(2005) Sisterhood reveals secrets of 'Traveling Pants'
May 29, 2005
BY CINDY PEARLMAN
LOS ANGELES -- Size matters. It's especially relevant when you star in a movie about a pair of magic Levi's. At the moment, three young actresses are lamenting the jean size of Lindsay Lohan.
You might have heard that Lindsay recently dropped some pounds.
"Weight. It's a very emotional issue," says America Ferrera, who at 20 has enough curves to have starred in a movie called "Real Women Have Curves." "Lindsay is thinner, but it could be stress," says "Gilmore Girl" Alexis Bledel, 23. What if someone in Hollywood told either of them they needed to get down to size 0 for a role? Now it's "Joan of Arcadia" herself, Amber Tamblyn, 22, who begins to spaz out. "I'm sorry, but the size of my butt doesn't make me a good or bad actress. Give me a break!"
Actually, each is getting a big break this summer by starring in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," which opens Friday and is based on the best-selling teen novel by Ann Brashares. The book revolves around lifelong friends who must spend their first summer apart. Tamblyn is the future filmmaker, Bledel is shipped off to Greece to stay with her grandmother, and Ferrera is the overweight girl mandated by a custody agreement to stay with her father and his fiancee. They bond by shipping a pair of magic jeans back and forth to each other.
Over breakfast at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Century City, the princesses of "Pants" -- each wearing jeans -- took on bigger topics to see if they fit.
Q. Has anyone ever told you girls to drop a few pounds for a role?
Bledel: Before I got "Gilmore Girls," I was modeling. I went in for a call and was told, "Sweetie, you need to lose two inches off those hips." I was 14.
So I just replied, "I have more jobs than I can do. I'm in high school. I can't go to all the trouble of losing the two inches, so I'll pass." Someone might tell you to lose weight, but you can say no.
Ferrera: I think Hispanic women are beautiful with their curves. I'm not sure who feels that way in Hollywood. I was never told to lose 50 pounds. If they think that they just don't bother with you. You just don't get the role and you never know why. That's still better than physically harming yourself and becoming unhealthy just to star in a movie.
Q. Did any of you borrow from your very recent teenage years for the angst in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants"?
Ferrera: Well, I play a girl visiting her father who is absent in her life. My parents separated when I was younger and my father was completely absent. So I wouldn't say my acting in this movie just comes from my life, but I didn't have to stretch too far for the feelings of being isolated, abandoned and out of place.
Bledel: I have my first kiss in the film, but we're not going there on how it happened in real life!
Tamblyn: To me, the film is about best friends and how you don't have to see each other all the time. But then you're back in each others lives and just immediately connect. That's a great thing.
Q. What makes something a good teen film these days?
Tamblyn: This movie will be a shocker for most people. They're going to expect something fluffy and sweet. A teeny-bopper film. People might even make fun of this film before they see it, which is fine. I just give them a nice smirk and say, "Go see it and talk to me afterward." It's about issues of life and death. It's not fluff.
Bledel: My character is pretty, but doesn't see herself that way. She's extremely shy and has a very active inner life. Her life is also sort of a mess and she really doesn't know how to behave. I think a lot of girls can relate.
Ferrera: I love that the movie isn't about who is your boyfriend and are we going to the prom. It's about an internal transformation and not about wearing a pretty dress. It's also not about young girls being jealous of each other and hating each other. I'm sick of those movies.
Q. When something different like "Joan of Arcadia" comes along, it gets bashed by the media (and now it's canceled by CBS). Why did the ratings dive, Amber?
Tamblyn: Honestly, I think certain magazines really had it out for us from the beginning of the season. We were the show about God, and the magazines didn't like that.
So when it came time to stick it to us when we were going through a little rough spot they were really able to help push the whole "Don't watch this show anymore because it's gone to hell." Even though the show didn't at all go to hell. It's a great show about something.
Q. How do you handle fame at your age?
Bledel: Well, I remember it was 5 in the morning. I'm leaving my house to go to the set of "Gilmore Girls." I'm really tired and just when I walk outside, a bus slowly goes down the street with my face on the side of it as Rory Gilmore. I thought, "Ewwww." It's so early. I just can't stand seeing me.
Ferrera: I called her and said, "You have this huge billboard in Times Square." (Bledel shakes her head.)
