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Leap Year Full Production Notes
Irish legend tells that, since the fifth century, women who find themselves in the land of luck can propose to their suitors who have yet to pop the question. The catch for these women longing to become legitimate fiancées? They only have 24 hours-once every four years-to utter those four little words to boyfriends who've been dragging their feet. And that day is February 29th.
When her four-year anniversary passes without a marriage proposal, apartment stager Anna Brady (Amy Adams) decides enough is enough. Investing in the ancient Irish tradition that allows women to propose to men on Leap Day, Anna decides to follow her cardiologist boyfriend Jeremy (Adam Scott) from Boston to Dublin and get down on one knee herself. It's just what her wayward-but-well-intentioned father, Jack (John Lithgow), would want her to do. Simple. Easy.
But when unreliable airplanes, inclement weather and bad luck leave the controlling Anna stranded on the other side of Ireland, she must enlist the help of the carefree-but-surly chef Declan (Matthew Goode) to get her across the country. And as Anna and Declan bicker across the Emerald Isle, they discover something they should have known all along: the road to love can take you to very unexpected places.
About The Production
For more than a decade, writing partners Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont have been collaborating on comedies. With Leap Year, they admit that the concept for their latest project came to them very quickly. Kaplan recalls: “I was on a news website, and it was actually February 29th. There was a headline that read `Women in Ireland Propose on Leap Year Day,' and I said to Harry, `Does this sound like a movie or what?' We dropped what we were working on, and within two weeks we had the outline of the story. Within another two weeks, we had sold it to Spyglass. We then wrote it very quickly, and Amy signed onto it. It all happened lightning fast.”
The screenwriters were fascinated by the Leap Day stories they uncovered. Kaplan and Elfont knew that truth was stranger than fiction and felt this was an ideal proposition for a romantic comedy. “You read so many scripts where the premise seems forced,” Kaplan offers, “but this gave us the freedom to tell a simple but very credible love story. Here's a story about a girl who's going to propose to her boyfriend. This date gives her a specific day to get there, a country to go to that's not her own, and you follow the journey. Because we had a framework and knew where we were going, it allowed us to dig in and create a more complex role for an actress to play.”
At the center of their story is Anna, a fastidious young Boston native who has spent a life leading with her head instead of her heart. She's spent the past four years dating an up-and- coming cardiologist, and everything in her life seems perfect as she eagerly anticipates a proposal.
Elfont elaborates: “She has a father who was scattered and very irresponsible. Anna was forced early on to be the grown-up and to create a safe place for herself by making all these plans and knowing exactly what was coming next. She's created that life with Jeremy, but there's just one thing missing and she's unsettled. When she hears about this Leap Year tradition, she believes that she can close the deal and everything will be exactly as she's planned it.”
As the writing partners fleshed out the story, they knew that Anna personified the theme of their comedy: you can find a messy, fantastic love amidst chaos. “You can't plan everything, and you have to let life happen to you in order to find happiness,” says Elfont. “You can try, but you're not necessarily going to be happy. It's a very modern idea that you can control everything and be completely in charge of your life. We try to be a bit old-fashioned about that.”
While their protagonist struggles with the trappings of contemporary life on America's east coast, the roguish Declan is her polar opposite. Though he is an Irishman who leads with his heart, he is also no poster boy for emotional fulfillment. “Declan has had his heart broken, and he's stopped moving forward; he's stuck, and she's stuck,” explains Kaplan. “Through this journey they are both able to move on. And the best way for them to move on is with each other's help.”
When the premise for Leap Year was pitched to executives at Spyglass Entertainment, the producers found a story they believed had widespread appeal… and one that tossed out the notion of falling for your true love the moment you find him or her. “Not only did Anna and Declan not fall in love at first sight,” explains producer Roger Birnbaum. “What they felt for each other was actually extreme dislike at first sight. But the journey that they go on strips away all that they thought was true before. They learn a way to live and love by taking this trip together.”
