Former Burberry model and British-born actor Alex Pettyfer is best known for his roles in films like Stormbreaker, I Am Number Four, Beastly, Magic Mike, and The Butler. Now the 23 year-old actor’s latest role is as David Axlerod in the romantic drama Endless Love.
Based on a novel by Scott Spencer, it was originally adapted to film in 1981 starring Brooke Shields and Martin Hewitt. While the original film was plagued by uniformly negative reviews and a lukewarm domestic box office reception, its most enduring legacy was its duet theme song of the same name by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie, which became one of the biggest hits of the 1980’s and won an Oscar for Best Original Song. Pettyfer was asked what his feelings were on the theme song of the original film, romantic ballads, and the soundtrack for this new adaptation.
“I love the song,” Alex says, I love ‘Don’t Find Another Love’ by Tegan & Sara. I think that’s a great song. I think “Ends Of The Earth” by Lord Huron is a great song. I think it’s a great soundtrack. I think [director] Shana [Feste] and Universal did an amazing job.”
Alex talks about what made him want to do the film, and talked about his own favorite romantic films.
“What I love about this movie is it’s about two young people falling in love for the first time and that naïveté that they have, which was very inspiring for me to do the movie,” Pettyfer believes, “Because a lot of these movies, they touch on like Love Story, which is one of my favorite love films of all time with Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal. It touches on the basis of what they have to do when they fall in love and get married and have children and this and that, and this movie doesn’t touch on that subject. It’s about ‘pure love’ and the consequences that come with that, of being a young man and a young woman.”
“My favorite being Love Story, my favorite romantic comedies are Love Actually and Bridget Jones, please do not judge,” he adds, “This film was great. I’m 23, turning 24 soon. I think when you’re my age, you want to have an aura of a man. You want to be a man and to do this film, you had to go back and become a child again, to feel all those feelings for the first time, and I think that’s really a scary thing for anyone to act like a child and have those innate feelings that come to you, and Shana was great guiding me at that, and I guess that’s why I wanted to be a part of this.”
The film breaks away from both the original novel and film, where Pettyfer’s character David’s level of volatility and instability does not end well for him. He talks about how they refined his character slightly for this new incarnation to make him more accessible to audiences, particularly modern ones.
“The thing with Endless Love, with Shana’s Endless Love that I’m a part of, we wanted to start the movie where David has made a conscious decision to change his life for the better,” he says, “Because we accessed the movie to a point where he’s already a little bit in love with Jade. When they meet at the valet, that’s just a moment that’s been waiting to happen for four years. And so, we didn’t want to indulge in something that he was a part of in the past, we just wanted it to be his past and something that loitered around him.”
“We just wanted a guy that every woman, and I think I can say this on the behalf of all women, I think every woman wants a man that loves him and wants to lust after them, and we didn’t want to have any baggage with that,” Alex continues, “We wanted the baggage to be history that came up in the movie. So you see David in hopefully, one of the best times in his life, and meeting this woman is an incredible thing for him and only makes him want to strive to be a better man and change the way of where he’s going in his life and want to go to college.”
The story deals with a teenage couple, played by Alex and Gabriella Wilde, who must deal with the latter’s character Jade’s overprotective father, played by Bruce Greenwood. Alex talks about working with Greenwood, as well as with Robert Patrick.
“To work with Bruce Greenwood, even Robert Patrick is an incredible experience for someone like me, someone’s who’s just starting out and hopefully will have a longevity,” he says, “To work with him and his work ethic and the way he approaches a scene is mind-boggling to me. The guy picks up things that I don’t even notice. I can go on for days. There was a scene that we sit down for the dinner and he gives the telescope for Jade and he says, ‘I want the placematting set for my lost child.’ He goes, ‘I want an empty seat there,’ because my character would still set the table, because I’m still in mourning, and I wouldn’t even think of that.”
“The original scene I don’t think made it into the movie,” Pettyfer adds, “I go to sit down in that seat and he goes, ‘Don’t sit there,’ and that’s something that [Bruce] comes up with. He ad-libs to a scene, as a young actor, that’s amazing to walk away to go, ‘I would never look at something like that before.’ And now, hopefully, as I go on in my career, I can hopefully do the same and really look into that stuff.”
In light of a scene involving Patrick’s character telling David, ‘Embarrass yourself, it builds character,’ we asked Pettyfer if he had any of his own character-building embarrassing moments.
“Oh, wow, we’re really starting here, aren’t we?” Alex replies, “My father. I’m going to go sentimental. I know that doesn’t really answer the question, but yeah.”
Alex talks about how he initially was skeptical about doing Endless Love, because of the idea that an awkward girl is being played by a fairly attractive actress.
“Which by the way, was one of the problems I had signing on to the movie,” Pettyfer says, “I sat down with the studio and excuse my language, I said, ‘Whoever wouldn’t fucking go out with that girl is nuts, because she is beautiful. How is she going to play someone that is awkward.’ I know what you’re saying, but Gabriella [Wilde] comes across, like she does it to a T.”
“I don’t mean to say this, because she’s not like this,” she continues, “She’s a very beautiful woman, but she has, in the movie, and how she plays Jade, she’s very awkward and shut off. People say, ‘Well, how can someone that beautiful not have friends.’ I certainly know that if there was a beautiful woman standing there, I would have a very hard time going up to her.”
Pettyfer subsequently shared an example of his awkward moments meeting girls.
“I was 18 years of age and I was at a party and I had just done a movie and I didn’t know what it was like for someone to recognize you,” Alex says, “And she’s my friend now, she’s a mother now, but she was 24 at the time and she comes, this tall brunette walks up to me and she goes, ‘Excuse me, are you Alex?’”
