Here’s a great interview from the Morning Call! Amanda touches on Letters to Juliet, romance, Albert Nobbs, and The Girl With The Red Riding Hood. Fantastic read! Thanks, Brian!

Amanda Seyfried was 10 when her dad brought home a video copy of 1996′s ”Romeo + Juliet.” At first, she thought Leonardo DiCaprio looked weird on the cover. But then she pressed play and, to hear her tell it, life was never the same again.

”That was the movie that made me realize I wanted to be an actress,” says the Allentown native of the DiCaprio/Claire Danes love story directed by Baz Luhrmann. ”It really got into my blood, I don’t know how many times I watched it. I took it on vacation with me. I rewrote the script and I’d stand in front of the mirror, pretending to be Claire Danes.

”I really wanted to be Claire and to live in that world, and have a romance like that. And now I’m doing it. It’s not real life but it’s almost better. I love love stories. I love acting like I’m in love.”

Seyfried isn’t alone in her affection for old-fashioned romance. February’s ‘ ‘Dear John,” which paired the actress with Channing Tatum for a tear-stained love story, grossed $95 million, a remarkable sum considering the movie cost only $25 million to produce.

Now comes ”Letters to Juliet,” a star-crossed romance about an American journalist in Verona , Italy, striking sparks with an uptight Brit (Christopher Egan).

The movie begins when Sophie (Seyfried) discovers a wall in Verona where the lovelorn leave letters seeking romantic advice from Juliet — of Shakespeare’s ”Romeo and Juliet.” Sophie’s chef-boyfriend ( Gael Garcia Bernal) is preoccupied with work, so she decides to assist one letter writer ( Vanessa Redgrave) in a quest to re-connect with her first beau (Franco Nero, Redgrave’s real-life husband).

On the journey through sun-dappled vineyards and olive groves, Seyfried falls in love with Redgrave’s grandson (Egan), who just happens to be along for the ride.

After years of reciting Shakespeare to herself in front of the mirror, it was rewarding for Seyfried to finally re-connect with the Bard in her own strange way. In fact, she says, nothing would please her more than to know the PG-rated ”Juliet” prompted her young fans to check out Shakespeare for themselves.

”I so want to be that [inspiration] for them,” she says during a telephone interview fro m New York. ”I’d love it if kids wanted to go off and read ‘Romeo and Juliet’ because it’s such a masterpiece, man.”

”Letters to Juliet” marks the first time that Seyfried has been top billed in a movie. In the past, she’s played second fiddle to Lindsay Lohan (”Mean Girls”), Meryl Streep (” Mamma Mia!”), Megan Fox (‘ ‘Jennifer’s Body”), Channing Tatum (”Dear John”) and Julianne Moore (”Chloe.”)

Asked what it’s like to finally see her name above the title, Seyfried says, ”That was crazy! Too much responsibility!”

Seyfried might be top billed but she shares a lot of the emotional heavy lifting with Redgrave. It was the opportunity to work with the Oscar-winning actress that drew Seyfried to the movie in the first place.

”Vanessa’s eyes go deeper than anything,” she says. ”It’s like she’s from another planet. She’s super open and super warm. She shares so much of herself. She’s honest, which is what makes her such a good actress … I felt honored to work with her.”

”Letters to Juliet” began production on June 25 in Verona and continued for two months at a handful of Italian locations including Tuscany and Siena. Even though temperatures routinely hit 100 degrees, Seyfried describes the experience as ”magical.”

Every morning at 4:30 a.m. before going to work, the actress would take a long run through Verona’s winding streets. On weekends, she’d explore the ancient towns and villages.

”I saw a lot of vineyards. I saw a lot of architecture,” she says. ”I saw a lot of beauty.”

When her boyfriend — actor Dominic Cooper — visited, Seyfried would play doubles tennis with Redgrave and director Gary Winick. ”Vanessa moves like a whip,” reports Seyfried. ”She’s really fit. I suck compared to Vanessa.”