Such was the producers' confidence in the project that it went before cameras only one year after the initial pitch. The on-screen talent also shared that sentiment. Amy Adams signed on soon after Spyglass agreed to the project. Of choosing the comedy's star soon after securing the rights, producer Gary Barber adds: “We'd seen Amy in Junebug, in Enchanted and, recently, in Doubt, and she displayed a great range of acting ability. Her sense of comedic timing was terrific.”
When Spyglass began its search for a director to helm the project, they came upon Thailand-born filmmaker Anand Tucker, whose sophomore film effort, Hilary and Jackie, earned the director a British Independent Film Award. Producer Jonathan Glickman recalls: “We were big fans of Shopgirl and Hilary and Jackie. We had a great telephone conversation with Anand, and he had such a knowledge and passion for the romantic-comedy genre. Then he went off to meet Amy Adams, who absolutely loved him. We felt he had what we needed in him and that he could elevate the story beyond a typical romantic comedy.”
Director Tucker describes his reaction to Elfont and Kaplan's script, one that he found was about “reconnecting with yourself.” He notes: “It reminded me of those wonderful classic romantic comedies where ill-matched couples come together and go through their journey. It had a lovely balance of emotion and five or six fantastic set pieces that really are laugh-out-loud funny…and it's genuinely touching.”
Not only did the screenplay move him, he was keen to work with Adams. Tucker recalls: “I got a call saying `Would you like to meet Amy?'Well, given that I'd seen Enchanted about 50 times because my little boy was obsessed by it, I thought Amy was a bit of a genius. I leapt at the chance, read the script quickly and was utterly charmed by it. I found myself on a plane to New York…and that was that!”
Soon after she read the script, Amy Adams agreed to become attached to Leap Year. In the past several years, she has risen from supporting player to global star. With a breakout performance in 2005's independent Junebug and a career-changing role in the 2007 blockbuster Enchanted, Adams has selected films that showcase her cons talents at both drama and comedy. From last year's powerful turn as a novice in Doubt to her blogging cook in Summer 2009's hit Julie & Julia, the actress has steadily shot to the top.
The filmmakers believed Adams would bring a depth to the project that would take the audience away from the stereotypes often seen in romantic comedies. They found the actress very aware of not making Anna a one-dimensional, spoiled woman who needs to learn a lesson.
Producer Chris Bender elaborates: “Amy is undeniably likable. There's an innocence in her eyes, no matter what she does. Her character begins the journey as hard-edged and aggressive yet, a woman living in a bubble. Still, you really empathize and care about her, while enjoying watching her literally get knocked down a few pegs as she travels through Ireland with Declan.”
Director Tucker describes the performer as “a supremely talented dramatic actress, but also a very talented comedian. You watch her go to work, and she nails every scene. She inhabits the role because you really believe her. You believe there really is this person called Anna from Boston that she's created; that allows the movie to go quite broad when it needs to. It's a difficult thing to marry together emotion and comedy, but Amy pulls it off with great style. She is one of those rare creatures who can do anything.”
Adams read Anna as “the type of woman who sets a timetable for herself and hits milestones and judges her life by the things she does. She believes she is independent and can have it all. Anna has a list of what that `all' means: the husband, the job…she even has the kids planned out. Everything is planned and on a schedule and she's not somebody who gets off her schedule often. She spends more time thinking about what she does rather than the type of person she is.”
The performer admits that she was drawn to Leap Year because of the script's exploration “of how we set out to achieve and to acquire, but don't necessarily set out on a path that is authentic. We are swayed off our path so often by shiny things. I was interested in this theme about getting to the truth of who you are.”
But she's quick to add that Anna's single-mindedness is the source of much of the film's humor, including a number of scenes in which the reluctant traveler can't escape the forces of nature driving Anna and Declan together. Adams laughs: “Any time you take somebody who thinks they know exactly who they are and exactly what they are doing, and show them that they have no clue, it's a lot of fun. And I'm wet a lot…nothing is funnier than a wet actress.”
