Movies Features

Felicity Jones talks Like Crazy

By Anne Brodie Oct 24, 2011, 13:26 GMT

A love story is both a physical and emotional tale, one that can be deeply personal and heartbreaking for an audience to experience. Director Drake Doremus\' film "Like Crazy" beautifully illustrates how your first real love is as thrilling and blissful as it is devastating. When a British college student (Felicity Jones) falls for her American classmate (Anton Yelchin) they embark on a passionate and life-changing journey only to be ...more

British actress Felicity Jones is threatening to become the next big thing to North American audiences thanks to her star turn in Drake Doremus’ romantic drama, Like Crazy.  She and Anton Yelchin play lovers separated when she overstays her student visa to California and is sent home to England. 

It’s a heart wrenching portrait of love and will that takes place over years, as they navigate the legal and actual waters that separate them.  It’s an intimate story, almost too close for comfort at times and sometimes it’s hard to understand their motivations.  Some may have trouble with her character’s irresponsibility and selfishness, as captivating as she is. 

She is a complex and fascinating woman and Jones had a field day creating her. 

Monsters and Critics spoke with Jones in Toronto.

M&C: Anna ignored her visa requirements, what did she think would happen?   Did she think she’d get a free pass to stay in LA because she’s in love?

Jones: It’s consistent with her character.  She comes from a very secure background.  She has two incredibly loving parents who have given her this freedom and she doesn’t need to think things through.   She is the kind of person who will just jump into things and no worry about the consequences. 

It’s partly youth, but she feels this point that she is just responding to instinct, she loves this person and she’s determined to stay with him and not thinking about the future.

M&C: There is a cringe worthy scene where they fight.  How did you do it without becoming melodramatic?

Jones: I remember we did that and it was quite good, we shot quite late on and Anton and I knew each other well enough that we could be quite nasty to each other without the other person feeling offended.  We’d take on these characters to the point where we weren’t tiptoeing around each other.  We wanted to catch how cruel you can be when you’re in a relationship. 

You might be a good, loving human being but when it comes down to it sometimes, you reveal terrible things about yourself.

M&C: She wasn’t being completely honest in terms of her work.  She didn’t say in words how important it was to her to get ahead in publishing which means she’d stay in England.

Jones: Absolutely, and that’s one of the things I can empathized with her, how to balance all these aspects of your life, relationships, work and how to maintain both.  At the beginning she puts the relationship first and as she gets older and she’s ambitious and determined, she realized she has to pursue what she loves doing which is writing and being a journalist.  

But she makes the ultimate sacrifice at the end and leaves that job.  She does seem to put love over work, eventually.

M&C: Was there anything personally that you brought?  Did you ever have a situation like this?

Jones: Being an actor I can understand her alienation, you’re constantly traveling and different place san different times and I could understand Anna to be from somewhere and then be in a different environment and how that brings things out of you.  In London, she is a completely different person than she is in California.

M&C: Since this was mostly improvisation, was the role close to who you are?

Jones: For something like this, you can’t help but bring something of yourself to the role, particularly as you’re improvising and using your own instincts.  But I think we were keen for there to be some separation of who we are and the characters. 

Anna is a lot more impulsive than I am and that was what I liked about her.   She makes decisions without really thinking them through which is how they get her into trouble throughout the movie.  So there were many things I could see that were different that I wanted to examine and think about.

M&C: Did you have the freedom to “create” Anna since there was so much improvisation?  Or did you stick with Doremus’ vision?

Jones: Because Drake Doremus cast me without ever meeting me, which I think is incredibly brave, I felt that I had to return that trust and so from the very beginning it was a partnership and we both forged the character together. 

It’s all in the moment, it just works, its rapport.  I said to Drake I have to be a part of this and he said he had to see me in action and I made a tape. 

He said just don’t be constrained by anything, be free and try anything, you won’t be judged.  That’s what’s so important.   I thought wow, it is okay for me to set up a camera in my shower and do a scene.

M&C: What will people take away from the film?

Jones: It was made in such an honest way and no one was trying to trick anyone, there was no gimmick, which I hope people respond to the honestly of it, that’s my hope.  I think what people like is that you’re so close to the people and in watching the film here is something voyeuristic about it and people love watching other human beings  and to see them this close is quite exciting.

In a world where their senses are dulled because there is so much information coming at us all the time, to see people having intense feeling, it seems to be a point in time where people really need it.   I find people are very quiet after watching it.  It takes time for people to come out of the world of the films which is exciting.  People are overtaken by it.

M&C: You star in Doremus’ next film.  What kind of person do you play? 

Jones: The next film is a lot darker.  The circumstances are much more difficult.  It’s about an exchange student who comes to live with a family outside New York and she falls in love with the father.

It’s a darker love story than Like Crazy and my character has a lot more baggage, and was more much wary of the world.   It was just so fantastic the first time working with him and it’s a very natural thing to be working with him.

M&C: How do you think Like Crazy will impact your career?

Jones: It can be quite daunting when you think too far into the future so I try and just work with each script that I get sent and as long as I feel instinctively interested in the character or story then I feel you can’t go too far wrong.  As long as you make decisions that feel right then you’re not being too influenced by other people then you should be okay.

Visit the movie database for more information. Like Crazy opens in Toronto on Nov. 4th with a wide release planned to follow.