AMANDA BYNES: from sweet girl, to mean girl

Making high school life hell for good girl Olive (Emma Stone) in Columbia Pictures' new teenage comedy “Easy A” are talented young actresses Amanda Bynes (“Hairspray,” “What a Girl Wants”) and Aly Michalka (TV's “Hellcats”) who are going to surprise audiences because they’re playing characters very different from what people are accustomed to.

Michalka and Bynes, who play Rhiannon and Marianne, respectively, readily admit that the differences between their characters in “Easy A” and their past work are a big part of what drew them to their roles.

“Rhiannon is crazy,” says Aly Michalka of the character she portrays. “She’s a girl who is very aggressive and passionate about whatever she believes in, or whatever her opinion is. She is definitely very foulmouthed and will say anything that’s on her mind, which can sometimes be either offensive or abrasive, but she always means well. She just doesn’t really have any sort of a filter. But she loves her best friend Olive, and like best friends sometimes do, she loves to give her a hard time and push her buttons.”

Known primarily to younger audiences for her work on the Disney Channel sitcom Phil of the Future, Michalka enjoyed pushing the envelope with Rhiannon. “I love that she’s a strong character. She’s similar to me in that she’s a great friend, and very loyal, but we’re definitely very different in the way we speak and handle ourselves. Rhiannon also dresses a lot more provocatively than I do. She wants to get attention from people and wishes she was twenty-five, even though she’s still a teen.”

When it came to the tightly wound, evangelical Marianne, Amanda Bynes found inspiration in a character very different than the kind of young woman she typically plays. “I’m used to playing the goofy, funny girl,” says the actress, “and Marianne is the very religious, uptight girl who thinks she rules the school. A lot of her actions come across as kind of mean, evil and totally judgmental, but she thinks she’s coming from a good place, because she claims to be doing the work of God.”

Bynes says that although Marianne’s actions are kind of questionable, there was still something likeable and relatable about her. “Everybody has met that girl who is a ‘type A’ personality, and just wants to be right, be better than everyone and always wants to one-up everyone,” says Bynes. “She’s a fun character to play.”

In directing the actresses, Will Gluck found it easy to forget his talented cast weren’t simply wonderful actors, but stars to the world outside a film set. “We got a good reminder when we were shooting on the street and there over 100 kids mobbing Emma, Aly and Amanda, trying to take their pictures and get autographs,” recalls Gluck. “They’ve established themselves so well in their characters that you sometimes forget they have such a big following.”

Opening across the Philippines on Nov. 10, “Easy A” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit http://www.columbiapictures.com.ph for trailers, exclusive content and free downloads. Like us at www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.

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EMMA STONE is dangerous beauty

With her striking beauty and sincere talent, Emma Stone (“Superbad,” “Zombieland”) is claiming her role as one of Hollywood’s most sought out actresses. She has just been cast as Gwen Stacy in the “Spider-Man” reboot in 2012. And now, she’s starring in one of the year’s smartest and coolest teen comedies – Columbia Pictures’ “Easy A.”

In the film, clean-cut high schooler Olive (Stone) finds that her new-found bad-girl rap – courtesy of a little white lie about losing her virginity – has an upside: she is finally getting noticed. Olive decides to exploit her "easy" reputation and use the school rumor mill to advance her social and financial standing. But life starts to spin hilariously out of control, and there is only one boy, Todd (Penn Badgley), who sees through her vixen veneer to the heart of it.

On paper, Olive was a dynamite part: intelligent, funny, observant, surprisingly tough and heartbreakingly vulnerable. The big question for the filmmakers, then, was who could make this vital role come alive on screen. The success of the project depended on the perfect casting for Olive.

“Olive is an extremely smart girl,” explains director Will Gluck, “but she doesn’t annoy you with her smartness. A lot of people and characters that are really smart who know everything and talk like adults are so annoying that you want to punch them in the face. This is a girl who is smart like a whip, but doesn’t know she’s smart, and if anything, she’s embarrassed by the fact that she’s smart. You feel for this girl so much, because she’s trying to figure out who she is.”

Naturally, Gluck and the producers had no shortage of actresses who were eager to take on such a well-written role. “Everyone wanted to play the part,” the director recalls. “I got calls from what seemed like every actress between the ages of 16 and 28. As soon as I heard that Emma Stone wanted to do it, I was very excited. We met really quickly, and she had no problem auditioning for me. A lot of this movie takes place with Olive speaking into her computer’s web cam. After her audition, Emma went home, did a scene into her webcam and emailed it to me. I took the disc with that scene to the head of the studio and said ‘This is the girl.’ She was by far, always my first choice.”

Stone says she had been sent the script by a friend before it had been bought by anyone, and when she read it, she knew she had to do it.

“I instantly related to the character,” recalls Stone. “Olive uses all these big words and makes silly puns, and she’s well aware that what she’s doing is kind of dumb, but she can’t stop herself from doing it. I do the same thing. There were so many things that made me feel a kinship with the character, that I felt that whether or not it was me, she deserved whoever it was that played her be willing to understand her. I think it would be easy to go very goofy with her, or read her the wrong way, and I was afraid that if it was the wrong actor, they wouldn’t be true to this amazing character.”

In her first meeting with Will Gluck, Stone found that the two of them were very much in synch about the character. “Will told me he wasn’t looking for someone to become Olive,” explains Stone. “He was looking for someone that was Olive, because Olive becomes whoever is playing her. I understood that there was no becoming this girl. You either were or weren’t Olive. I’m so thankful that they gave me the chance.”

Opening soon across the Philippines, “Easy A” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit http://www.columbiapictures.com.ph for trailers, exclusive content and free downloads. Like us at www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.

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