“And I turned around and fumbling my words, I go, ‘Yeah?’” he adds, “She’s like, ‘I really thought you were good in a movie, and I just wanted to come off and say, “Hi.”‘ And it was like I couldn’t speak. I’m so terrible when it comes to talking to women. I’m the worst. I don’t know what to say. I come over very, very geeky.”
Alex talks about his experience of working with his co-star Gabriella Wilde.
“She was amazing,” Pettyfer says, “She was actually a part of this movie before I was. Just to work with her, it was great, very easygoing, she’s English, I’m English, there was a connection we could build off there. Shana set the atmosphere and the environment for us to become close and to become friends. Because you can find it’s very hit and miss for that kind of stuff. I had a lovely time with her and hopefully, it came across onscreen.”
With Valentine’s Day being the release of the film, Pettyfer was asked about what he hopes will be his ideal way to celebrate.
“Well, I’ve tried to get the sympathy vote by telling every interviewer that is female that I have no date, and not one of them has turned around and said, ‘Aww, I’ll be your date,’” he says, “But my mum is coming out on Valentine’s Day and she’s going to be my date. I said to her, ‘What do you want to do on Valentine’s Day, mum?’”
“She goes, ‘I want to go see Endless Love,’” Alex continues, “I said, ‘OK, I’ll set up a screening for you.’ She goes, ‘No, no screening for me. We’re going to The Grove and we’re going to sit there and we’re going to watch it in the movie theater.’ I go, ‘Alright.’”
We asked Alex if Jade’s father’s disapproval of David and his threat for Jade to ‘see the “real him”’ is ironic, considering he gets into fights to stand up for his women, and that we actually should have more guys like that.
“It’s so hard nowadays because I’m a hopeless romantic and I say it very loudly and proudly and I get a lot of stick for it,” he replies, “It’s so accessible to date now, which is great, I don’t judge that, we have so many ways of meeting people. But romance, I like to meet someone, and the chivalry to take them out on a date and actually be a gentleman, I think is becoming rarer and rarer.”
“And so, the experiences that I’ve had in my life between my dad and my brother and all the men in my life have all been gentlemen and have all looked after women,” Pettyfer continues, “I don’t know if we’d go so far to say that we would punch someone in the face, but we would definitely stand up for our ladies. Sometimes, it’s more attractive to use your words and intelligence than your fists.”
In light of Endless Love’s focus on ‘first love’, Pettyfer talked about his own brush with that.
“I think that first love defines you and your relationships for the rest of your life,” Alex says, “I had a great first love. My heart ripped out my chest, but I think that happens to everyone. When you fall in love for the first time, and I know this because I’ve experienced this in the movie that I just made, you’re naïve to every feeling that you’re feeling and you’re almost obsessed with that person or addicted and your life consumes of them and everything you want to do revolves around them. And so, I think it’s great.”
Alex was asked about why he feels why people become more jaded about love and relationships as they get older, especially in this era.
“I think your emotion changes between person to person, and as you get older,” Pettyfer says, “That’s why a lot of people become cynical, because of the experiences that they’ve had and haven’t been able to let go, whether they’ve been cheated on or it hasn’t worked out. It’s so easy to turn around right now and say, ‘Just let it go and you may have good relationships and you may have bad, and you just have to roll with it and just still truly believe and not be cynical,’ but it’s hard.”
“You go through four relationships where you’re not happy or you’ve been cheated on or whatever,” he adds, “I’m not saying this has happened to me, I’m just talking in a broad scope of things. You have to still believe. I think that’s what upsets me the most and why I wanted to make this movie, because I wanted to truly believe in love and I think every relationship should start the way that our relationships started with our first love when we were 16, 17, or 18.”
Pettyfer was also asked to talk about his love scenes with Wilde.
“You know what, I love it,” he answers with a mischievous laugh, “Because you’ve been sitting there for a while and you’re like, ‘I just need to know what it was like to kiss Gabriella Wilde. Yeah, dude, it’s so awkward, so awkward. We had a scene where we made love for the first time, and she’s very awkward, she’s never done it.”
“You think these things are romantic and sensual and you come in your robe and it’s all quiet, you take off your robe,” Alex continues, “And then, you start to kiss Gabriella and you look to your right and there’s a big burly man standing there with a light over you going, ‘Just move to the right a little bit, mate.’ And you’re like, ‘Ugh, OK, this is not so romantic.’ So the nerves go away very fast.”
It was also commented how despite the film being a Hollywood production made in America, Alex and many of the rest of the leads are all foreigners.
“Well, Gabriella and Joely [Richardson] did not talk about what you all here call ‘soccer’,” he says, “I tried to talk to them about soccer, it did not work, but it was so nice to be on a movie with other English people.”
“Our culture, we like to bond together, English people,” Pettyfer adds, “And it was amazing to be able to do a movie with them. But also, Bruce is Canadian and Rhys [Wakefield] is Australian, so we had a multicultural film going on with different personalities. It was nice. Everyone was lovely.”
Pettyfer was asked what advice he would have for guys to deal with their girlfriend’s parents like David has to in Endless Love.
“I don’t know,” Alex answers, “I have never been in a situation where I, thankfully and I don’t know why, haven’t got along with my girlfriend’s parents. I’ve been very lucky to have girlfriends that have such amazing families that have brought me in. I’ve really actually grown with my girlfriends and the people that they have introduced me to, and the way that I’ve been welcomed in by their families. I’m a very, very lucky man.”
Original post: Alex Pettyfer Interview for Endless Love