Easy A The Movie in Corona, CA
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Genre: Comedy
Synopsis:
The escape of a little white lie teaches a clean-cut teenager (Emma Stone) to use the high-school rumor mill to her advantage.
Release Date: -0/17/2010
Running Time: 93
Rating: PG-13 - Parents Strongly Cautioned
http://letsnotandsaywedid.com/
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Cast:
Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes, Dan Byrd, Thomas Church, Patricia Clarkson, Cam Gigandet, Lisa Kudrow, Malcolm McDowell, Aly Michalka, Stanley Tucci, Fred Armisen, Juliette Goglia, Jake Sandvig
Crew:
Director - Will Gluck, Screenwriter - Bert Royal, Producer - Zanne Devine, Producer - Will Gluck, Cinematographer - Michael Grady, Production Design - Marcia Hinds, Film Editor - Susan Littenberg, Costume Designer - Mynka Draper, Casting - Lisa Katz, Art Director - Bo Johnson, Set Decoration - Karen Agresti
Production Companies:
Olive Bridge Entertainment
Distributors:
Sony Pictures
Notes:
- Notes provided by Sony Pictures - Olive Penderghast (EMMA STONE) was a typical high school girl, until she decided to be, well, A-typical. I mean, what's your average, everyday girl to do when her popular, detail-seeking best friend Rhiannon (ALY MICHALKA) wants the 411 on Olive's weekend, and the boring reality is nothing to brag about? Can't a non-entity, a perceived zero, an anonymous girl like Olive tell a little white lie if it gives her just a tiny taste of that magical prize sought by every teenager: popularity? Some status updates, however, just cannot be contained, especially when Marianne (AMANDA BYNES), Ojai High School's very own Tammy Faye Bakker, overhears Olive's words. Soon, rumors of Olive's promiscuity are being greatly exaggerated. Within minutes, the student body is all a-twitter, linked-in and face-booked over Olive's supposed indiscretions. While it's not necessarily the kind of notoriety Olive was looking for, becoming the center of attention proves to be tantalizingly addictive, so much so that Olive decides not to deny the rumors. In fact, she embraces them, further playing the part by sporting a sexy new look and biting new attitude. After all, she knows the real truth, and her non-judgmental parents (STANLEY TUCCI, PATRICIA CLARKSON) trust her. So she's not really hurting anyone, is she? Sure, her favorite English teacher Mr. Griffith (THOMAS HADEN CHURCH) feels the need to express his well-meaning concern, while his wife, the school guidance counselor (LISA KUDROW), offers her own brand of advice and protection. But the spotlight feels pretty good to Olive, who even devises a creative use of her newfound reputation to help some of her status-challenged fellow students, including fellow peer pressure victim Brandon (DAN BYRD). As her story continues to mutate and take on a life of its own, Olive can't help but begin to identify with the notorious plight of the classic literary character Hester Prynne from ``The Scarlet Letter, the book she just happens to be studying in Mr. Griffith's class. But when Olive begins losing control of the raging rumors, she finds it's not all that easy to put out a wildfire. Unless she's able to clear things up, other people's lives are going to suffer greatly as a consequence. ``Easy does it, Olive. Screen Gems presents, Easy A, starring Emma Stone. Directed by Will Gluck (Fired Up) from a screenplay by Bert V. Royal, the film also stars Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes, Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Cam Gigandet, Lisa Kudrow, Malcolm McDowell, Aly Michalka, and Stanley Tucci. The film is produced by Zanne Devine (Mardi Gras). Director of photography is Michael Grady. Production designer is Marcia Hinds. Editor is Susan Littenberg. Music Supervisor is Wende Crowley. Costume designer is Mynka Draper. Easy A is rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements involving teen sexuality, language and some drug material. The running time is 90 minutes. HOW A STORY SPREADS The world of Easy A first arose out of a concept screenwriter Bert Royal had to fuse a timeless work of literature with a contemporary milieu. ``I had this idea to take three literary classics, set them at the same high school and make that world more modern, says Royal, who chose Nathaniel Hawthorne's ``The Scarlet Letter -- about the public ordeal a 17th century Boston woman named Hester Prynne goes through over an act of adultery -- as the first of those classics. ``I never intended it to be a strict adaptation of the book, says Royal, ``but to use thematic elements as an inspiration. ``The major theme of the piece, continues the writer, ``is about puritanical values versus being yourself. Olive is an extremely liberal person and feels like people should be true to themselves, but unfortunately she's growing up in a society that condemns people for stepping out of the norm. Her goal is to loosen up the town a little bit, which she does, but not in the way she intended. The screenplay made its way to producer Zanne Devine, who, having just returned to Los Angeles from several rigorous months of location shooting on her production of Mardi Gras, was not particularly inclined to read anything. But a phone call from her assistant, who'd read only thirty or so pages and urged her to dive in immediately, proved tantalizingly persuasive. ``I read it that night, recalls Devine, who called her colleagues