Cute and touching love story “Love, Rosie” stars Lily Collins and Sam Claflin have great chemistry and a catchphrase: “It’s life”

By: Izumi Hasegawa   February 4, 2015

 

Young adult sci-fi alumni Lily Collins and Sam Claflin star in the funny but heart-wrenching romantic film, Love, Rosie. They play childhood best friends who begin to have romantic feelings for each other but can’t say so due to certain circumstances. Do they have any childhood best friends? What are their thoughts about friendship and love? Where did their chemistry come from? Yes, I asked your questions!

 

Q: Do you guys have any of those kinds of best friends in your life?

Sam: I really don’t have like a best friend. I have a group of friends. Some of them are male and some of them are female. At times I’ll have a night where I spend a bit more time with a male — wait, that sounds… [Laughs] I mean, conversing with a male. I think it just depends on the moment. It doesn’t bother me whether they are male or female. A friendship to me is very different to a romantic friendship. [Laughs]

 

Lily:  It’s kind of like the thing you were saying. It’s not like you’re becoming romantically involved with your best friend. You hope that the person you become involved with becomes a best friend, in that sense. The qualities you have in a best friend, the trust, the knowing everything about each other, and accepting you with your faults, your weaknesses, and all those kinds of things, you want to feel with the person that you’re with, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody you’re friends with, you want to be romantically involved with. There are so many types of love. Love as a friend. Love as in romantic. Love of someone’s humor. Love of someone’s acceptance of you. There are so many types that it can get kind of confusing, but if you can figure out why you like to spend time with someone and you can have love for someone but not be in love them. Like, I’m sure you love your best friend who’s a guy but you weren’t in love with him. So I think there’s a difference there too.

 

Q: Do you have any guy best friends?

Lily: I don’t have any best friends. I have, like, a group. I’ve always been a guy’s girl. I like hanging out with guys. A lot of my friends went to all girls schools when we were growing up, and I was like, “No, I want to hang out with guys and girls.” I think it’s important. So I think it’s definitely possible. It’s life.

Sam: It’s life.

 

Q: Both of you come from films that are young adult, sci-fi fantasy fiction films. What did you think about doing this romantic comedy film? How did you create such great chemistry?

Lily: We have many people in common in the industry. For about four years or three years, we were supposed to meet many times, and we even auditioned for each other’s movies and never worked together or met. Our director had us get into a room together and sit within two inches of each other’s face and analyze the physical features and emotional feelings. It was really weird and very awkward.

Sam: It’s very intrusive in a great way.

Lily: It broke the ice. And after that, we had this weird history, this awkward moment that we shared. And from that point forward, we just kind of clicked and we kept running into each other and, I don’t know, it was never forced. It was easy.

 

Sam: It was easy. You know when you meet your best friend for the first time? You always remember it being a very easy conversation. There was never any trying or one person asking all the questions or one person being shy. It just works. It clicks. That was the case for both of us. We were living parallel lives and eventually they crossed. The whole experience of filming, the fact that we have been through similar experiences both shooting Snow White movies at the same time, and then both doing young adult movies, big productions, but then what was great was kind of both of us were as passionate about this project as the other. I think we both wanted to put our heart and soul into it. We weren’t afraid of getting our hands dirty and kind of getting stuck in.  That’s all down to the director, really, in allowing us the freedom to make it the most collaborative experience it could be, but it’s also the fact that we both saw this as a very, very special project, and the story being very special. I think we made it what it was, really. In answer to your question, there wasn’t a chemistry; it’s just life, man [laughs]. [To Collins] Like what you said, “It’s just life.”

Lily: It’s just life.

 

Q: What’s next?

Sam: I went on to The Riot Club, which comes out February 27th. It was a very, very different movie. I even sent [Lily] a picture of my first day on set. I think I finished (Love, Rosie) on a Friday and started filming The Riot Club on Sunday. So in the sense of, when you do watch it, just knowing the contrast…

Lily: Well, you had blood everywhere.

 

Sam: Yeah, my character is very, very dark, and I was covered in blood. So it was like, “Smile! Alex is on holiday!” [Laughs] It was a very, very different project. But yeah, great.

Lily: I did Warren Beatty’s movie last year, which was an experience in itself. It’s hard to explain it because it was so life-changing for me as a young actress, as a human being. So that was really exciting. And it’s nice to start the new year fresh and not actually know what’s next. It’s freeing, in a way. I’m just waiting for something to reach out and grab my attention.

Love, Rosie opens in theaters and On Demand on February 6th.