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Young actors click in '(500) Days of Summer'

Published online on Thursday, Jul. 30, 2009

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SANTA MONICA - Director Marc Webb knew the only way his non-love story "(500) Days of Summer" would work would be if he found the perfect pair of actors for the complicated boy-meets-girl tale.

First, he needed an actress to play the film's "manic pixie dream girl" -- someone vulnerable enough for the audience to love, but strong enough to endure the consequences of her honest approach to life. He cast Zooey Deschanel.

Then, he needed the right boy. He turned to Joseph Gordon-Levitt to play Tom, an idealist who falls insanely in love with Summer (Deschanel). Tom has trouble dealing with Summer's honest assessment that their relationship is never going to be serious.

"In a movie like this, you have to cast a dynamic. You have to cast a chemistry. You can't cast them individually," Webb says during an interview at the Casa Del Mar.

Webb met with a lot of actors before finding just the right spark with Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt.

The chemistry between Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel is obvious when they meet for an interview about the movie. They go from finishing each other's sentences to picking on each other like a couple who have been together long enough to find great comfort in each other.

Even something as simple as Deschanel talking about how she is either dressed in blue or near a blue wall in almost every scene of the film triggers a slightly loving, slightly sarcastic comment from Gordon-Levitt.

"The color palette of '(500) Days of Summer' was designed around the blue eyes of Zooey," Gordon-Levitt says with a smile.

Deschanel flashes an impish smile back at him and, with the same slight amount of sarcasm, says, "He makes me blush."

If "(500) Days of Summer" had been a standard romantic comedy, Weber could have cast any of dozens of young Hollywood actors. Because the movie is a more complicated coming-of-age story, masquerading as a romantic comedy, he needed actors who could handle both the light and dark material in the script.

Gordon-Levitt might be best known for the TV comedy "3rd Rock from the Sun" but earned raves for his dramatic performance in the film "The Lookout." Deschanel's no stranger to smart material, having built a solid career with independent movies such as "Gigantic," "Raving" and "Winter Passing."

Those jobs came to Deschanel; she never goes after a role. To the actress, a role -- like a relationship -- never works if you try to force the connection. She just knows what feels right. When she was sent the script for "(500) Days of Summer" she initially passed until the script was rewritten to flesh out Summer.

Once cast, Deschanel discovered she could relate to both characters.

"They sort of represent two sides of our generation's ambivalence toward love and romance and its place in our society and in our everyday lives ...," Deschanel says before Gordon-Levitt jumps in to add, "... because everyone has been a Tom as some point and everybody has been a Summer at one point."