The simple notion of romantic love can push people to test its viability; its resonance and ultimately the courage it takes to not play it safe and to change your life.
It's that idea that fuels the Summit Entertainment production of the romantic comedy "Letters to Juliet," starring Amanda Seyfried ("Mamma Mia"), Vanessa Redgrave (6-time Academy Award nominee; and winner for "Julia"), Christopher Egan ("Eragon"), Gael García Bernal ("The Motorcycle Diaries") and Franco Nero ("Die Hard 2").  The film is directed by Gary Winick ("Charlotte's Web", "13 Going on 30") and produced by Mark Canton, Ellen Barkin and Caroline Kaplan.  The screenplay is by Jose Rivera (Academy Award nominee for "The Motorcycle Diaries") and Tim Sullivan.  Ron Schmidt serves as executive producer.
Seyfried plays Sophie Hall, an aspiring magazine writer, who with her boyfriend Victor (Bernal) flies from New York to Italy for some much-needed romance.  While Victor is off tending to some business, Sophia finds herself in the famous Verona courtyard of the star-crossed lover Juliet Capulet of Romeo and Juliet where woman from all over the world leave Juliet letters of love lost and hoped for.  She discovers a 50-year-old letter written to Juliet by Claire Smith (Redgrave) searching for a young Italian who romanced her as a teen.
To Sophie's surprise, her letter inspires Claire, now a grandmother, to travel to Verona in search of her long-lost love (Nero).  Accompanied by her grandson Charlie (Egan), the threesome search all over Tuscany and discover that the courage for all of them to deal with love is not easily won.
But her impetus for embarking on her adventure is, in her mind, to further her career. Being a fact checker and wanting to be a journalist is a large leap and Sophie senses a story that will propel her career. Once she gets caught up in helping Claire with a second chance she discovers that the story she was chasing was because she was running from the stories of her life.

The Production…
Two households, both alike in dignity in fair Verona, where we lay our scene

