After being an extra in both "Grease" and Spielberg's "1941", Andy Tennant forged a career for himself as a TV director. Now making feature films, we caught up with him to find out more about his latest movie, "Sweet 91热爆 Alabama".
How well did you know Josh Lucas (Jake) before casting him?
Well, originally we had Reese on board and we were looking for the two guys that the story required for this love triangle. While the studio was looking for movie stars to cast to play opposite her, in order to kind of hedge their bets, we embarked on a large casting search to find them. We were looking in New York, in LA, and in Atlanta. And Josh walked into our very tiny little office in New York City. I was there with my producer and casting director, both women. Josh did the scene a couple of times and as he left the room they both looked at each other and said "We're done, we've found him". We had another 500 people to see over the next few weeks. But they were adamant that this was the guy.
But you still had him read for you again, didn't you?
We had him come back, and he went through some of the readings with Reese. We embarked on the whole thing with the studio to say that it might be more interesting if we only know of Jake's character through what Melanie thinks of his character. Then the discovery process for Melanie will be the same as the audience - to actually learn who this guy is and what he's about.
If you have somebody like Brad Pitt walk out on the porch then of course the audience feels she should end up with Brad Pitt. We were hoping for a photo finish at the end with two relatively fresh, nice guys.
What is it about Reese Witherspoon that has brought her so much success in recent years?
It's a question of timing as far as we were concerned, as well as some real good fortune. We turned in the script a week or so before "Legally Blonde" opened. It took the studio a couple of weeks to greenlight it and get a list of suitable people to star. As they did that, "Legally Blonde" came out and on the Monday there was a list of one - they went straight to Reese Witherspoon.