Anna's quest to land her boyfriend in holy matrimony comes with one big hiccup: an Irishman named Declan on whom she must rely to get to Dublin. Adams elaborates on what is it about Declan that challenges Anna. “Everything,” she says. “He talks to her in a way no one has spoken to her; he raises questions. He is totally different to anything she has encountered on her path of avoidance. It sparks her, moves her in a different direction and, finally, it touches her. Anna isn't someone who has allowed herself to feel that often, and this makes her feel. He makes her take note, he makes her question and she doesn't like the answers she comes up with…until she realizes that this person and this place might be the answer.”
Chosen to play the diamond in the rough whom Anna gradually learns to like, then fall in love with, was British actor Matthew Goode. The actor made his feature debut with the romantic comedy Chasing Liberty and has gone on to garner notice in films from Match Point and The Lookout to 2009's Watchmen. Producer Barber explains the team's choice: “We chose Matthew because we had cast him in the film The Lookout, and he had displayed a great range of acting ability. But we'd also previously seen him in Match Point, where he played a terrific romantic interest. We thought he could really fit this role perfectly, showing the talents of both his dramatic range and his comedic timing. He's a handsome guy with a roguish look to him, which is perfect for this film.”
Tucker elaborates on Goode's charm as Declan: “Matthew's an incredibly quicksilver fellow. He has one of those lightning sharp brains, and he was already 15 steps ahead of me every time we got up to do anything. He's got a deliciously dark sense of humor, as well as being a very fine actor.”
The director was not only impressed by Goode and Adams' chemistry with one another, but he loved the misadventures that happen when “hate at first sight becomes mutual respect and love.” He commends: “They are both terrific actors who have an intuitive sense of rhythm and timing. But to be honest, my job has been easy in that respect because the scenes are well written, and Matthew and Amy have found their way into them effortlessly.”
Goode explains Declan's motivation in a film he refers to as “a good yarn.” He says, “It takes a while before Declan enters the story. We don't know a huge amount about him…apart from the fact that he was engaged to a girl before and he got dumped. That's shaped him. He's quite surly; he doesn't suffer fools gladly. He's trying to turn his life around. He owns a pub, and he's a bit of a chef. Declan had a dream to set up a business with his ex-girlfriend and his best mate and, unfortunately, they went off together. Where we pick up the story, he's down in the doldrums and in need of care. He has a kitchen that probably came off the back of a lorry from someone slightly dodgy, and he's trying to pay off the interest.”
His director's calm style made for a comfortable shooting environment where improvisation was allowed to work alongside the script. Goode is fulsome in his praise: “I've wanted to work with Anand for some time, and he was the reason I took the job. I saw Hilary and Jackie, and I loved what he got out of the actors. He's so full of beans and so nice and completely unthreatening and fun to work with.”
When Tucker's producers saw the first cut of his film, they were undeniably impressed by the connection the director had captured between their principal performers. “Of course, you hope for chemistry,” says Bender. “When we all saw the first cut of Leap Year, it was very exciting. We said, `We got it! We got the chemistry.'
One of the best things about the movie is that there's immediately great tension between Anna and Declan…and by the end, you feel like these two people have really come around and fallen for each other. It's a testament to the nuanced performances given by both Amy and Matthew, Deborah and Harry's sharp screenplay, and Anand's deft direction.”
To complete the love triangle, the team needed to find Anna's long-term boyfriend. Cast in the role was veteran performer Adam Scott. Of his part, he reveals: “I play a character named Jeremy, and Anna and I have been going out for four years. He's a surgeon and very successful. He's deeply satisfied with his life, and he doesn't see any need to change it in any drastic way. Jeremy doesn't even know that getting married is something that Anna wants, nor is it something that occurs to him as being necessary. That's kind of the kick-off of the story.”
