Zach Braff stars as a guy about to turn 30 who's conflicted about wanting to be in a monogamous relationship in The Last Kiss, a comedy/drama directed by Tony Goldwyn (Someone Like You). Based on the film L'Ultimo Bacio by Gabriele Muccino, The Last Kiss addresses relationship questions which confound a lot of people - not just men - as they prepare to give up single life to start a family.
How Audiences Should React to Zach Braff’s Character: “I think that we should relate to him as a human being. One of the reasons I wanted to do this movie was it was so refreshing. It was real. It was like a human being that f&*ks up, that makes mistakes, that does a dumb thing. Don’t we all? Don’t we all have things that we wake up the next day and go, ‘Oh, I’m such an idiot. Yeah, you’re gonna f&*kin’ regret that tomorrow.” You know what I mean?
You read so much crap and then I read this and I was just so drawn to it. First of all, I couldn’t believe a studio was going to make this movie. When I met the producers, I said, ‘Are you guys going to change this or are you really going to keep this as gritty and honest and real as it is?’ When they said they weren’t going to change it, I signed on. There’ll be some people that’ll come out of the movie hating me, and some people will come out the movie going, ‘God, I’ve been there. I can relate to what he went through.’ I think there’ll be people that will be shocked at how human the characters in this movie are.”
The Other Woman: “I think what’s great about it is it would have been so much easier to make her a dumb ditz. One of the things I loved about Paul Haggis’ screenplay was that he made the conscious choice to make her charming and likeable and adorable and sexy, and that makes it more challenging for him and the audience. Now, I do think that we see that she’s a baby. I mean, she’s young and they’re not going to have that much to talk about after they get out of the frat party. I think even looks-wise, you almost think, ‘Wow, Rachel [Bilson] in 10 years will look like Jacinda [Barrett].’”
Taking Direction from Other Directors: With one successful feature film as a director under his belt, it must be hard for Braff to stand back and not want to take charge. “That is tricky,” admits Braff. “Inherent in being a director is having strong opinions about things. That’s not to say they’re always right or even usually right, but you definitely have your strong opinion on things. It was hard sometimes but I have to say Tony is just a dream because he’s so collaborative. He’s more collaborative than I am as a director. He really was genuinely interested in everyone’s opinions, and then he would make his own and make the decision. But he was so wonderfully open to what I had to say and what my two cents was. I’m sure there were times when I annoyed the hell out of him.
It’s a good question and in terms of segueing into the first movie I did that wasn’t one I directed, he was a great person to do it with because I wasn’t dealing with someone whose ego was getting in the way. When I had those moments like, ‘Why don’t you do it like this?’ I could actually say, ‘My gut really thinks we should do it like this. What do you think on that?’ He would go either a) ‘Oh, that’s a good idea,’ because he really had no ego about it, or, ‘I hear what you’re saying but this is why I want to do it this way.’ He was a great person to work with.”
Was Braff equally as open to suggestions when actors came to him on the set of Garden State with ideas on how to do things? “I have to say, I was so blessed,” said Braff. “It’s shocking. If you look at all the people I worked with in Garden State, who have all done so many more movies than I did, they really all left everything in my hands. For me, when you’re acting in a movie, you really have to plan a lot more out than when you’re not, so I storyboarded every frame of Garden State. I blocked everything out before actors even arrived, just because I couldn’t leave all that up in the air. I needed some things to have control over. So if an actor had said, ‘I really hate this blocking…’ I mean, if someone had a real problem with it, I would have worked it out. But so much had already been determined by where I put everybody in the shots.”
Page 2: Zach Braff on Fletch Won, Andrew Henry's Meadow, and Fast Track
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