Amanda Crew Discusses 'Charlie St. Cloud'

July 23, 2010 - Amanda Crew (Sex Drive) stars as Tess, a dedicated sailor set to embark on a solo journey around the world, in Universal Pictures' Charlie St. Cloud, based on the popular book by Ben Sherwood and starring Zac Efron (High School Musical). Only home for a short visit before setting off on her voyage, Tess makes a connection with her high school classmate, Charlie (Efron). Meanwhile Charlie has issues of his own to deal with, including the appearance every afternoon of his younger brother Sam's ghost. Just before Sam (Charlie Tahan) passed away, Charlie made him a promise that they'd always be together. To Charlie, falling for Tess would mean breaking the vow he made to his brother in his dying moments.

Crew said part of the reason she was drawn to the character was because it's difficult to find strong roles for actresses her age. "A lot of the time, it’s just the pretty girl who serves as the love interest and that’s it. What I loved about this character was that she’s such a strong, independent woman who knows what she wants in life. She’s unapologetic about it. She has these goals and she’s going to go for it. I think that’s a great role model for girls. Even myself, I admired this character. She’s going to sail around the world by herself. She’s brave and ambitious. Burr [Steers the director] and I did a lot of rehearsals and worked on that before we started shooting. I do come across as very similar to the character, in that I know what I want in life. But the part about the character I struggled with the most was the unapologetic part. I’m Canadian and Burr was like, 'Stop apologizing!,' and I was like, 'I’m sorry! Okay, I’ll do it!' But, I came out of the film and carried some of the character with me from this experience, in a positive way. I’m just trying to carry that strength with me, for the rest of my life," said Crew.

Crew's co-star Efron had worked with director Steers before on 17 Again, and the 24 year old Canadian actress can see why Efron would be so eager to team up again with Steers. "I can’t speak any more highly of Burr. He’s an amazing director, and I’m glad I had the experience that I did because he pushed me so far out of my comfort zone in a positive and loving way. He could see what I was capable of and could tell if I wasn’t living up to my full potential. He’d push me to this really uncomfortable place, but you know that it’s out of love and it’s something positive. You just feel really safe with him," explained Crew.

Getting out of her comfortable zone included learning how to sail. "The sailing stuff was always a disaster with me. Zac picked it up really quickly, but I”m not very athletic. We did a lot of sailing training and we had personal trainers to do a lot of weight training in the gym, but I’m a klutz. I had bruises all over my body through the entire shoot, just from falling over. Before the screen test, a friend of mine who’s a professional sailor was like, 'Come up to San Francisco. We’ve got this amazing boat and we’re doing a practice run.' So I was like, 'Sweet! Bikinis and champagne!' That’s what I pictured sailing to be - but it’s not. It’s a sport."Crew can't even remember exactly how much training she had before taking to the water, but it definitely paid off in the long run. "We were on the water every day for at least three hours, then in the gym every day," recalled Crew. "I’m so glad that we did that because I never felt so physically strong. I was not just mentally connected to the character, but also physically connected, just because we had been doing all that work. Burr was always like, 'When you’re doing your sailing training, don’t be Amanda sailing, be Tess sailing.' Amanda sailing is, 'Oops, sorry!,' and Tess sailing is like, 'Yeah, this is what I’m doing, and I’m doing it wrong, but I’m doing it.' He was always just getting us to be in character."

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Charlie St Cloud hits theaters on July 30, 2010.