Scott explains that he worked a good deal with Tucker to round out a character who could easily be played as a “stiff shirt.” The actor says: “Starting with the audition, Anand was very insistent Jeremy be less demonized than you might usually think. It's not that he was written that way, it's just that that is usually the first place you go when you're thinking about the character who's the wrong guy.” Producer Birnbaum adds of Scott's characterization: “We wanted to paint a picture of a good guy.
Jeremy is not a one-dimensional boyfriend about whom the audience would say, `Oh, get rid of him.' He's a good-looking, successful man who does care and express his love for Anna. But what you learn over the journey of this film is that it's just not enough. Adam's very comfortable with the part and that comes through in his excellent performance.”
In the role of Jack Brady, Anna's wayward-but-endearing father, the film's producers were thrilled to cast another double Oscar nominee, John Lithgow. From Terms of Endearment to The World According to Garp, to his current dark turn on television's Dexter, the actor has created signature characters for decades. Lithgow gives some background on his character: “Jack has been a single dad to Anna since he lost his wife and clearly has never been the same since he lost her. He's melancholy, semi-alcoholic, a dreamer and a charmer and thinks of himself as a useless man. He's full of schemes, but his romantic streak is a part of Anna. She's a very tidy and organized person who almost denies her romantic side because she sees what a loser her poor old Dad is…even though she adores him.”
Jack is instrumental to the plot's development. Lithgow adds: “He drops this favorite old family story about his Irish grandmother, who proposed to her husband on a Leap Day back in the 1920s; that puts the notion in her mind. There's a very touching relationship between father and daughter in this, and I just looked for the moments when this old fool suddenly comes up with the little scraps of wisdom.”
Partnering with Lithgow was enjoyable for Adams. She compliments: “John was hysterical, and he was so fun to work with. He plays my father, who is very different from Anna. He makes all sorts of bad decisions. She thinks that if she does everything by the book, she'll avoid all the heartache that her father caused her and caused himself. But John plays Jack as very sweet. You can't help but love him and his portrayal of Anna's father. He's just adorable.”
Supporting the main players are It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Kaitlin Olson as Anna's best girlfriend, Libby; Casualty's Tony Rohr and Hilary and Jackie's Maggie McCarthy as the doting innkeepers Frank and Eileen; and Far and Away's Noel O'Donovan, The Playboys' Alan Devlin and The Queen's Pat Laffan as the characters who warm up the barstools in Declan's pub, respectively, Seamus, Joe and Donal.
Design and Locations
Once it was decided to lens the film entirely on location, Spyglass approached Irish co-producer Morgan O'Sullivan, with whom the company had previously collaborated. Explains O'Sullivan: “We'd worked together on a couple of occasions, on The Count of Monte Cristo and Reign of Fire, so when Gary Barber came to us with this script, we immediately felt it was a project we would like to do.”
Anand Tucker explains why the production needed to find locations that weren't so easily accessible: “The film is predicated on our heroine arriving and being blown off her course in the middle of nowhere. And actually, being so far away from civilization, she has no choice other than to go on this crazy journey with Declan.”
Producer Jake Weiner elaborates: “Ireland was always a character in the movie. It is a place where it exists in modern times, but it's a place where you can get lost…where you can drive down a road and not see a restaurant or a gas station. As we created remote situations for two people to get to know each other, we had to make it believable that they weren't in an area they could just ask for a ride. Anna and Declan were really forced together.”
Although many films have been shot on location in Ireland in recent years, few have used as many sets and been shot in as many geographically diverse locations as Leap Year. For a love story, the logistics and scale of its production were unusually large for an Irish film. In bringing the challenges set forth in the script to the screen, the team engaged the skills of production designer Mark Geraghty. “One of the biggest challenges,” notes Geraghty, “was finding a place big enough for the 12 studio sets. When we found this enormous warehouse in the docklands of Dublin, we turned it into a very efficient studio.”
