhart liked the screenplay for Love Happens and signed on to the project. Of his interest in joining, he says: "I loved the romance part of the script with Jennifer Aniston’s character, Eloise. Burke has many things going on in his own life.
"His wife died three years earlier, and it took everything he had to deal with that pain and loss. Now he’s helping other people to deal with their pain. He is a complex character in that he preaches one thing but doesn’t live what he preaches. Though he’s still a good, sincere guy.
"
Of his aspirations for the film, Eckhart states: "I hope the audience will find the romance to be fun and energetic, sweet and charming. I think they’ll find the grieving part of it to be heartfelt, sincere and touching.
"I feel that we have an obligation to treat grief and those who are grieving with a lot of respect, compassion and empathy."
When Thompson and Camp wrote the character of Burke’s love interest, Eloise, they imagined a woman who was also very broken. Again and again, she keeps falling for the wrong guy. Thompson notes: "Eloise is drawn to Burke due to her own dysfunction; her father abandoned Eloise and her mother when Eloise was very young.
"In many ways, she emulates Burke’s character. She has to go through this journey with him to come to the realisation there is somebody good and positive in her life."
Jennifer Aniston was cast as the free-spirited florist who sets in motion a profound change for Burke just as he helps her to move on. "Jennifer is radiant on screen and she’s so watchable," says Camp.
"Eloise is a character with whom you never know what you’re going to get. She writes on walls, pretends to be deaf, is quirky and eccentric, and has this girl-next-door quality about her. It doesn’t feel forced with Jennifer that human notion of being just a little left of centre, being a little bit different. As much as she’s a movie star, she’s also so relatable and accessible."
Tagged in Jennifer Aniston