“The Choice” star Teresa Palmer receives a text from Nicholas Sparks, who wrote the book from which the movie is adapted. “What’s strange,” her co-star Benjamin Walker chimes in at the Four Seasons Hotel, “is it’s a dick pic!”
Jeez, a lot of people think Sparks is some romantic guy, I offer. Walker’s response: “But he’s a perv!”
Our interview hasn’t even started, and the immensely likable onscreen pair—who have been joking about thigh sweat and the non-existent dick pic and much more as we set up our cameras—already demonstrates the chemistry and sense of humor that make “The Choice,” opening Friday, the best Nicholas Sparks-based movie in a while. The Australian Palmer (“Warm Bodies,” a ton of movies coming soon including “Triple 9” and “Knight of Cups”), 29, and Georgia-native Walker (“In the Heart of the Sea”), 33, bring palpable tension and temptation as Gabby and Travis, who at first can’t stand each other and have varying degrees of other people in the picture. But sometimes certain dynamics just can’t be ignored.
Watch video from this interview and scroll halfway down to watch/read about them playing “Would you rather?”
This movie made me think about a lot of things, including people having chemistry with someone new when they’re already in a relationship. In that situation, how does someone know when they’re crossing the line, going too far with that new person?
Teresa Palmer: The lingering eye contact looks, things like that. I think you can have fun and be jovial with a person without—there’s having that open sexual energy; everyone can feel what that feels like, and I guess that’s crossing the line.
Benjamin Walker: You know that comedian Mitch Hedberg?
Yeah, he’s my favorite.
BW: You know that joke that he says, like, “I don’t have a girlfriend, but I do have a girl that’d be very upset if she heard me say that”?
TP: [Laughs.]
BW: That kind of thing. It’s about communication and trust …
TP: And it’s hard in our industry. Because as my husband [Mark Webber of Joe Swanberg’s “Happy Christmas”] puts it, he’s like, “I just have to share my wife. I just always have to share my wife, and I have to be OK with that.” And it’s true. We have such amazing chemistry, yet we have spouses and we have our partners, and it’s just this mutual respect, and you know as an actor—
BW: That’s the key, respect. To respect each other.
TP: And each other’s partners too.
In that situation, having a movie like this and such great chemistry like you guys do, does that result in after a scene you texting your spouse, “Things are going great and professionally here, just wanted you to know, love you”?
TP: I’m very sensitive to the text, “Just checking in.” “Yep, just had my sex scene, everything went good, love you, babe, see you tonight.”
“But not too good.”
BW: “It was horrible!”
TP: “It was OK; he had really bad breath.”
BW: Probably did.
TP: Add a little diss in there for the other person, that helps. “I’m so over her.”
Well, there’s a line in the movie, I forget who says it to whom: “I knew you were trouble when you walked in.”
TP: [to BW] “I knew you were trouble.” I said that.
Which brings to mind Taylor Swift.
TP: Oh, that song, yeah. [sings a little of Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble”]
Her two memorable songs with slogans say, “I knew you were trouble when you walked in” and “We are never ever getting back together.” Which do you think people are more likely to sing along with and really feel?
BW: Getting back together, I think. Because finding a healthy relationship, a lasting relationship, is so difficult and rare that the majority of our time is spent in bad relationships. So there’s a level of like, “You know what, screw you!” that I think builds up in people.
TP: I’m the one that has gone back a bunch of times, though. I’ll break up with someone and be like, “Actually, no—”
BW: [sings] “We are getting back together!”
TP: I would choose the opposite one. “I knew you were trouble.” That’s happened to me a bunch in my life. I knew it! I knew it! But I still had to go there.
So for “We are never ever getting back together” you just don’t sing the “never” part.
TP: Yeah. “We are probably not but maybe getting back together.” [Laughs.]
Teresa, I know when you saw “The Notebook” you loved it and felt like people felt they could be Rachel McAdams. Ben, do you remember your reaction when you first saw it?
BW: Yeah. I’m confident enough in my masculinity to admit it, I wept like a child.
TP: I witnessed it, by the way. I had a screening of “The Notebook.”
And that was the first time you had seen it?
BW: No, it wasn’t, that’s the thing.
TP: It was the 12th time.
BW: And that’s the power of that movie.
TP: He was sitting on the couch, sitting next to his wife [Kaya Scodelario of “The Maze Runner” movies], and they’re both like [weeping].
Is it normally difficult to make you cry with a movie?
BW: I don’t know. There’s something about being on an airplane—I’ll cry at “Spider-Man” on an airplane. I don’t know what the problem is.
Why?
BW: I don’t know! I think something about the pressure.
TP: He’s sad he’s not in the movie, that’s what it was. He’s like (crying), “I’m not Spider-Man.”
BW: What’s the girl’s name?
TP: Kirsten Dunst.
BW: No, what’s the character’s name?
TP: Mary Jane.
BW: I don’t know why I asked that.
That’s who you wanted to play?
BW: “I wanted to be Mary Jane!”
TP: “I wanted Emma Stone’s role!”