If there was a downside to Italy, says Seyfried, it was the impossibility of maintaining her raw-foods diet. ”Italy isn’t exactly a place that has a lot of power shakes and sushi,” she says with a laugh.

While the movie accentuates romance, Seyfried brings an air of melancholy to her role. The actress says one of the biggest challenges was communicating her character’s overwhelming insecurity without making her a sad sack.

”My character doesn’t have as much confidence in herself or her writing as she should,” says Seyfried, 24. ”Her fiancé is a famous chef and he has this huge passion and she wants to connect to that but can’t. I’ve dated someone who was struggling, and it’s not easy. It’s not easy for the person that’s succeeding and it’s not easy for the person struggling.”

Ask Seyfried if she’s as much of a romantic offscreen as she is on and she says, ”Hell yeah.”

Although she can’t remember her first date, she does remember her first kiss. ”It took place outside my parents’ house in Allentown and it was with my first boyfriend Ben,” she recalls. ”It was such an amazing feeling. I had a crush on Ben for so long. I didn’t know what to do; I was scared but it was so wonderful.

”It was the summer between my first and second year of high-school [at William Allen]. I had dance team rehearsals the next day, and I can remember going to those rehearsals still having chills and butterflies in my stomach.”

In a recent interview with Britain’s ”Look” magazine, Seyfried claimed she rarely caught the eye of boys in high school. ”No guys wanted to date me,” she said. ”I was weird!”

Clarifying that statement, Seyfried says, ”I meant to say that I was weird-looking. Ben was older than me. Boys my age didn’t care to date to me, which was fine. They wanted to date all of my friends but they didn’t really like me. Maybe I was a little weird. I was always kind of quirky. So easily embarrassed and nervous.”

So, what’s the most romantic thing anyone has done for her?

”I had a boyfriend who wrote a song about me called ‘Burning Red.’ When I first heard it, I thought, ‘That might be about me.’ I was the only person besides his family who had the song on their iPod. So one day I finally asked him, ‘Is that about me?’ And he said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Tell me, please,’ and he just smiled. But it meant a lot to me, and I have it forever.”

And her most romantic gesture?

”I did fly from Toronto to New York to surprise my boyfriend. That was a long time ago. His apartment was always unlocked. So I came in before 8 a.m. and just crawled into bed with him and he was shocked, in a good way.”

Seyfried says she’s such a big fan of romance that, like her character in ”Letters to Juliet,” she takes pleasure in playing matchmaker for her pals.

”I absolutely will do almost anything [to set my friends up],” she says. ”I’ve gotten in trouble a lot, actually. I want people to find happiness like that. I know that I have it. I’ve been really, really lucky with love, and I’m dying for people to feel the same way especially when I know that some of my friends are a little bit lonely.”

For her next movie ”Albert Nobbs,” Seyfried is leaving conventional romance behind for something a bit edgier.

The movie, which reteams the actress with ”Nine Lives” director Rodrigo Garcia, centers on a woman ( Glenn Close) in 19th-century Ireland who pretends she’s a man in order to survive. Seyfried will play Close’s unsuspecting girlfriend.

”I can’t believe I get to work with Glenn Close,” enthuses Seyfried. ”C’mon, Glenn Close! She’s amazing.”

After that, Seyfried returns to romantic territory for ”Little Red Riding Hood,” a gothic telling of the fairy tale directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the first ‘ ‘Twilight” movie.

Seyfried will play the title character, a caped crusader who, after a tragic accident, tries to solve the mystery of the wolf that’s been terrorizing her village for two decades. In the process, she finds love.

Producing the movie is none other than Leonardo DiCaprio. ”I sat across from him, and I told him that ‘Romeo + Juliet’ had blown my mind when I was a kid,” says Seyfried. ”I think he felt old when I said that. But I told him, ‘Dude, you should be in this movie with me!’ ”

”Little Red Riding Hood” promises plenty of chills and spills but Seyfried is looking forward to falling in love all over again.

”It might be my ‘Romeo + Juliet,’ ” she says. ”My character falls in love but can’t be with the person she’s crazy about. I can’t wait; it’s going to be so romantic.”

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