Q. Is it hard to have a regular life when you're Joan of Arcadia? Can Joan go to her high school prom?
Tamblyn: I did go to the prom with my friend Sam, and it was horrible. I left early. I couldn't stand it. It wasn't like I was too good for it or whatever.
I just didn't identify with the whole school dance thing. This has nothing to do with my television show. I just don't get into the whole school dance thing. I do like to break dance, but they don't have that at the prom.
Q. Have you met any adult stars who have made you really go weak at the knees?
Ferrera: I think Tom Hanks was at the same hotel I was staying at to do an interview and I got so scared. I didn't want to see him. I love him so much and what if I fainted? I'm serious!
Bledel: Oh, we're not going there. It's private.
Tamblyn: I love David Bowie.
Q. So many young girls are obsessed with these "Pants" books. What was your entertainment obsession as a little girl?
Bledel: The Secret Garden or Little Women. Can I also say A Little Princess?
Ferrera: I loved that movie "Now and Then." My friends and I saw it about a million times when it came out, and we assigned each other characters. I was the girl with the big boobs.
Tamblyn: Oh, I loved that movie "Labyrinth." David Bowie. In spandex! Enough said.
Q. For every young girl who wants to act but has no industry connections, what is your best advice?
Tamblyn: Just don't take no for an answer. Audition, audition, audition. You have to get out there.
Ferrera: Just act. I wouldn't hear "no" when it came to auditioning for the junior high school production of "Romeo and Juliet." I was 7 and in third grade. My sister said, "You can't."
But I went down to the junior high and they took pity on me. That's how it began for me. When I was 17, I went to a professional audition and booked my first role in a Disney cable channel movie, which led to "Real Women Have Curves." You have to start with baby steps. Who knows where you'll end up.
Q. What's next?
Bledel: Sleep.
Tamblyn: Who knows?
Ferrera: I'm in "Lords of Dogtown" this summer and I'm a full-time student at USC studying international relations and not acting -- because I wanted my life outside of acting to be, you know, a life.
Distributed by Big Picture News
http://www.suntimes.com/output/movies/sho-sunday-pants29.html
Submitted by Trisha
BY CINDY PEARLMAN
LOS ANGELES -- Size matters. It's especially relevant when you star in a movie about a pair of magic Levi's. At the moment, three young actresses are lamenting the jean size of Lindsay Lohan.
You might have heard that Lindsay recently dropped some pounds.
"Weight. It's a very emotional issue," says America Ferrera, who at 20 has enough curves to have starred in a movie called "Real Women Have Curves." "Lindsay is thinner, but it could be stress," says "Gilmore Girl" Alexis Bledel, 23. What if someone in Hollywood told either of them they needed to get down to size 0 for a role? Now it's "Joan of Arcadia" herself, Amber Tamblyn, 22, who begins to spaz out. "I'm sorry, but the size of my butt doesn't make me a good or bad actress. Give me a break!"
Actually, each is getting a big break this summer by starring in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," which opens Friday and is based on the best-selling teen novel by Ann Brashares. The book revolves around lifelong friends who must spend their first summer apart. Tamblyn is the future filmmaker, Bledel is shipped off to Greece to stay with her grandmother, and Ferrera is the overweight girl mandated by a custody agreement to stay with her father and his fiancee. They bond by shipping a pair of magic jeans back and forth to each other.
Over breakfast at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Century City, the princesses of "Pants" -- each wearing jeans -- took on bigger topics to see if they fit.
Q. Has anyone ever told you girls to drop a few pounds for a role?
Bledel: Before I got "Gilmore Girls," I was modeling. I went in for a call and was told, "Sweetie, you need to lose two inches off those hips." I was 14.
So I just replied, "I have more jobs than I can do. I'm in high school. I can't go to all the trouble of losing the two inches, so I'll pass." Someone might tell you to lose weight, but you can say no.
Ferrera: I think Hispanic women are beautiful with their curves. I'm not sure who feels that way in Hollywood. I was never told to lose 50 pounds. If they think that they just don't bother with you. You just don't get the role and you never know why. That's still better than physically harming yourself and becoming unhealthy just to star in a movie.
Q. Did any of you borrow from your very recent teenage years for the angst in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants"?
