They're different. I mean, they both require different kinds of skills. In a drama, you just have to rely on emotional truth and as long as you can stay true to it, you'll probably have an outcome that you'll be satisfied with. With comedy, you have to have emotional truth and technique. So, sometimes, you'll just miss a moment and you'll have to go back and look at it and you think, “How can I make that? It's not as funny if my arm goes too far into the frame.” You can see why comics get obsessive about certain things because it is very exacting.
Did you watch any of the classic romantic comedies from the 40s and 50s?
Those movies were wonderful. I mean, they were wonderful because they were dialogue-driven and character-driven. I think that we're kind of starving for that kind of material. We don't see it anymore. Also, those movies were always about grown-ups. They were about adults, and not that there's anything wrong about 22 year-olds finding each other, but I don't think that you have to worry about falling in love and getting married when you're twenty. You have a lot ahead of you. But it is interesting when people kind of make a choice to fall in love and be together when they're adults. They've had a career and stuff. You think, “Wow, this is important now.” Now, if you're going to have a family, if you want to have a romantic life, you should choose. So the stakes are kind of higher and I love the fact that it's just about people talking and trying to figure it out. They've already developed themselves and they are who they are together.
Was filming in Ireland magical?
It's beautiful. It's gorgeous and they're not kidding about it being green . It really is just astonishingly green. It's gorgeous and we were standing there on, it's called Sally Gap, and you look at all that. It's a lovely, very romantic place with lovely people in it. It was a nice place to be in the summer. It was a nice place to make a movie.
The theme of this movie is that opposites attract. Do you believe that?
I think that it's about shared values and ideas. As different as these two seem, they're not. They're both very focused career people who are individuals who never married, who kind of have a longing for that but aren't able to express it. They're actually, in the end, I think, very similar.
What do you think makes a great romantic comedy?
Oh, beats me. I don't know. I think that I go to them because I want to see interesting people doing something [interesting]. The thing about romantic comedies is that it's something that does happen to us in real life. You don't always go to the moon or you don't dig to the center of the earth or fight back zombies or something, but most of us fall in love with somebody. So, in a sense, we're watching something that we're kind of familiar with and that is kind of wonderful to us. That's one of the greatest things that can happen to somebody is to fall in love someone.
How do you go about working on chemistry with your co-star?
I think that if you like someone, I think that you just have a nice rapport with them, there's an ease with them. Nobody ever knows why it happens or how it happens. You want it to happen and you kind of put all of your energy towards it, but sometimes it just doesn’t [work]. Sometimes people even look weird together. Sometimes, your friend will bring home a guy and you go, “They don't look right together.” Then they break up and you go, “I knew it.” It's dumb stuff like that sometimes. So, who knows? No one knows.
PAGE 3: Julianne Moore on Acting Influences, "The Forgotten," and Working With Her Husband
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Interview with Pierce Brosnan
"Laws of Attraction" Photo Gallery
"Laws of Attraction" Trailer, Credits and Movie News
