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Every young actress has to ask herself how she wants to debut her talent to the world. Does she want to show off her funny side first? Dramatic? Sexy? Somber? Luckily for The Lucky One star Taylor Schilling, she didn’t have to choose, being cast in a role that showcases all of the above attributes and more. “There were really fun parts of being able to go to dark places and then being able to play and laugh and goof around,” said Schilling about her character, Beth, during a roundtable interview in Boston (she grew up in a nearby suburban area).

Schilling’s Beth is a divorced mother who is the object of affection to drifter war vet Logan (Zac Efron). But with untold secrets and a controlling ex-husband, the romance in The Lucky One, another Nicholas Spark’s adaptation, is a dramatic whirlwind.

A bit timid due to lack of experience at press junkets, Schilling might have to find herself getting used to this lifestyle if The Lucky One is a hit along with her upcoming starring roles in the Ben Affleck directed-starrer Argo and the Bradley Cooper-Robert DeNiro header The Silver Linings Playbook.

Being a movie based off of a Nicholas Sparks novel, do you actually read the script or do you just say, “Yep! I’ll do it”?

TS: For me, being given the opportunity to play this part was a huge deal. So I was just thrilled. “Yeah! Sign me up!” (Laughs).

…. It was really cool to have Nicholas available to us. He is such a dynamo. He never was intrusive; he was so respectful. He was there if we wanted a resource if we wanted to talk about characters or what he thought was going on. It’s a really cool tool to have, because you can get specific or not.

So as an actress do you feel more in debt to honor the character of Beth in the book or the version of her that is in the script?

TS: I tried not to separate them. It’s sort of like hunting and gathering. I just try to gather as much information as I can about her and then sort of see what happens in the moment and not compartmentalize it.

Can you talk about your co-stars? What was it like to be working with Blythe Danner and Zac Efron?

TS: …I grew up really in awe of Blythe, in her work onstage and in film. Like The Great Santini is just a classic. So I think the second most exciting call, after I got the job, was finding out that she was going to be in the movie as well. And she is just so incredibly talented, so incredibly charming and easy going and funny and passionate and created this environment for all of us, while we working and outside of working, that was just so comfortable. I really can’t say enough about her. Our relationship is one of the most exciting things to come out of filming for me. Like we can still get dinner and I just I love her. I really do.

And Zac is incredible. I knew nothing about Zac when I did this. I met him at the screen test and he is so down-to-earth and so easygoing and so hardworking and so present. I think he can do anything he wants to. We clicked. It was just so comfortable.

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