Laura Ramsey Discusses the Teen Movie "She"s the Man"
"She's the Man" - The Story: Viola (Amanda Bynes) disguises herself as her twin brother Sebastian (James Kirk) in order to take his place at Illyria Prep. Once there, 'Sebastian' falls in love with her hunky roommate (Channing Tatum) who in turn lusts after Olivia (Laura Ramsey). To make things more confusing, Olivia finds herself falling for Sebastian unaware he isn't really a guy...
Laura Ramsey Had a Blast on the Set of ?She?s the Man:? Ramsey said she had a good time working with Amanda Bynes.
?She was great. I learned a lot from her. I?m used to doing dramatic. I felt like I was kind of nervous that I wasn?t going to be funny. It was a challenge for me. With Andy [Fickman, the director] and Amanda and learning the timing and being comfortable on set around all them, I felt good. She just made me feel comfortable too.
I was expecting something different and then, after meeting her and hanging out with her, I realized that she?s really got a good head on her shoulders. I respect that she is into her work and liking to work and not wanting to be in movies for another reason, like being famous or something. I thought that was cool of her.?
Laura Ramsey on How She Compares to Her ?She?s the Man? Character: Ramsey said in real life, she?d go for the intellectual over the jock. ?I?ve always gone for the more sensitive, bookish guy, totally. The jock boys, the sporty guys, I don?t know? they just didn?t do it for me."
Ramsey?s character is ultra-popular and Ramsey definitely couldn?t relate to that as far as her own high school experiences went.
?No, that was weird. I remember being in the scenes and getting all the attention. I was like, ?Oh, this is kind of fun in a movie.? But in high school I didn?t really get that. I was kind of with the crowd of artsy people. I never wore make-up or anything like that.?
Ramsey says her character ?seems very girlie and feminine and dainty and part of the debutante thing. So that was kind of hard for me to be so girlie and dainty and feminine.?
Staging the Cat Fight Scene in the Girls Bathroom: ?That was totally choreographed. It was my last day of work and it was also [Alex Breckenridge?s] last day of work. So, for us, it was the end of the movie, the last night, and we?re going to go out with a bang.
I remember I was wearing high heels and I don?t wear heels a lot, being in those things all day. I remember going home in the airplane, sitting next to Alex and we were going home with icepacks on our knees and bruises all over not being able to move very well. I had these clip-on extensions in my hair and there?s this moment where she grabs my hair and yanks it back and there would be strands of hair everywhere on the floor. We got crazy but it was choreographed and we had stunt doubles but we tried to get in there. We got beat up. ?It got brutal but we wanted to make it real.?
Laura Ramsey on Future Projects: ?I have a movie called ?The Covenant.? I?m excited about this one. It comes out in September and it?s like a thriller about these four young guys who are warlocks. They have special powers and their eyes turn black. I?m the new girl at school and I get a spell put on me. There?s a bad guy and a good guy and they use me. They?re trying to get power from each other and I?m in the middle of it. I end up levitating and doing crazy things. There?s lots of stunts and it?s very cool and dark and edgy. Renny Harlin directed it and Lakeshore, who also produced this, and Screen Gems produced that.?
Asked if ?The Convenant? is like a male version of ?Charmed? only much more evil, Ramsey said, ?Yes. It?s hard to explain, but yeah. It?s like ?The Craft? but with males. It should be really cool. There?s a lot of flying around in capes and it looks very cool.?
On Getting Physical in ?The Covenant:? ?It was interesting. I remember levitating, but it was all on a green screen so it was learning for me. I had a spell put on me with all these spider bites, so I was all in prosthetic make-up with gross pus-bites coming out of my face. I was so gross but it was a lot of fun.?