at Screen Gems the next morning. ``I brought it over, they read it, and we bought it. Using ``The Scarlet Letter as source material, and his understanding of the deeper themes, Bert wrote a screenplay that was wonderfully suited to modern day high school, and demonstrates in a funny and meaningful way that these themes are as relevant today as they have been for centuries. Much like producer Devine, director Will Gluck had just wrapped a movie of his own, the Screen Gems production of Fired Up. Gluck was given the Easy A script by his colleagues at the studio, and was immediately wary. ``I usually write and direct the material I do, and after finishing the last film, I never wanted to do another high school movie again, recalls the director. ``But when I read it, although it takes place in high school, it goes way beyond that. It's really about morality, how rumors get started, and about the importance people attach to how they are perceived by others. It very quickly leaves high school and becomes a story about the entire town. It's also a very funny movie with some very touching emotionally dramatic moments. It's far from being just a high school movie. Gluck also responded to the female-centric nature of the screenplay. ``It was great to see a script that's written from the girl's point of view, adds Gluck. ``Most films are about the lengths that the guys go through to get the girl. This is about a girl that doesn't want to be 'gotten,' but still wants a boyfriend. What also struck a chord with everyone who read the script was the language of the characters. Royal made the conscious decision that Olive and her peers were going to talk like real teens, that he wouldn't shy away from dialogue that could earn the film an R rating. Although the writer was several years removed from his adolescent-aged creations, he had no shortage of examples to draw from in conveying their unique worldview. ``My mother was a teacher, so I got to spend a lot of time with kids after I had graduated and moved on from high school, says Royal. ``There was something about teen dialog and angst that was very unique to them. When I lived in New York, I would overhear kids on the subway. They were so overly dramatic about the tiniest things. But when you start really listening to it, and hearing what's underneath, you remember that when we're teenagers, we have this way of thinking that the world is going to end if anything goes wrong. ``With most PG-13 comedies, I think that often times, they don't totally get the way the kids speak. Even hanging around the set and listening to some of the background actors, the language they use is far worse than what I put in the script. If you look at some of the great classics, like Heathers, 16 Candles and The Breakfast Club, they were all R-rated. This was a script that I felt needed more realistic dialogue in terms of the story I was trying to tell. Of course, talk and action are two different things, and for Gluck, the fact that this was a movie about the hot-button topic of sex, but with no actual sex scenes, made the experience uniquely fun. ``In a weird way, it's kind of conservative, admits Gluck. ``The lesson of this story is to wait, but sometimes you've got to take a crazy path to get to that answer. It's interesting how sexuality in America has become about what people think about it, and less about the actual act. This movie gets rid of the act, as there is no act whatsoever, and is about how people talk about it, and how you feel about yourself if you're perceived in that way. ``The morality of this movie is actually a morality I think would be great for my eleven year-old daughter to understand, says Zanne Devine, ``which is a girl's empowerment about making decisions about her sexual behavior, and her choices about how her level of intimacy she's comfortable with in her life. Olive spends a lot of the movie reacting to what other people are projecting on her, not what really happened, and that morality is well within a PG-13 mindset, because the moral of the story and the ultimate lesson of the movie is one I think that any parent of a young girl or boy would want them to take away. Adds Royal, ``Olive is the kind of person who doesn't need to have sex. She's mature enough in that way to wait it out and do it when she's ready, but her immaturity comes from the idea that she's lying about it, perpetuating the lie, and thinking that it's important in how others perceive her. ``A LIST ACTING TALENT 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 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. With Stone in place as Olive, the filmmakers began the process of finding the actors who would surround her. When they were done, they found themselves almost overwhelmed at the level of talent who eagerly agreed to be a part of the project. ``A great script attracts a lot of great people, says Zanne Devine of the supporting cast of Easy A. ``I think a lot of our actors are going to surprise people, because they're playing characters very different than audiences are accustomed to. Co-stars Aly Michalka and Amanda 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 and as a platinum selling recording artist with her sister as the pop-music duo, Aly and A.J., 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 Bryant, 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 think 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 and Aly, 