BW: Yeah. [Editor’s note: Stone plays Gwen Stacy. Dunst plays Mary Jane Watson.] But come on, she dies! Anyway. Do I cry in movies? Good movies probably, yeah. I’ll have to pay more attention to what my tear ducts are doing.
TP: I cried in “Straight Outta Compton” recently.
BW: Wow! That’s gangster.
TP: It was hilarious. I’m like, “Oh, God, I’m really moved by this!”
BW: “Ice Cube!”
TP: “They were so cool!”
Were you a big N.W.A. fan? I knew what a good rapper you are already.
TP: [sarcastically] Yeah, I’m amazing. I did really like N.W.A., but I just like underground rap in general, like Masta Ace, Mobb Deep, KRS-One. Masta Ace and I follow each other on Twitter, it’s really exciting. Yeah, so I like rap.
In the movie your characters are neighbors with some conflict. How much experience do you guys have with bad neighbors? Has there been a time you had to confront someone who was bothering you?
TP: Currently. Anyway. Don’t need to say any more. Just in case they are watching.
BW: “I refer you to my lawyer.” Yeah, especially in New York because you’re all jammed together, you kind of can’t escape other people. It can get bad.
What comes to mind when you think of that?
BW: Well, I moved into this apartment in Brooklyn, and it just took me a while to get curtains, and there was an absolute nightmarish creep across the street who would like hold up his iPad with messages.
TP: Oh my God! What? [Laughs.] What?
BW: It got to the point where he would like buzz in the middle of the night and I’d be watching a movie and he’d be like, “Can I come watch the movie with you?”
TP: No. No.
BW: “No, you may not.”
TP: No, you cannot.
What were the messages on the iPad?
TP: “Let’s be together”?
BW: You really don’t want to know; it was bad. But I eventually just had a conversation on the street and was like, “Just so you know, that’s not cool.” He’s like, “OK, I’m crazy.” I was like, “Yes, I know.”
TP: “So, moving on, let’s be away from each other.”
BW: Moral of the story is get curtains, you idiot! There are crazies everywhere; you gotta protect yourself. With blinds.
That’s good advice. I thought it would be fun since the movie is “The Choice” to play a game where you get to make a choice.
Both: Cool.
TP: Snap!
Watch Palmer and Walker play “Would You Rather?”
A little game of “Would you rather?” First one: Would you rather lick the floor of a crowded train car or run naked through Times Square, and why?
TP: Lick the floor of a crowded train car because it’s really cold in New York, and I don’t want to be naked, and I don’t want to be running around people, and I don’t want my boobs to be flopping around and it’s not going to be fun.
BW: And people have phones everywhere. You could never escape it.
TP: That’s going to be on YouTube.
BW: ‘Cause my first impulse was, “Ah, get it over with, get ’em out and have a good jog.”
TP: It’s on YouTube and on “Entertainment Tonight” in two seconds.
BW: [You’re] probably somewhat more attractive, but no one would care about me. But I would probably also lick the train, subway car.
TP: I’ve just got like big breastfeeding boobs right now. So just running—I can’t even go the gym right now.
BW: It would hurt!
TP: I would slow that down.
BW: Yeah, I would lick the train car.
Next one: Play Foghorn Leghorn in a live action “Looney Tunes” movie or hear nothing but Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” for a year?
TP: [Laughs.]
BW: I’m going to call my agent today because I would love to play Foghorn Leghorn. [Does Foghorn Leghorn impression.] It would be awesome!
TP: Fergie’s lumps. I like that song.
BW: All right. You won’t in a day.
TP: [Laughs.]
Jump on a trampoline for 24 hours or walk around on all fours for a week.
TP: Jump on a trampoline for 24 hours! Amazing exercise.
BW: I’d also just do that for fun. That’d be awesome. But it’d be hard to eat and also to go to the bathroom. You’d just make a mess.
TP: You’d just do little baby jumps.
BW: I’m thinking about it practically. But I’d do the trampoline.
Eat live scorpions—
TP: No.
Or be tackled by JJ Watt.
TP: Tackled by JJ whoever that is.
BW: JJ what?! Turn Down for JJ What?
TP: That was really good. Scorpions? No, never.
BW: I’d rather get absolutely annihilated, creamed. Tackled.
TP: Me too. And then that’s a story.
BW: Yeah. That’s Guinness Book of World Records. Do you have pads, no pads?
No pads.
BW: No pads, definitely.
TP: Australian rules football style.
BW: Oh, so the way grown men play?
TP: [Laughs.] Yeah, exactly.
BW: “I’m gonna put on a helmet!”
TP: You heard it first here.
And lastly: Live on the moon or the bottom of the ocean. Given that you won’t drown or die in either situation.
TP: Live on the moon. ‘Cause you get to bounce around and have fun.
BW: That’s a fair point. I’m gonna go the bottom of the ocean because then you can have people come visit. If you’re on the moon, you’re just like—
TP: But you can get in a rocket!
BW: It takes so long to get to the moon!
TP: Isn’t Mr. [Richard] Branson doing a whole moon plane?