     William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, The Prologue

In point of fact whether Romeo and Juliet is real and from Verona, Italy has become irrelevant since Verona is known as the location on which Shakespeare based his play. Half a million tourists descend upon the northern Italian city (90 minutes west of Venice) specifically to visit the courtyard where notes of love lost and won are affixed to the stone wall; to stand on Juliet's balcony and pose next to the bronze statue of Juliet (with her right breast polished to a sheen from the tradition of touching it for good luck).  Production began on June 25, 2009 in Verona, which (next to Rome, Florence and Venice) is the most visited city in Italy.
"What makes it so wonderful about this tradition (of the courtyard) and love in general, is that everyone wants to believe in it," says director Gary Winick.  Since the 1930s "Juliet" has received thousands of letters from all over the world; sometimes the missives are sometimes simply addressed as "Juliet, Verona," but all of them reach their destination (the Club di Giulietta), which is staffed by volunteers. And all the letters are answered; sometimes with the help of outside translators.
The idea for the movie got momentum when producers Caroline Kaplan and Ellen Barkin were intrigued by an album of Elvis Costello's, "The Juliet Letters" which followed the pair becoming aware of the Verona Courtyard phenomenon. Soon after, they discovered the book "Letters to Juliet: Celebrating Shakespeare's Greatest Heroine, the Magical City of Verona and The Power of Love" by sisters Lise and Ceil Friedman.
"It all seemed like such a beautiful and romantic idea and as we kept exploring more and more about the idea, we finally went to Summit with the notion that Gary would be the director and it came together very quickly," says Kaplan.
"For me, what I find is the most interesting and complicated and universal is material that deals with people's relationships and their emotions," says Winick.
"For some people it's as if they live their lives on a checkerboard and you're on a square and only move to the next square because of circumstances. But imagine if you would change your life just based on courage, and simply make the leap without being pushed," adds Winick.
"Gary's sensibilities are a bulls eye for this movie which, is in the best sense of the term, a date movie," says producer Mark Canton. "It deals with an intrinsic human trait: it's hard to run from what the heart tells you and sometimes it's hard to run toward what the heart tells you."
The movie is notable if for no other reason as to demonstrate that movies are the world's language: the five stars of the movie are from five different countries; Seyfried (United States), Redgrave (U.K.), Egan (Australia), Bernal (Mexico) and Nero (Italy).
Coming off of the international box office sensation of "Mamma Mia," and the series "Big Love," Amanda Seyfried had proven herself as an actress but had not yet been the lead in a project and in particular, one that required her to be in virtually every scene. "The movie rides on her shoulders, "notes Winick.  "She's certainly luminous on screen but what's going on for her is two voyages: finding her mother, meaning Vanessa and finding her true love, which is not Victor.
"She's deep, she's funny and there's a lot going on behind those amazing eyes," says Winick.
"When I read the script and realized that I was in every scene, I thought, well, it's going to be a lot of work but I sort of thrive on the interaction with the cast and crew. I like socializing, so it was a blessing and a curse because by the end of the movie, I was really tired," says Seyfried.
"It doesn't take tremendous insight to realize that Vanessa Redgrave would be great for the role," says Winick. "She's great in everything she's done. Our casting director (Ellen Lewis) always says, 'You get that one actor who raises the bar and thereby brings up the level of the movie' and that happened on this movie and it was because of Vanessa."
"If you're going to be on screen with Vanessa Redgrave, you better 'bring it ,'" says Mark Canton. "Because she comes early, leaves late, knows her lines and your lines."
For Seyfried, any intimidation about playing so many scenes opposite a screen legend was quickly dissipated. "Nothing is a big deal to her (Vanessa). She's so smart, so present and incapable of being false on camera so that you immediately relax in her presence."
The talented Gael Garcia Bernal plays her intense, hyper-kinetic boyfriend of Victor. "It's a role, the likes of which, I've never played before. Victor is very specific and loves food more than anything else and wants to share that with his girlfriend, Sophie," says Garcia Bernal.
"The problem with Sophie and Victor is that they're not sharing the same moment together," says Seyfried. "They care for each other and love each other, but they're not connecting.  Victor is in love with his cooking and his dream. On the other hand, Sophie and Charlie connect because she sees how much more exists for a relationship."
Finding the actor to play Charlie--someone who can play Redgrave's grandson and be believable as the guy that would cause Sophie to think twice about her current relationship--was the hardest task during casting.
"Getting Chris was divine intervention and it was really late in the game when we settled on him" says Caroline Kaplan. "Casting is probably the most difficult part of movie making but when it works with two people; it's so apparent and so magical."
"Ultimately, it comes down to when the two actors are in the room and they're playing off one another. When 'it' happens you know it immediately," says Winick. "But as it turned out we auditioned scores of actors for Charlie in New York and London and it was a lot of work until we came across Chris Egan."
