CAST AND CHARACTERS

Interview: Adam Brody

Production was put on hold for eight months until lead actor Adam Brody was available, a decision that the producers and Kasdan have never regretted. "Adam is the heart, soul and life blood of this film," says Kasdan. "I spent five months looking for an actor to play the lead in this largely autobiographical story. What I discovered was that I wasn't really looking for an actor to play me, I was looking for a movie star to play someone way more attractive and far less neurotic! In Adam I found everything I wanted for Carter. Adam is a pure, classic leading man in the tradition of Tom Hanks and Cary Grant."

Adam Brody as Carter Webb

Golin concurs, "Adam brings a lot of good will to Carter. He appears effortless in terms of his performance he's very natural and that's one of Adam's big strengths. The audience wants to like him even though sometimes he's doing things that may be questionable. Audiences can't help but give him the benefit of the doubt."

A struggling writer, Carter has fallen in love with a beautiful actress, a woman who may well be out of his league, but it's clear at the start of the film that he has built his world around her. The last words the hopeless romantic ever thought he'd hear were that Sophia was moving on with her life and career without him. When Carter goes home to break the news to his mother, Agnes (Jo Beth Williams),that Sophia has ended the relationship, Agnes seems more devastated than her son, recounting and wallowing in her own tales of a broken heart. Agnes confides in Carter that she's concerned his dementia-prone grandmother living in Michigan has taken a turn for the worse.

Confesses Kasdan, "Carter is a character not unlike me in a lot of ways. He's a very, very verbal young guy who has lived his life sort of in a neurotic kind of active and imaginative way all of his successes and failures have been related to his ability to express himself. He's one of those guys who's seen a lot of movies and who has lived as much on the other side of the screen as he has in the real world.The thing he's always fantasized about and worked his hardest at is this relationship with Sophia. But she doesn't want to be with him anymore."

"Getting dumped by Sophia sends Carter into a tailspin," says Brody. "He sees going to Michigan to care for his grandmother as an opportunity to run away from his life for awhile, get his bearings and hopefully figure some things out. Even though he doesn't quite really know what those things are."

While Carter's and Sarah's story unfolds, so does the viewer's understanding that In the Land of Women is not so much a physical place, as it is an emotional landscape where Carter learns about relationships about their frailties and their fleeting nature.

"When I finished the script and read it," says Kasdan, "it became immediately clear that Sarah's part was an incredible opportunity to use Meg Ryan. I have been a fan of hers for a long time she has a real skill and craft that allows her to be funny and attractive but also she has this incredible evolved soulfulness. I've always felt like all the stories I tell on some level are about that space between your ideals and your desires what you want to be and what you are, and how you reconcile those things on a day-to-day basis."

Ryan says she was deeply flattered that Kasdan chose her for the part and signed on without any hesitation. The actress was excited to play such a complex woman who finds her world unraveling and is desperate to put her life in order. "It was unbelievable because it's such a fantastic part," says Ryan."Dramatically it's what every actor wants to get their hands on, a peaked emotional experience when you have to accept that life is finite. But also, Sarah's a bit funny and a little odd ­ everything you want to indulge in. What I found interesting is that there are two protagonists in this movie, Carter and Sarah.That doesn't happen a lot of times for women in films. You're usually the object of the director's interest,not the subject."

Sarah Hardwicke is a typical suburban wife and mother who is in the throes of sifting through her own life, a life that from all appearances is perfectly managed. With two teenage daughters, Lucy(Kristen Stewart) and Paige (Makenzie Vega), in different stages of growing up, Sarah works to resolve unattended relationships and realities.

"When we meet Sarah, she's somebody who has up to now led a bottled up, unexpressed life,"says Ryan. "We find her in chaos right off the bat. I love that! She's got a tremendous relationship with one daughter and a very compromised relationship with the other. She's also in a marriage that's not making her or anybody else happy. Sarah's a very composed, sort of sharp-cornered person, and into her life comes this kid who actually turns out to be the catalyst for her to change her life the way she needs to change it.

"What's great about Sarah and Carter is what happens in so many lives," says Ryan. "You expect the people who influence you the most are going to be the longest lasting, but that is not always the case. People come in, they float into your life and they alter your direction a hundred and eighty degrees. Carter and Sarah meet and they change each other irreversibly for the better. I think for myself, that's how the angelic realm really operates on the planet. You do things for someone, not even knowingly."

Portraying Grandma Archer is Academy Award®-winning actress Olympia Dukakis, who welcomed the opportunity to experiment and have fun with the role of a deliciously fragmented old woman. The film's best comedic moments are those exchanges between Carter, with his laid-back, self-effacing charm, and a feisty, sharp-tongued old woman who switches between having flashes of wisdom to hurtling insults.

"I thought Grandma would be a lot of fun. She's out there, quite outrageous. I love how she can be so helpless one minute then give you the finger the next," laughs Dukakis.

"When Carter comes out to take care of her," Dukakis continues, "he has no idea what's waiting for him no idea how eccentric and how demanding and needy she is. He can't just be a boarder at her house, he has to engage with her she doesn't let him just drift through. Initially the grandmother and Carter are very much at odds with each other, coming from very different worlds and realities. The fact that they somehow find a way to bridge, not just a generation gap, but that they actually see in each other something of value is truly wonderful."

NEXT
Interview: Kristen Stewart
Playing the role of Lucy is Kristen Stewart, who embodies the essence of an anxious teenager rebelliousness, beauty and sexual awkwardness.