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. Two other actors with big fan bases were also more than happy to take on new character challenges with their roles in Easy A. For Penn Badgley, best known for his role of Dan Humphrey in the hit series Gossip Girl, playing the part of 'Woodchuck Todd' was so tempting, he arranged to fly between the west and east coasts to accommodate the shooting schedules for both the film and his series. Laying out the role's particular appeal to Badgley, Gluck explains, ``The first time we meet Penn, his face and body are all painted blue. The second and third time you meet him, he's in a woodchuck costume. The sixth time you meet him, he's wearing a lobster hat. It's not what you expect from Penn Badgley. ``It really does run the gamut, agrees Badgley, ``and that's one of the reasons I wanted to play the part. Ideally, for most of the film, you don't really know what my character is doing in the movie, but it all makes perfect sense at the end. I had a lot of fun being the strange, irreverent guy who does these seemingly inconsequential things throughout the movie, but what made me really want to play the role, was the substance and importance of the character. It's not necessarily a complicated role, but it's one that could be easily misconstrued and played inappropriately if taken in the wrong direction. Adds Gluck, ``There are certain guys in high school that can be the mascot, can hang out with the athletes, can hang out with the nerds. Todd is the kind of guy who straddles all those different subsets of high school and kind of skates through. ``Yeah, he just does it, agrees Badgley. ``But I think it's more than just being an agreeable sort of character. He's like 'I'm a teenager, I'm living in Ojai, I'm just waiting to go to college and for my life to begin.' I think that's the way he feels, and he's having fun while he does it. If everyone else thinks he looks like an idiot for doing what he does, it doesn't matter. Even though everything I'm doing as the character is theoretically really dumb and humiliating, hopefully I'm doing it with enough dignity that makes it sort of cool. For Cam Gigandet, the role of Micah was a far cry from his portrayal of the vampire who hunts humans for sport in the box-office hit Twilight. ``I think if there's anything that connects the two characters, offers Cam, ``is that at the end of the day, they both make decisions that are not very nice, and they might have somewhat of the same morals. The actor was already involved in the Screen Gems production of The Roommate when he heard about the Easy A production. He read the script, and instantly knew it was something he wanted to be a part of. ``The script was absolutely hilarious, and comedy in general isn't something that I've really gotten to play a lot of, says Gigandet. ``I knew I could have a ton of fun with it. Daniel Byrd sparked to the role of Brandon because it was a chance to play vulnerable and witty as a high school outsider. ``He can't relate to his peer group as a majority, so he's become a bit of a loner. Because of that he's developed a sort of sardonic, cynical attitude toward his immediate environment and the world at large. Then Olive comes along, they meet in detention, and find that there's some common ground there in their sensibilities. They feel they're stuck in a pool of dumb people, and they wonder why nobody gets it like they do. Byrd and Stone showed immediate chemistry when Byrd read for the part, and after working with her has nothing but praise. ``All my scenes are with her, so if she'd been a diva, it really would have made this job a job, explains Byrd. ``But she's that rarity in this business, a talented, successful, pretty actress who is completely unaffected by her success. She's just a really grounded, happy, outgoing person. It's just been fun times together. In addition to attracting some of the hottest young actors to the production, the script also drew a remarkable array of Academy Award(R) nominees and Emmy(R) winning talent to fill the key parts of the adults who surround Olive and her friends. Thomas Haden Church and Lisa Kudrow filled the roles of Mr. and Mrs. Griffith, the high school English teacher and his guidance counselor wife, while Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci brought to life Olive's parents, Rosemary and Dill Penderghast. Also joining the cast was veteran actor Malcolm McDowell, as the high school principal, and Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen as Pastor Bryant. ``We were incredibly blessed to get the caliber of talent that we did, says Gluck. ``They all responded to the script in that no matter how small the part, it was different than the material they're usually given. Patricia Clarkson corroborates Gluck's sentiments about the appeal of the script. ``It was genuinely funny and original, the actress says. ``All of the characters are so well drawn and very humorous, and not just the leads, but those of us who are kind of on the periphery as well. In a lot of these movies, the characters of the parents are kind of dull. I think we have something to contribute to the film. For Stanley Tucci, the pull of the parents' roles lay in their post-modern attitude toward raising children. ``The parents have great affection for one another, which they display openly in front of the children, and which is probably the healthiest thing that any two parents can do, because it