What is the story of The Last Song all about?
I play Ronnie Miller, a teenager whose parents have separated and she has started to go down the wrong path, she is a bit rebellious, hanging out with the wrong friends, and probably not making the best choices. She’s a little bit bitter about what her life has become. She just seems uninterested in everything. I think like a lot of kids, she starts doing the opposite of what her parents would want and starts being the person that her parents wouldn't want their daughter to become. She’s trying to show them, ‘you disappointed me, so now I'm living my own life. You didn't care about me, so now I don't care about you.’
Tell us a little about your character's journey...
This is the story of how she finds her way to becoming a happier and a better person through faith, love and friendship. There is a love story, but it is not just the love between Ronnie and her boyfriend, it is also about her love for her dad, about reconnecting with her mother and brother. It shows that the important ingredients to happiness are the little things in life that most of us probably ignore and should not take for granted.
[Author] Nicholas Sparks wrote this with you in mind -- that must have been thrilling?
Yes and I actually remember the first night that we heard the story. We were sitting at the long dinner table at my house. We turned the lights down, so there was a great atmosphere and he was really telling us a story. We were sitting in front of the fireplace and it was amazing to hear the story from the author himself and find out what he envisioned. That is when I became clear about everything and got really excited and knew it was going to be a beautiful film. Because he wrote it with me in mind, that made this movie very different. It isn’t like any of his other movies.
Usually the book would come out first and then they'd decide to make a movie. This time they decided to make the movie and then he wrote the book, so that's kind of cool. Since he had me in mind, it’s clear to me that he worked some of my mannerisms and my personality into the character of Ronnie.
What input did you have in the script?
I definitely had a little input. Every time he would get a new draft he would give it to me and ask me ‘what do you think?’ He wanted to give the character some of my characteristics. There were times when I would say, ‘Nicholas, you’re awesome, but a 17-year-old girl isn’t really going to say that’. I sometimes reminded him about little things and details. He’s a genius so he gets it and it’s not often that someone, an author like him, would want to hear other people’s input. But he was very receptive. He would say, ‘Oh, I totally get that’.
How did you develop a close relationship with Greg Kinnear – who plays your on screen dad?
Greg and I got along really well. We were lucky and that is why it worked so well, we became really close. He’s a lot like my dad. He is always joking and he is just fun and makes everything really funny – he has an awesome sense of humor.
Are you like your dad?
I’m definitely a lot like my dad because we both kind of just let things roll off us, we don’t take things to heart and it kind of drives people nuts sometimes. They think we don’t care. But we both think everything works itself out so we don’t really get too upset too often.
Can you discuss the relationship between Ronnie and Will (played by Liam Hemsworth)?
Ronnie and Will are from two very different backgrounds. She's a little more edgy, she doesn't have a lot of money, she is very independent and takes care of herself, but he's very wealthy and is taken care of by his parents. He’s independent in a way too though, he has a great job and he does work hard. But he definitely has it a little easier on the surface, at least that's what she thinks. But it turns out that his life has been just as crazy as hers.
What was it like working with Liam?
He is so much fun. The crazy thing is he's not known here (in America) but he’s such a huge star in Australia, so it was great to introduce him to our side of world. That was really cool. I know how that feels because I travel all over the world on tour, and I’m better known here than I am in some of the places I’ve visited. He's from Australia and I'm from the South (in America), but this movie is something new for both of us. This is kind of his breakout moment in the States, and this is my breakout moment away from HANNAH MONTANA. It was great working with him.
Did you prepare and rehearse a lot together?
There were times when we would run lines together. He was always there for me. It is rare for an actor to always want to be there for you when you need help with a scene. He might just want to enjoy his lunch or he might say ‘ I want to have a little time to myself’ but I don’t think there was one time that I asked Liam, ‘Can we run lines?’ that he didn’t get involved and say, ‘I would love to do that with you’. And it was really, really amazing because you don’t always work with people that are like that, people who want you to succeed and want you to look good. We balance each other.
I make him look good; he makes me look good and I think that’s why the chemistry was so amazing, because we really do have feelings for each other. We love working together and I would definitely do another film with him. It will be hard for me to work with anyone else, because I’ll always want people that will want to do as much as he did. Maybe it is because he’s a new actor and maybe it’s because he wants just as much help as I need, but it was great that we could do that together.
THE LAST SONG IS AVAILABLE ON DVD AND BLU-RAY FROM 4 AUGUST, 2010.