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“Ms. Stone would like to be here today, but she’s making a Woody Allen film,” Jacki Weaver giggles to us at the start of our press conference. “That’s the only way to get out of doing press,” exclaims Colin Firth, who himself is sporting Allen-esque black hipster glasses. From my left to right sit Firth, Weaver, Hamish Linklater, and Simon McBurney, stars of the much anticipated film, Magic In The Moonlight. Though it may sound cliché, this press day really was magical, or at the very least mesmerizing, as I sit in the front row, ready to listen to this incredible group of actors who brought this romantic comedy about mysticism and the supernatural to life. We begin:

 

WHAT DO YOU TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE WORKING WITH WOODY ALLEN?
SIMON McBURNEY: It was a very curious experience for me because I had no idea I was even being considered for this movie. I was at home with my kids and my wife and my agent rang up and said ‘Could you just film yourself in your kitchen, cause Woody Allen wants to see you for his next movie.’ I think I filmed myself 40 different times… I sent if off and though it was never going to happen. And then it did happen… to get the part was extremely surreal.

HAMISH LINKLATER: I got the call to come meet Woody… and I got the part. There were two sentences spoken, he was like, ‘We’re considering you for this movie,’ and then the next one was ‘Well, we’ll see you in France.’ And then I went outside and sat down, and cried. His place is on the upper East Side on Central Park and I found a bench, and yeah, I had a weep.

COLIN FIRTH: It’s like the end of Blue Jasmine.

[Laughter]

JACKI WEAVER: My manager said, ‘Woody Allen wants to see you,’ and that was it. I went to the office, he said said ‘ I really want you to be in my next film,’ and I said, ‘Awe, thanks!’ And he said, ‘You have to be honest, if you hate it tell me and I’ll find another project we can do together.’ [After reading the script] I said, ‘I’d like to play all these women’s roles,’ and he said, ‘You can’t, you can only play Grace.’… The rumor that I heard was that he saw me on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which I think is a lovely idea not just if that’s true, but also the fact of Woody Allen watching Ellen DeGeneres.  

[Laughter]

CF: I was the one who didn’t get a meeting. I heard rumblings that [Woody] was inquiring about my availability…Suddenly the script was upon me… [the script] had to be entrusted to a trustworthy person who had to travel a long car journey, and then that person had to wait while I read the whole thing. I’m not a fast reader, and there’s nothing like having the intensity of being offered something by somebody like [Woody]. There was a note from Woody Allen saying nice things about how I was right for it…

JW: [To Colin] You’re being modest, he said ‘I wrote it for you.’

CF: Well he didn’t write that in the note, that would’ve appeared flirtatious.

[Laughter]

 

DO YOU REMEMBER THE LAST SCENE THAT YOU SHOT, AND WHAT WAS THE EMOTION LEAVING THIS FILM?
HL: The big ball, that was the end of it for us, and it was super sad and really late at night. Woody came up to me, privately, and said, ‘Hamish, I don’t know if you’re going to like the movie when you see it, but I know you’ll like your work in it.’ And then he came up to Jacki, privately, and said, ‘I don’t know if you’re going to like the movie…’

[Laughter]

HL: We both went home with this private secret after the last day, that Woody had really loved our work individually in the picture. Later that night, when we were talking, we revealed it, haha! Our secret!

SM: The best things about the last day was the elephant… when I finished, [Woody] gave me a very beautiful present…

JW: The elephant?

SM: Haha, well Woody’s very fascinated by magic… he gave me a little box. There’s a museum of magic in Paris, and he bought me an original 1920’s magician’s wand. It’s very, very beautiful, and a very powerful thing to get.

CF: Looking back on that day, it’s hard to believe that it was one day. After Simon wrapped around 6 or 7pm, I had another seven or eight hours to go and one of the most challenging scenes was deep into the night- the big tirade when I first speak backstage, taking off the makeup. Trying to remember it- getting all the moves and the dialogue right all in that one shot, timing that piece of theater is quite a challenge. And it had occurred to me that the last line of the last word I uttered on that entire shoot was: “sodomy.”

[Laughter]

CF: I can speak to Emma Stone’s last day, my last day with her in fact, was a mirror image of our first day because it was a re-shoot, which didn’t make it into the final cut of the film. So it was bookended by scenes that you will not see.

 

FOR HAMISH, YOU’RE HALF NAKED, AND YOU’RE SINGING- WHAT WAS THAT LIKE FOR YOU WHEN WOODY APPROACHED YOU TO DO THAT SCENE?
SM: It was terrible for us…

HL: Turns out that was a question for the rest of the table.

[Laughter]

HL: I was like, ‘As long as that swimsuit is belted, Mr. Allen.’ I think it’s all to the credit of Emma Stone for making me feel so comfortable all through that scene, she was a really wonderful scene partner, unlike the rest of these shenanigans I’m sitting with right now.

 

HOW MUCH DID THE LOCATION AND THE PERIOD HELP YOUR PERFORMANCES AS THESE CHARACTERS?
JW: I would say the costumes certianly enhanced the performances. Of course, the glorious mansions we were shooting in the South of France, it all enforces what you’re doing… In the ballroom scene I was wearing 2.9 million dollars worth of diamonds!

SM: Oh, there were two absolutely massive guys [guarding the jewelry].

CF: They were like, in the shot- they wanted to be as close as they could to the jewelry.

SM: They stood on the edge of the set and they watched her neck.

Magic In The Moonlight opens in theaters Friday, July 25th.