Conversely, finding the actor for Lorenzo, Claire's long-lost love, the filmmakers didn't have to look too far. "Aside from being married to Vanessa, Franco Nero is a wonderful actor and capturing that moment where the two of them find each other after 50 years…well, it would be hard to create the intensity with someone other than Franco. Nero. And the fact that the character and he are both Italian and we are shooting in Italy….well, it worked out perfectly," says Winick.
The pair first met on "Camelot" in 1966 when director Joshua Logan cast the two young actors.
"I think Vanessa is the best actress we've seen Even though I'm her husband these are not my words. These are the words of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller and I agree with them," says Nero. "I've worked with her about 10 times over 43 years and her talent is a gift that astonishes directors."
For Winick, having the obvious chemistry between Redgrave and Franco was important, but shooting in Italy and having an Italian actor of his presence helped make the movie "just feel right."  Aside from his leads, Winick fleshed out the rest of the movie with nearly all Italian actors. All of the "secretaries de Guilietta" were cast out of Italy.
"I remember the book "Fellini Faces" (Italian director Federico Fellini) which has these great portraits of Italian character actors and my goal was to get those great looks which would immediately elevate the role of the secretaries. It runs the gamut from the extraordinarily beautiful Luisa Raneri (Isabella in the movie) to the great character face Luisa DeSantis (who plays Angelina).
"Anyway, I cast all these ladies and I had a rehearsal with them and it astounded how much energy they created when all together and all I could think was, 'I wish I had a camera rolling,'" recalls Winick of his pre-production time.
Once the casting was completed in early June, the focus was now on the logistics of making the movie and in particular trying to pull of something not thought possible: having the city of Verona closing down their main tourist attraction--Casa di Giulietta--for two days to allow filming in the courtyard.  It took almost three months of negotiating with the city and for them to realize the long-term tourism benefit would be worth the couple days of pain (i.e. tourists not being able to enter the courtyard).
Production designer Stuart Wurtzel altered the location (the entry way to the courtyard was a white wall covered in graffiti) by adding a faux brick covering to the walls with brick columns and in general made it less "touristy" and more representative of what it might have been like in Juliet's time.
"The colors of Italy are the colors of the earth and it's gorgeous in every direction so my instinct was to 'dial it back' so as not to intrude on the story," says Wurtzel.
Winick's first concern was to make sure they weren't creating a postcard of Italy where "the background becomes the foreground."
"As long as we (Wurtzel and director of photography Marco Pontecorvo) realized that the value of the movie is the realism of the emotional stuff, the beauty shots will support the story, not the other way around," says Winick.
Other locations around the Verona area included the spectacular estate, Villa Arvedi (scene for where Claire meets one of the many "Lorenzos"), the small village of Soave (famous for it's white wine) which had a more "Southern Italian" look to it as well as an establishing shot of Sophie walking the streets of Verona in front of the 2,000 year-old Arena, home to the most famous outdoor opera season in the world.
The production also traveled to scenic Lake Garda (one of the famous three northern Italian lakes) before moving the production south to Siena. From there shooting was done all over Tuscany, and for 10 days the Argiano vineyards (one hour south of Siena) where the world-famous Brunello wine is produced.
Two days were spent in the historic ancient city of Siena amidst the steep narrow streets that all feed down to the his historic Piazza del Campo where the production "stole" a shot of Sophie and Charlie crossing the vast public square while thousands of tourists were too taken with the historic surroundings to notice the movie camera.
The Borgo Scopeto Hotel, formerly a family estate for centuries, was the location for the interior and exterior hotel scenes where Sophie, Claire and Charlie based out of for the Tuscany excursion. Nestled amidst vineyards and olive groves about 20 minutes from Siena, the hotel was where the Italian portion of the movie wrapped on August 13, 2009. The day after the actors and key crew flew to New York City for four days of filming. Bryant Park and Times Square were the two key exterior locations and Victor's restaurant was located in an empty building in SoHo.
"There are certain movies where the location becomes a character," notes Winick.  "Growing up in New York on Woody Allen films, you really get a sense of that.  "And I feel the same way about this movie and Italy. While you can recreate anything anywhere, being in Italy gets inside of you and it comes out in the performances and the colors of the earth and the buildings. There's nowhere quite like it."
For Christopher Egan, the matter of getting in the "mood" didn't prove to be too far a stretch: "Amanda and I were doing a scene in an outdoor café in Siena eating some ice cream and then we spent the rest of the day shooting scenes of us walking around the city and it even though we're doing multiple takes and surrounded by a big crew, it's hard not to feel romantic. The sights and the language start to overwhelm your senses."
"It's the most extraordinary county," says Redgrave. "The Italy I knew as a child is pretty much gone and most of the tourists go to the same regions, but I think this movie will show them a little more than what they thought Italy was about. "