BW: OK. What are the commuter options for each?
I don’t think I thought that far ahead.
BW: Well, you got the questions! I’m going bottom of the ocean. Fresh sushi every day!
TP: Oh my God. That’s hilarious.
BW: Find a shipwreck.
But you might make friends with the fish, and I don’t think they’d like you eating them at the same time.
BW: Well, some friendships are stronger than others. Come on, keep going, this is fun, make up one!
Oh, wow, that was all I had. Did you guys have one you wanted to make up?
BW: All right: Would you rather have the worst nosebleed of your life for a day or the worst black eye of your life for a day? What does this say about me as a person? I need to talk to somebody.
TP: I would pick the worst black eye because it’s post-the actual fight so it means the pain isn’t nearly as intense, but a [bloody] nose, that’s horrendous.
BW: It’s a mess. It’s messy.
TP: It’s all over your clothes; it’s a situation.
BW: [to me] You have to answer this by the way.
I mean, to have the worst black eye you’d have to get punched in the face pretty hard.
TP: Actually, it’s true … the word “worst.”
BW: It would really really hurt. A black eye is horrible.
TP: It probably could be broken.
A bloody nose would be bad, but you could stand in a tub or something, try to plug it up.
BW: Yeah, block your head back, hold your iPad, watch some Netflix. I’d go black eye because it looks badass on the train. People are like giving you their seat. You get respect for a day.
Have you been having problems not getting a seat on the train?
TP: [Laughs.]
BW: I just mean you see somebody walk on the train who’s got a huge cut down his face … I don’t know, I think that’d be fun. I will call a therapist. Now you make up one.
TP: OK, would you prefer to be known as the guy or the girl with insane halitosis—just everyone knows that your reputation is—
BW: “Halitosis girl!”
TP: “Benjamin bad breath.”
BW: OK. Is this your way of telling me I have bad breath? You’ve mentioned it twice in this interview.
TP: I’m thinking of gross things.
BW: Great, so the way I smell.
TP: Or be known as the person who has the most rotten stinky farts you could ever imagine. Like everyone just knows, “That’s the farter; that guy’s the stinky farter.”
So where you want your smells to come out of.
TP: Which one, if you had to choose?
BW: You have to go with farts because you can regulate it. You can warn people. You can go somewhere else. But if I have to talk, unless you learn sign language, you’re just going to make people vomit all day.
TP: There’s chewing gum.
BW: Yeah, but severe halitosis, I mean, you need to cork that stuff up. There’s no like, “I brushed my teeth so I’m fine.” You’re rotten on the inside!
TP: [Laughs.] Yeah, that’s true. Eww. But so is poos—I mean farts.
BW: But you can be like, “Thirty-second warning, friends. You’re going to want to vacate–run away and open the window.”
TP: [to me] You have to answer.
I think you could chew a thousand pieces of gum and at least feel a little more comfortable.
TP: [Laughs.]
But if you have problems coming out the other end, no one feels good about that.
TP: [Laughs.] I like how serious you are in your answer!
I am a doctor, I want you to know.
TP: Oh, OK.
BW: You could blame other people.
TP: He’s like, “No one feels good about that.”
BW: Farting, you could blame other people. You just get on the train, “Oh, God!”
TP: That is true. I literally blame my son. I’m like, “Bodhi, do we need to change your nappy?”
BW: He’s like, “No, Mom; that’s you.”
Plus:
On Chicago:
Teresa, I know you’ve spent some time in Chicago at least for a press tour. What do you guys know about the city, and what do you think of when you think of Chicago?
BW: I ate at the Girl and the Goat last night, and I will never be the same.
What was it that blew your mind?
BW: Cover your ears, Teresa. She’s a vegetarian.
TP: [puts hands over her ears] Death, death, death, death!
BW: Pork belly, pig face, scallops.
TP: Oh, God!
BW: Yeah, pig face.
TP: Pig face? The face?
BW: It was amazing. At least we’re not wasting anything.
TP: It’s horrendous.
BW: I’m sorry. It was one of the best meals of my life.
So you weren’t there, Teresa?
TP: No!
BW: She’s got her kid here with her. She’s a full-time mom. She’s working all day and also being a mom. She’s amazing. She doesn’t have time to go out and [try things]—
TP: I Google things for 20 minutes a night, then I go to sleep.
BW: What do you Google?
TP: Baby things! I love Chicago because I fell in love with my husband here.
BW: Oh, I didn’t know that.
TP: Mark was shooting a film here, I think it was “Happy Christmas.” I was in Detroit, and we drove and we met each other, and we came back here and we went to this beautiful sushi restaurant.
Do you remember which one?
TP: Sushi Aoki. [Editor’s note: While we love that Chicago has personal meaning to Palmer, there’s no restaurant in the city by that name. We regret not asking her to clarify.] I actually had sushi from there last night for dinner as well.
Very nice. Brings back memories I’m sure.
TP: Yeah. It was very cold, but I liked it.
@mattpais | mpais@redeyechicago.com
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