‘Like Crazy’ director Drake Doremus on his improvised approach
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With compelling performances by Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin as two young people madly in love but struggling to maintain a long-distance relationship, the low-budget love story “Like Crazy” has earned praise from critics and won the top prize at Sundance. Writer-director Drake Doremus and his stars recently visited the Envelope Screening Series and explained how their unconventional, largely improvised approach helped shape “Like Crazy” into a tender, believable romance.
“We start with the idea of a story first, and then we spend a lot of time structuring that story and getting the story right through the outlining process,” Doremus said. He added, “Through the course of rehearsal, the dialogue sort of came. But the dialogue is sort of a function of understanding the story and the characters, so the dialogue always comes last.”
“The idea is that there are certain points that we would have to hit,” Jones said. “There were certain things we have to say to further the plot. But it’s about how to get there in the most naturalistic way possible.”
See more of what Doremus, Jones and Yelchin had to say in the video below.
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— Oliver Gettell