The filmmakers were quite pleased actually to shoot Ireland for Ireland. Though it's quite a modern country, all were impressed by just how much the Emerald Isle has a fairy-tale nature about it. While Anna doesn't believe in luck-in fact, she has no time for it at all- the production was moved by how magical it found the scenery and the people of the Gaelic land.
Declan and Anna pose as newlyweds at a B&B. Glickman describes a few of the sets that needed to be constructed to bring the world of Anna and Declan to life. “The first part of the journey is on the plane, so we built the inside of the fuselage-which is 50 feet long and goes into this gimbal that creates all the turbulence,” he explains. “It was a very big mechanical set. Then we were on a boat on a storm at sea, so we recreated that using gimbals, green screen and CGI.”
Though the exterior of Anna and Jeremy's apartment is set in Boston, the exteriors were shot by Tucker and DP Tom Sigel in Dublin. Says Geraghty: “We've built a lot of the set exteriors; we built part of them and extended them into the Boston landscape later on the computer. The film is set around four days at the end of February when Boston has snow, so we re-created that. We created the outside of the Davenport, the apartment building they aspire to live in, and we also re-created the interiors on a stage. And then there were all the interiors in Ireland-Declan's bar, a B&B and so on.”
Despite the range and detail of the sets used in Leap Year, Tucker and the producers wanted to take advantage of Ireland's fabled landscapes. This was evidenced by the setting for the road trip undertaken by Anna and Declan as they travel cross-country to Dublin. Early on, the team made the decision to go beyond the traditional areas around Dublin and Wicklow used by other film productions. The crew was in search of a more authentic and geographically diverse landscape than is usually seen in films set in this country.
Geraghty admits: “When I read this script, I felt it needed a bigger canvas than the usual settings. You could shoot this either as an Irish movie or a Hollywood movie, and we went for the big vista. It's not something you can do on a small movie, but what you get at the end is fantastic…it speaks for itself. One of the final shots of the movie, set on the cliffs in the Aran Islands, is absolutely stunning.”
O'Sullivan agrees: “Anand wanted, right from the get-go, to have a very panoramic view of Ireland, which we've never done before. He was completely correct. When we went to shoot in Dun Aengus on the Aran Islands, it was the most magnificent location. Normally, with most pictures shot here, we're bound to Dublin…so this is a side of Ireland that very few people have ever seen on film before.”
The Aran Islands are three remote islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Ireland, made famous by the plays of J.M. Synge. They serve as the setting for the film's scenes in which Anna and Declan meet for the first time. Geraghty says the decision to go there was justified by the script. “It was very important we put Anna and Declan in an intimate situation and that they were as far removed from her life as possible,” he shares. “The daylight is amazing in the west of Ireland; it can change in 10 minutes, and we wanted that atmosphere. We battled the elements but we got lucky with the weather a lot of the time, and the production value is just priceless.”
Getting the cast and crew of a major film production on and off the isolated main Aran Island was a major logistical exercise. It required three separate vessels, including a landing craft once used Declan says good-bye to Jeremy and Anna. by the American navy during World War II, and took almost 20 hours…with the team working on a very tight schedule.
Glickman recounts: “Moving everyone was very complicated. We were only over there for three days when the weather did not cooperate, but there was no going back. In the end, 90 percent of the time the weather did cooperate, and it was a specific terrain that looks like no other place in the world. Anand really wanted it to feel that Anna was dropped off on another planet, and it certainly feels like that.”
Geraghty offers that finding the right setting for the film's opening scenes in Ireland was not an easy task. “The location in the script was written as Dingle, which is a huge and prosperous town today, so it took several weeks of driving around the country to find the right place,” he remembers. Once Aran was settled on, an advance crew was sent to the island for almost two months to construct the village. Committed to preserving the authenticity of the landscape, the film then follows the couple as they head eastwards through Connemara-the dramatic western region of Ireland.