About the filmmakers…

Gary Winick (Director) has directed "Bride Wars" (2009), "13 Going On 30" (2004) and "Charlotte's Web" (2006), a live action/computer-animated feature film based on the popular book of the same name by E. B. White.
Winick received his B.A. degree at Tufts University and his MFA degree from the University of Texas and the American Film Institute.  He taught at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts for seven years and in 1999 teamed up with John Sloss and IFC Productions to create Independent Digital Entertainment (InDigEnt) to produce digital video feature films for theatrical release.
Winick's producing credits include "Final," directed by Campbell Scott; "Chelsea Walls," directed by Ethan Hawke, which premiered in the Director's Fortnight at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival; "Tape," directed by Richard Linklater; "Women In Film," directed by Bruce Wagner, which premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival; "Ten Tiny Love Stories," directed by Rodrigo Garcia; "Wake Up And Smell The Coffee," directed by
Michael Rauch; "Personal Velocity," directed by Rebecca Miller, which premiered in the Dramatic Competition at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival; "Kill The Poor," directed by Alan Taylor; and "November" directed by Greg Harrison, which premiered in the Dramatic Competition at the 2004 Sundance and won the Cinematography Award.
Other producing credits are "Pizza," directed by Mark Christopher; "Land Of Plenty," directed by Wim Wenders, which premiered in the Dramatic Competition at the 2004 Venice Film Festival and won the UNEXCO Award; "Lonesome Jim," directed by Steve Buscemi, which premiered in the Dramatic Competition at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival; "Sorry Haters" directed by Jeff Stanzler, which premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival; "Flakes," directed by Michael Lehmann; and "Puccini for Beginners" directed by Maria Maggenti, which premiered in the Dramatic Competition at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
Other film directing credits include "Curfew" (1988), "Out of the Rain" (1991), "Sweet Nothing" (1996) and "The Tic Code," which won the Glass Bear at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival. Winick directed two digital feature films, "Sam the Man" (2000) and "Tadpole," the latter premiering in the Dramatic Competition at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and won he Best Director Award.

A former student of Gabriel García Márquez, José Rivera (screenwriter) is the author of some 30 plays and 13 screenplays translated into scores of languages and seen around the world.  Rivera was nominated for a 2005 Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award for his first produced screenplay "The Motorcycle Diaries," directed by Walter Salles, for which he won Spain's Goya Award and Argentina's top screenwriting prize. 
His film "Trade" was the first film to premiere at the United Nations.  In 2007 he directed the music video of Serj Tankian's "The Sky is Over."  He has written screen adaptations of "On the Road" (Walter Salles, director, Francis Ford Coppola, executive producer), "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" (Walter Salles, director, Scott Rudin, producer), "Three Apples Fell from Heaven,"  "Phalian" (Alan Parker, director), "Face Value" (Amy Redford, director) and "Patriotic Treason" (Mark Gordon, producer).
As a playwright, he's received two OBIE  Awards for Playwriting (for "Marisol" and "References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot," both produced by the Public Theatre, New York), and has also received a Fulbright Arts Fellowship, a Whiting Foundation Award, a McKnight Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, and a Kennedy Center Grant. His latest play, "Boleros for the Disenchanted" premiered at Yale Repertory and was seen at the American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco and the Goodman Theatre, Chicago.  He is also at work on a novel, "Love Makes the City Crumble."

Tim Sullivan (screenwriter) began his career as a scriptwriter with the filmmaker Derek Jarman before joining London-based Granada TV as a researcher. He later became a director at the company working in local news, documentaries, entertainment and finally drama. His directing credits at Granada included "Coronation Street," "The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes" with Jeremy Brett and "Thatcher: The Final Days" with Syliva Syms.
During this time he also co wrote the screenplays for the movies "A Handful of Dust" (starring Kristen Scott Thomas, James Wilby, Judi Dench and and Alec Guinness) and "Where Angels Fear To Tread" (Helen Mirren, Helena Bonham Carter and Judy Davis).
He left Granada and made his first movie for the company, "Jack and Sarah," which he wrote and directed. Recently he directed "Catwalk Dogs" with Kris Marshall for ITV and the final episode of "Cold Feet."
Tim is also an established screenwriter in the United States having written scripts for New Line, Universal (for director Ron Howard), and Paramount (for producer Scott Rudin) as well as being one of the writers of the hit animated movie "Flushed Away." He is currently working on a movie centered on the London Marathon called "26point2."

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