allows children to understand what love is, says Tucci. ``Also there's trust there, and I think they feel that once you impart that to children, that the kids really can be okay on their own. There's not a cynicism to them, but a profound sense of irony. They don't take everything too seriously. They take only really, really crucial things very seriously. ``We were thrilled when Patricia and Stanley agreed to do the movie, says producer Devine. ``The fact that they're playing Olive's parents just makes it even better. Not just that they're in the movie, but in that way of explaining where did this girl come from? Who or what shaped her? When the answer is Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci, it makes perfect sense. As for Thomas Haden Church, when he read the screenplay, he responded quickly to its take on the whirlwind nature of adolescence. ``It had a very strong emotional voice, and a very unique perspective, says the actor. ``It's sort of the thing that everybody is peripherally aware of -- what goes on in high school with cliques, and the politics and hostility and criticism and all the things that are crammed into three or four of your formative years. And yet there is an emotional compendium that nobody really comments on. I think that's what this movie does. Olive goes through such a crush of judgment and pain and elation and discovery, which I found so refreshing. Even though my involvement in the film is fairly brief, the character has impact, and that's all I really care about. If I'm in a movie for five minutes or fifty minutes, it's qualitative for me as opposed to quantitative. Lisa Kudrow had only a brief shooting schedule, too, to film her small but crucial role, but producer Devine was especially excited about her involvement. ``She did a phenomenal job, says Devine. ``She was funny, and brought a fresh, unique energy to the part, and therefore to the movie. It was just wonderful seeing her playing off of Emma and Thomas. Of the film's stellar cast, Devine adds, ``All of these actors just raise the level of the film in so many ways. FROM RUMOR TO REALITY Principal photography on Easy A began on June 9, 2009 in the town of Ojai, California. Located to the north of Los Angeles in a small valley, Ojai's most prominent appearance in motion pictures was as the mythical 'Shangri-La' in Frank Capra's production of Lost Horizon. Many years later, the city's picturesque intimacy proved an important visual element to the overall feeling director Gluck sought to convey. ``What I wanted to do with this movie was put everything in perspective from a small town, says Gluck. ``This is a movie how hard it is to be a girl in high school. When you're a girl having trouble in high school, you can't escape it. The only thing smaller is if you also can't escape a small town. If you're walking down the street, all the problems you have in school are outside of the school as well. The teacher you had trouble with, the kid who's making fun of you...they're all right in your face. I wanted to find a small town that Olive could not lose herself in. We were lucky enough to be able to shoot in Ojai, which has exactly the feel I was looking for, and it also happens to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. As well as being able to offer the small town feel that the filmmakers were looking for, Ojai also boasted the perfect primary location: Nordhoff High School. The longstanding high school - with an open-air campus that takes advantage of the region's warm weather -- changed to Ojai North High School for the purposes of filming. ``It was very interesting, offers Gluck, ``because I'm originally from New York, and I initially thought high school scenes had to have hallways, because that's where everyone meets, but in most California schools there are no hallways. All doors open to the outside. The congregational areas are all outside. At one point it was tough to get my bearings on it, but once you kind of embrace that that's the way they live out here, it all became a character. The kids would come out from one class and see each other as they walk across the campus to their next classroom. We shot there for two and a half weeks, and it becomes a big part of the movie because that's their whole world during the day, and the town is their world at night. In addition to lending the physical facilities, which were available because of summer vacation, the school was beneficial in providing immeasurable resources that helped with the film's authenticity. Plus, many of Nordhoff High's students chose to spend their vacation back at the school, serving as extras. For a key scene in the film, the school gymnasium was filled with not only students as attendees, but also the school band, cheerleaders and basketball players all played a part. In the course of one shooting day, three separate scenes were filmed in the gymnasium to show the different incarnations of the school mascot over the course of time. In the first scene, Penn Badgley was covered in blue face and body paint for his appearance as the ``Blue Devil. Badgley was then cleaned up for the next scene where, due to pressure from the school's religious youth group, the mascot has been changed from the devil into a more conservative, less-threatening woodchuck. The actor was put into the bulky character costume, where he proceeded to run through the gym revving up the crowd. The third, and certainly most ambitious