Ferrera: Well, I play a girl visiting her father who is absent in her life. My parents separated when I was younger and my father was completely absent. So I wouldn't say my acting in this movie just comes from my life, but I didn't have to stretch too far for the feelings of being isolated, abandoned and out of place.
Bledel: I have my first kiss in the film, but we're not going there on how it happened in real life!
Tamblyn: To me, the film is about best friends and how you don't have to see each other all the time. But then you're back in each others lives and just immediately connect. That's a great thing.
Q. What makes something a good teen film these days?
Tamblyn: This movie will be a shocker for most people. They're going to expect something fluffy and sweet. A teeny-bopper film. People might even make fun of this film before they see it, which is fine. I just give them a nice smirk and say, "Go see it and talk to me afterward." It's about issues of life and death. It's not fluff.
Bledel: My character is pretty, but doesn't see herself that way. She's extremely shy and has a very active inner life. Her life is also sort of a mess and she really doesn't know how to behave. I think a lot of girls can relate.
Ferrera: I love that the movie isn't about who is your boyfriend and are we going to the prom. It's about an internal transformation and not about wearing a pretty dress. It's also not about young girls being jealous of each other and hating each other. I'm sick of those movies.
Q. When something different like "Joan of Arcadia" comes along, it gets bashed by the media (and now it's canceled by CBS). Why did the ratings dive, Amber?
Tamblyn: Honestly, I think certain magazines really had it out for us from the beginning of the season. We were the show about God, and the magazines didn't like that.
So when it came time to stick it to us when we were going through a little rough spot they were really able to help push the whole "Don't watch this show anymore because it's gone to hell." Even though the show didn't at all go to hell. It's a great show about something.
Q. How do you handle fame at your age?
Bledel: Well, I remember it was 5 in the morning. I'm leaving my house to go to the set of "Gilmore Girls." I'm really tired and just when I walk outside, a bus slowly goes down the street with my face on the side of it as Rory Gilmore. I thought, "Ewwww." It's so early. I just can't stand seeing me.
Ferrera: I called her and said, "You have this huge billboard in Times Square." (Bledel shakes her head.)
Q. Is it hard to have a regular life when you're Joan of Arcadia? Can Joan go to her high school prom?
Tamblyn: I did go to the prom with my friend Sam, and it was horrible. I left early. I couldn't stand it. It wasn't like I was too good for it or whatever.
I just didn't identify with the whole school dance thing. This has nothing to do with my television show. I just don't get into the whole school dance thing. I do like to break dance, but they don't have that at the prom.
Q. Have you met any adult stars who have made you really go weak at the knees?
Ferrera: I think Tom Hanks was at the same hotel I was staying at to do an interview and I got so scared. I didn't want to see him. I love him so much and what if I fainted? I'm serious!
Bledel: Oh, we're not going there. It's private.
Tamblyn: I love David Bowie.
Q. So many young girls are obsessed with these "Pants" books. What was your entertainment obsession as a little girl?
Bledel: The Secret Garden or Little Women. Can I also say A Little Princess?
Ferrera: I loved that movie "Now and Then." My friends and I saw it about a million times when it came out, and we assigned each other characters. I was the girl with the big boobs.
Tamblyn: Oh, I loved that movie "Labyrinth." David Bowie. In spandex! Enough said.
Q. For every young girl who wants to act but has no industry connections, what is your best advice?
Tamblyn: Just don't take no for an answer. Audition, audition, audition. You have to get out there.
Ferrera: Just act. I wouldn't hear "no" when it came to auditioning for the junior high school production of "Romeo and Juliet." I was 7 and in third grade. My sister said, "You can't."
But I went down to the junior high and they took pity on me. That's how it began for me. When I was 17, I went to a professional audition and booked my first role in a Disney cable channel movie, which led to "Real Women Have Curves." You have to start with baby steps. Who knows where you'll end up.
Q. What's next?
Bledel: Sleep.
Tamblyn: Who knows?
Ferrera: I'm in "Lords of Dogtown" this summer and I'm a full-time student at USC studying international relations and not acting -- because I wanted my life outside of acting to be, you know, a life.
Distributed by Big Picture News
http://www.suntimes.com/output/movies/sho-sunday-pants29.html
Submitted by Trisha
posted by MissCoffee @ 1:29 p.m.
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