Some may be surprised to see director Edward Zwick’s name in front of Love and Other Drugs, the new 20th Century Fox romantic dramedy starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a pharmaceutical salesman and Anne Hathaway, as the Parkinson’s-inflicted pill-pusher he falls for. That’s because for the last few years, Zwick has been traveling across the globe directing all sorts of period war epics from The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, and Blood Diamond, with Leonardo DiCaprio, going all the way back to the Civil War epic Glory in 1989.
The movie makes some sense if you go back to Zwick’s earlier career as a television producer on popular shows like “St. Elsewhere” and “My So-Called Life” as well as his feature debut About Last Night… starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore, all of which showed Zwick to have quite a romantic streak when he put his mind to it. The number of people who have been nominated for Oscars for their involvement in an Ed Zwick film is nothing short of amazing, Zwick himself having won an Oscar as producer of Shakespeare in Love.
A few weeks back, following a rousing press conference with Zwick’s stars, ComingSoon.net sat down with the filmmaker for the following exclusive video interview, in which we discussed the following:
* Why he wanted to return to romantic material
* Talking about the book “Hard Sell” which inspired the film
* Whether or not he had to get Pfizer’s approval on any part of it
* Talking to Pfizer reps off the record as research
* Casting Jake and Anne and whether the “Brokeback Mountain” reunion was a coincidence
* Developing material with them
* The Parkinson’s aspect of the story (and why it’s not mentioned in marketing)
* Mixing humor with some of the darker territory the film explores
* The nudity! (Yeah, we couldn’t get through one interview without mentioning it.)
* Capturing the late ’90s on film
* Some of the projects he’s developing including his take on Moby Dick
* Talking about the legacy left behind by “My So-Called Life”
And more!
Love and Other Drugs opens on Wednesday, November 24.