scene of the shooting day serves as one of the key moments in the film, as Olive makes a very dramatic and unexpected announcement to the gathered crowd. Badgley found himself back in blue paint, and in the woodchuck costume at the same time, as Emma Stone performed a song and dance number before addressing the student body. ``It's already sort of a miserable feeling having the body paint on that's clogging your pores and feels claustrophobic, and then to have the woodchuck costume on top of that, says the actor. ``I was shirtless in the scene, so the seams were rubbing against the skin. It was really hot in the costume, and production had to turn the air conditioning off for the scene. There was a lot of sweating, and in each take I'd have to run around, throw things into the crowd, yell and scream, have the costume ripped off, and then pick Emma up and join in the dance. It was a long, arduous process. Although no one doubted her talents prior to the filming of the gym number, Emma Stone surpassed everyone's already high expectations. ``It's very clear that Emma is an amazing actress, says Will Gluck, ``but she's very modest and humble, so you don't know just how talented she is. Before we filmed the scene in the gym, she had to work with a choreographer and record the track. I didn't know how good she was going to do it. I went to her first choreography rehearsal and she was stunning, after which she tells me, 'I took twelve years of dance.' And then she went into a room and recorded the song, and I was amazed. 'Oh yeah, I took voice for ten years too.' Choreographer Jennifer Hamilton says the key to a scene like the gym number is ``bringing comedy to it, bringing fun to it and letting the actors bring a little bit of what they do to it as well. As for what audiences can expect, she says, ``Hopefully, they'll be surprised and blown away at Emma's talent, first of all. Because, she's a great, great dancer, and she can move so well. For the actress, the physical demands of the scene were no problem, but she was acutely aware of having to do it for a live, on-set audience. ``It was a little embarrassing because I felt like I was back in high school, dancing in a burlesque costume and fishnets in front of five hundred of my peers, says Stone. Even though she had pre-recorded the song she would be performing to, Stone requested that the playback audio not be in her own voice. ``I'm not one of those people who can't watch the playback of the scenes and see my own performance, she explains, ``but in this instance, with everything I had to do, and as embarrassing as I felt it was, I needed one thing I could feel more comfortable with, and that was if the song was not my own voice. It would have been just too overwhelming with my voice pouring out of the speakers. Another voice notwithstanding, those in attendance could not have been more impressed with Stone's show stopping performance that day. ``She is incredible, remarks veteran actor Malcolm McDowell, who portrays the no-nonsense high school principal. ``I'm supposed to be frowning and really pissed off about what's happening in the scene, but when I was off-camera, I actually found myself in the crowd, whistling, standing up and cheering because she did such a great job. Despite the intricacies and physicality of the dance number in the gymnasium, Stone points to another, more intimate scene as her most demanding. Agreeing to help her popularity-challenged friend Brandon, the two youths attend a party where they pretend to have sex as a group of teens listen outside the bedroom door. In the privacy of the room - but well aware of their unseen eavesdroppers -- the two jump up and down on the bed, making noises, saying outrageous things, and pounding haphazardly on the walls. ``It felt like we did a million takes of that scene, recalls Stone. ``After a while I felt like I was hyperventilating, and my lungs were closing up. I had an asthma attack for the first time since I was six. It's the second day of shooting, and at one point they had to bring me an oxygen tank, and I felt like an idiot. It just pointed out what terrible shape I'm in. With all the jumping up and down and yelling and screaming and banging, I was bruised. My hands were swollen at the end of the night. Happily for all, the actress recovered quickly to forge ahead with her first starring role, which required her to be featured in almost every scene in the film. Her preparation for the shoot was simple. ``I usually have a breakdown about three weeks before a project starts, and somewhere in my panic, I tell myself how unprepared I am, explains Stone. ``Because of the incredible amount of dialogue that the character has, I realized that the only thing I could really do to feel prepared was to read the script, tirelessly, a thousand times. Whether she actually did reach a thousand times or not, Emma did read the script out loud with a friend twice a day for six weeks prior to the start of production. ``When I showed up in Ojai, it was a great comfort that I knew what I was saying and didn't have to be struggling and trying to get the words in my head, recalls Stone. ``The thing about Olive is that it all flows within her so naturally and unintentionally, that I needed to have all dialogue totally memorized to feel like I knew her like the back of my hand, as if I knew everything she was saying. While Stone was working on nailing down the part of Olive, director Will