Their emotional and physical journey is reflected in the film's design decisions. “The rough textures of the countryside contrast with the straight lines of Boston as a concrete jungle,” explains Geraghty. “As they get closer to Dublin, the landscape becomes more familiar, and they become more familiar with their surroundings. We've softened it as they come closer to the city…to make it more romantic and show there is a new understanding between Anna and Declan. This is as opposed to the first time they arrive on the Aran Islands-where there is complete confusion.”
Adams admits: “All I knew about Ireland is what I saw in advertising and in the movies, and that made it look a lot sunnier than it is. The weather, the way it changes so quickly, works against Anna and it becomes quite symbolic. The climate here teaches people to quickly adapt to change, and Anna's not good at adapting; this volatile Irish weather plays a part in her being out of control.”
Of the mercurial forces of Mother Nature experienced during the shoot, she continues: “There's a scene where I'm walking down the road and these guys come up and take my bag. When I read it, it was very simple. When we shot it, the winds were about 60 miles an hour, and it became Anna struggling against the wind and working hard to stay on her path. But also there's something really magical about Ireland. The people are inviting, and you feel you are at home. Everyplace we've been I can see myself living. That's something else Anna feels…how inviting it is.”
Her fellow performer agrees with Adams' assessment about Ireland. Goode notes: “The shoot was great once we got over the fact that the roads aren't particularly that good-and were a bit difficult to navigate- in the west of Ireland. But we loved our time there. I went off with the boys and played a bit of golf and did some fly-fishing. It's beautiful out there. The Irish, they're a good crack.”
Costumes of the Film
When creating the looks for the cast, the team began with the script's perfectionist: Anna. Explains Weiner why it was so important Anna dress the part: “What she does for a profession is what she's doing in her life. She's staging everything so that each detail looks perfect as well. Declan asks her, `What's important?' And that's one of the things she learns on her journey: that all that stuff didn't matter.”
Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh, one of Ireland's leading costume designers for stage and screen, had the responsibility for wardrobing. The film is set in the present, so the skills of the wardrobe department are not as immediately obvious as in a period drama. However, just as much thought went into creating a coherent look. “People think that contemporary must be easy, and period difficult, but contemporary is only easier in that the clothes are more available,” says Mhaoldomhnaigh. “If someone doesn't like something, you can run out and get something else. But, when it's contemporary, there are many opinions to take into consideration.”
For Mhaoldomhnaigh, color was an obvious starting point in a film where so much action was filmed against dramatic landscapes. She reflects: “Color, texture and pattern are important. There's so much green, you have to be aware of what'll work against the physical settings.”
In the first instance, such consideration was applied to the wardrobe of Anna. “She's this very sophisticated lady coming from the east coast of America,” notes the designer. “She wears lovely soft colors, but we've also put in hints of red and blues and bits of pattern. Her clothes are very tailored and high waisted and chic. When she arrives, she looks like something from another world.”
In creating Anna's look, Mhaoldomhnaigh considered the shops an apartment stager might frequent and combined that with a 1950s feel. Additionally, she referenced period film magazines and stills.
“All of Amy's clothes are designer,” notes Mhaoldomhnaigh. “We shopped in Ireland, London and L.A. We've a lot of classical tailoring from designers like Paul Smith, Max Mara, Le Petit Salut and Carolina Herrera, as well as Christian Louboutin shoes and Hugo Boss. Amy even brought in her own shoes to go with outfits. She looks like a mixture of Maureen O'Hara and Rita Hayworth…very elegant.”
Declan was quite another matter. “Poor Matthew,” laughs Mhaoldomhnaigh. “He has one costume for most of the movie: brown cords and gray jumper, red check shirt. He's just in the same thing, and it just gets dirtier.” While cardiologist Jeremy is dressed in conservative suits, Anna's father offered more fun for the costume designer. “He's a wild guy, so I felt there should be an element of Columbo,” she laughs. “So, he has an old jacket and a few Hawaiian shirts. He looks like he's picked up most of his few clothes in charity shops…with a few things he picked up on his adventures.”
 Production notes provided by Universal Pictures. |
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