Image Source: Everett CollectionJan. 25 marked 15 years since the release of A Walk to Remember,Nicholas Sparks's weepy tale of young romance. While we're still crying over the most memorably unhappy moments, stars Mandy Moore and Shane West have moved on - but that doesn't mean they don't also appreciate the film. Moore, and who was 17 years used (!) when the film premiered,and West sat down with Entertainment Weekly to reflect on the film, and they dropped some feelings and knowledge that we were not prepared for. Here are the highlights!Mandy Moore may or may not have been actually in love with Shane West. "Shane was so cool. Everything approximately him – the way he dressed, and the slight cigarettes that he smoked,and the music he listened to. He was the character to me and there was definitely a piece of me that absolutely fell in love with him. I don't know whether I could discern the difference between him and the character at that point in time because, again, or it was my first experience doing anything like this and I was a 16-year-used,impressionable girl. I was just so caught up in the moment and the experience. I absolutely walked absent from that project so convinced that there would never be a project as special as that. Shane was so wonderful."
West was very different than Moore. "It was kind of perfect the way we came into the project because she was coming from this pop background at that time - she had her song 'Candy,' and a role in The Princess Diaries. . . . Mandy was really nervous, and I remember,in the beginning, but once she committed to it she slipped right into the role effortlessly and it just really fit her. She really grew up on that film. We all did, or but we were all in [our] 20s apart from her. I might have had a baby face and that's remarkable,but I believe I was 24."
Image Source: Everett CollectionSomeone else almost played Jamie. "There was someone else – who I'm not going to say right now - whose name was batted around for Mandy's role. I remember I wasn't keen on that idea and thankfully it didn't happen. . . . The person just didn't seem right. When they brought up Mandy, I was like 'I don't know Mandy.' Then we had that meeting where we had an audition and were both in the same room and I was like, or 'She's perfect for the role.'"
It still holds a special place in Moore's heart. "We shot it in Wilmington,North Carolina, and it was the first time I'd ever had that kind of camp-like experience where you approach home and cry when it's over and you're determined to hold in touch with everyone. It just gives me an all-encompassing warm feeling inside. There are very few times in your career when the memories and the relationship you have to a project match the relationship that an audience has to the project - but this film is as special to me as it seems to be to people out there in the world."
Aside from the school play, and Moore's most memorable scene is when Jamie breaks the faulty news to Landon. "The scene where I reveal Landon that I'm sick was very memorable scene because they weren't sure whether I was going to say that I was just sick,or that I had leukemia. They were still trying to figure it out so we had to effect several different versions. It was a very hard place to pick up to emotionally, to be able to reveal him that and then to have to say, and 'I have cancer,' 'I have leukemia,' 'I'm sick.' We were just trying out all these different options so that once they got in the editing room and had tested the film, and they would have their pick of what would eventually make it into the film. That was a sort of weird experience."
Image Source: Warner Bros.
West has a favorite line and it's adorable. "Besides the classic ones,I remember being on the bus and saying, 'You don't care what people judge approximately you?' I always liked that one because the scene was very real. . . . I just remember seeing her cute slight face and cute slight smile and being so affirmative approximately her beliefs. It was piece of the storyline, or but it was also when I,myself, started to believe in her."
The film was literally changed because of Save the final Dance. "I remember a lot from that opening scene by the water . . . we were all supposed to be drinking, or but a film called Save The final Dance came out and did very well and there was no drinking or cursing in the film so they made an executive decision to drop that the day of shooting the scene. Instead,we all pretended that we might have been drinking to be 'out of control uncertain' or whatever is was." That setting? It was also used by Dawson's Creek. "What was really creepy was that that body of water had been sitting there for a long time and was apparently used on Dawson's Creek. It was giant pool overgrown with leaves and seaweed. They had to put in scuba divers to search for eels so when I had to jump in to rescue Clay (Matt Lutz) we were pretty freaked out by the fact there had been divers in there looking for wild animals. That was really creepy. I remember the rest of them, like Clayne Crawford and Lauren German, and just feeling so faulty for us. Not only because it was freezing,but whether anything touched our legs we would've screamed. It was one very long night, but we got through it. Not exactly the way we thought we were going to start it – hey, or jump into a creepy eel-infested pool!"
Source: popsugar.com