For anyone who has seen the trailers for this week's new romantic comedy "What's Your Number?", you will not be disappointed should you decide to make the trip to the theater to see it. The film isn't exactly breaking any new ground in the genre, but for those of us who love everything about rom-coms—from their delightful implausibility to their cheeky cliches—you'll enjoy what "Number?" has to offer, especially its ridiculously charming stars Anna Faris and Chris Evans, the latter of whom spends a nice chunk of his screen time sans clothing (not that being half naked makes a man charming, but you know what I mean).
MTV News recently caught up with the film's screenwriters, Gabrielle Allen and Jennifer Crittenden, to get the inside scoop on why Anna is perfect in this role, what a woman's "number" really means and how they got Chris to take off his clothes so much.
Before getting to the goods, I had to come clean with Gabrielle and Jennifer and admit that the main reason I went to see this film was to watch Chris be his charming self for an hour and a half, but that I was pleasantly surprised and equally charmed by Anna's portrayal of a relatively realistic, sexually active young woman.
"We felt the same way," Jennifer said. "It’s nice to have a heroine who’s messy and flawed, but her sexual history is not her flaw—it’s that she cares so much about it. We really liked that and we thought Anna was perfect to play it because she gives it this vulnerability and sweetness that makes you ready to follow her on any journey."
Her journey in the film involves an obsession with not wanting to increase her "number" by having sex with any more men until she meets "the one." The ladies said that the point of the film is for Anna's character to realize her "number" is just that, a number.
"I think the whole point of the movie is that it doesn’t matter," Jennifer explained. "It’s just a silly number that shouldn’t matter, and yet for some reason, represents what it says about you and how you think about yourself rather than just what it is, a silly number."
Speaking of superficiality and silliness, this brings me to one of the film's major selling points: Chris Evans is almost naked. A lot. I asked the ladies how they managed to pull this off and it turns out it was a happy accident.
"To be perfectly honest, when we first envisioned Colin [Chris' character] we thought of him as this skinny musician, like a dirty musician type. We had no idea we were going to be able to see Chris Evans naked so much. To us it was going to be like this guy who was really fine with his body despite the fact that he was this skinny-looking musician," said Jennifer. "That made us laugh that he was comfortable with his body and that there was not a lot to be showing off in the first place. Chris was a total happy accident. It was already written like that and he just came in, and we were thrilled. But it was not how we first saw him and we weren’t trying to exploit Chris Evans like that."
Despite being comfortable with dropping trou for his craft and such, the ladies also provided further proof that Chris is every bit the humble dreamboat I encountered back in May.
"He is like that. He is sweet and humble, really gracious and hard-working," Gabrielle revealed. "And he’s not just smart and thoughtful about his character, but he’s really thoughtful about the movie as a whole. It’s not just about him, which I was so happily surprised by."
Before you check out "What's Your Number?" this weekend, be sure to click over to NextMovie to peruse their very useful chart, tallying stars' on-screen "numbers." (14, Joseph Gordon-Levitt?! You stud!)
Will you go see "What's Your Number?" Tell us in the comments or on Twitter!
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