Ford readily admits he knew next to nothing about his famous co-star before shooting began, but through the course of filming, he and Moore – and the rest of the cast – became good friends. “This crew got on better than any crew I’ve ever been on a film set with, and that to me is the most important thing about making a film: the spirit in which this film has been conceived and the intent we put behind it.”
Does a lot of your character’s humor come from yourself?
No. It’s a weird thing because you can’t ever say that a character comes up with an original joke because they don’t exist without you putting yourself into them. They have no private impetus. But at the same time, you can’t really just do as you think is funny on the screen because generally it just never ever translates - especially when you privately think it’s funny and it may not transpose to the character. What you have to do is you kind of play with a lot of little elements together. At the same time you just try to keep a sense of fun insuppressible within yourself.
Was there any awkwardness in filming the love scenes?
No, none for me whatsoever. The only awkwardness there was for me was if you do a really good enough job, which we did, at times you really do wonder whether you’re in love. That’s it.
How comfortable are you filming those type of scenes?
I’m very comfortable doing scenes like that by and large. The ones that I’m uncomfortable with are when you are shouting to an explosion on a set with a blue screen. You have everything you possibly need there in front of you as long as you have either an actor willing to be open enough - or a director aggressive enough to make sure that that actor will be open enough and to remove their ego for them, if they’re too haughty to do so. It's just fantastic. With Mandy [Moore] there was never that case. Mandy’s a very special lady, very dignified, very classy in the sense that she’s a young woman in this world who carries herself very carefully. You feel immediately when you meet her that if you attempt to address her, you can’t just run up to her and throw out a few wisecrack lines and expect that to really work. You kind of have to answer her as a young man, and with respect. By doing so she will allow you to come right up to her. I think that's what makes the chemistry quite good on the screen, to be honest.
So if you’re doing these scenes and getting to a point where it feels like you’re actually in love, how do you let go of that feeling?
You love them afterwards. You look at them and think about how fantastic they are. That’s it.
That sounds pretty intense.
Well we don’t get paid for nothing. To be honest, we get paid what seems to be rather inflated salaries to a certain extent. I sometimes struggle to understand it.
Yesterday I was asked frequently, many, many times whether true love exists, whether love exists, [and] whether I believe in it. It’s kind of a ridiculous question to be quite frank, because you either know yourself or you don’t know. What is my telling you going to do for you at all? What I’ve noticed is that as people kept asking me this question, what they were really asking is, "Do you think you can survive against the incursions and the fears that we have in our life already?" Essentially we get paid to forget everything else that’s around and about outside of us.
