Emilie de Ravin talks about Rob and Remember Me

Congratulations on this film. It looks fantastic. So, what did you think first think about this love story?
Australian actress Emilie de Ravin has moved from the small screen to the big screen in the upcoming romantic drama Remember Me (out March 12).

In the movie, de Ravin (Claire on the TV smash hit Lost) plays Ally who becomes the object of affection of one brooding young man named Tyler, played by super hunk Robert Pattinson. Tyler has a strained relationship with his father a (Pierce Brosnan) due to a family tragedy and didn’t think anyone could pull him out of his funk until, he met Ally (Emilie de Ravin) through an unusual twist of fate. Love was the last thing on his mind, but as her spirit unexpectedly heals and inspires him, he begins to fall for her. Through their love, he begins to find happiness but soon, hidden secrets are revealed, and the circumstances that brought them together slowly threaten to tear them apart.

De Ravin recently spoke to Tribute’s Toni-Marie Ippolito to discuss filming Remember Me, how hard it was to concentrate with the paparazzi on set, what Robert Pattinson is really like to work with and, of course, her feelings on the final season of the hit series Lost, which made her a household name.

DE RAVIN: I fell in love as soon as I read it. It’s one of those few and far between scripts that you read that you’re like, “This is just something that I would just kill to be a part of.”

I understand there were about 180 women that were up for the part and then you got it! How does that feel for you as an actor?
DE RAVIN: It’s pretty amazing. Also, they were going in a lot of different directions with the look for Ally to start with and sort of ended up, I think, the furthest from where they started [Laughs]. I’m happy though.

What was your reaction when you found out that Pierce Brosnan, a.k.a James Bond, and Robert Pattinson were going to be a part of this film?
DE RAVIN: That was, you know, even better. We’ve got a really talented cast. Pierce is playing Rob’s dad. I’ve got Chris Cooper playing my father. Lena Olin is amazing and we’ve got a wonderful little 11-year-old girl, Ruby, who’s playing Rob’s sister who’s just a sweetheart and really talented. Everyone sort of ended up working together really well too, which is, you know, difficult—especially when you’re dealing with family units.

It looks like it’s a really intense, emotional story. Can you tell me a little bit about it?
DE RAVIN: The premise for the movie is really a romantic tragedy. My character and Rob’s character both have dealt with tragedy in our family and our past and we sort of meet unexpectedly, fall in love unexpectedly and then sort of the way the circumstances that we meet basically threaten to tear us apart. It’s really about just treasuring and appreciating every moment you have with loved ones and family because you can never go back.

What do you think it is about romantic tragedies that we just love so much? They’re heart wrenching!
DE RAVIN: They are heart wrenching! And for this film specifically I think it’s just the reality of this story that people can (relate to), whether they’ve been through something tragic in their life. It’s not dealt with in a fluffy movie way, which I think a lot of stories are. It’s really gritty, it’s very honest and you know, especially the relationship with Tyler and Ally. You can be, “Yeah, I’ve been like that in my relationship before. That’s kind of how it is.” None of that sort of perfect “first this and first that.” It’s all just down to earth and real.

It’s real life stuff. Tyler’s character’s got some stuff going on, but so does Ally with her dad. Could you relate at all to this character?
DE RAVIN: Yeah. I mean, not in a specific writing sense or not in a specific circumstance of what happened to Ally. But yeah, I think I always draw from life experience when it makes sense. So there’s always little things that you can find to incorporate, I think, from your life, whether it be the exact circumstance or something similar that maybe brought up a similar emotion in you.

While you were filming, there seemed to be a lot of paparazzi around because of Robert’s fame from Twilight. How did you guys deal with that?
DE RAVIN: Um, yeah, you know, it took a little getting used to. We really shot the majority of the film on location, you know, in and around Manhattan so there’s just people everywhere anyway. It got a little hectic at times!

It must have been a bit distracting.
DE RAVIN: The first day I was sort of like, “Oh my God. How am I going to focus?” And you know there were times that we were rehearsing and you can’t even sort of think about what you’re doing. You feel all these eyes on you and you become very suddenly self-conscious about what’s going on as opposed to being in your own little world of the character.

What’s it like working with Robert Pattinson?
DE RAVIN: He’s such a nice, genuine, great guy as a person. And you know that’s always nice when you’re working with someone you get along with. [He's] very giving. We sort of worked on stuff a lot together and we’d talk about things and really developed our characters together as much as we could. And that’s a real give and take thing if you’ve got one person not wanting to do that and one that does—it sort of creates a bit of conflict. But we were both sort of on the same page with everything, which was great.

Being on the same page, did that help with your chemistry? How do you know things would work out well with the both of you?
DE RAVIN: Yeah, well you know, I guess you don’t really a lot of the time, do you? I tested for this with Rob so I guess they see whether your interpretation of the character and his interpretation are going to go together. But then there’s also that you can change it up a bit too to make it work better or bring it back. It’s an interesting question because it is something that I think comes more from really just getting along with that person and liking that person as opposed to sort of someone who really annoys you.

Are there any memorable scenes that really stick out for you in this movie?
DE RAVIN: That I can talk about without giving away anything? [Laughs]. There’s a lot. I had a wonderful time. We had a lot of fun. There was one scene that I was really excited about doing with Chris (Cooper) who plays my Dad. We have a big fight and that was just such a sort of emotionally challenging, interesting theme because it was sort of one of those things that —we’re very evenly matched as our characters as father and daughter—it’s not sort of one undermines the other. So that was a lot of fun to play with. And, you know, Rob and I had a lot of fun playing together. We had a really fun sort of water fight scene. Just getting to do something like that that’s so sort of playful and fun.
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