Press Conference for One for the Money.
Stephanie Plum is down on her luck, so much so she takes a job as a recovery agent for her nefarious cousin’s bail bonding company. Even though she’s completely out of her league, she sets her sights on a quick payday, and a bit of revenge, when she hunts down Joe Morelli, a vice cop and bail-jumper wanted for murder, who so happens to have took advantage of her in high school. But her job gets even more difficult when witnesses start dying and someone wants her permanently removed from the investigation in One for the Money, which hits theater Friday, Jan. 27.
One for the Money is based on the 18 book best-selling series by Janet Evanovich, which has sold millions of copies since the first book was published in 1994. Katherine Heigl (27 Dresses, Knocked Up) was approached to tackle the leading role of the Jersey-girl turned recovery agent when she was filming “The Ugly Truth” with Gerald Butler. She had not read any of the books, but she soon became “obsessed” with them and got excited about bringing them to film.
“I think what’s sort of interesting about the books, is that they all have a murder mystery tie-in with the bounty-hunting aspect of it,” Heigl said. “So it’s not all just about romance. It’s not all just about comedy. In this movie, the murder mystery storyline is kind of dark and a little edgy, and gives it a vibe that is not purely chick-flickish. I’m really excited about it because I think it does appeal to everyone. It isn’t just a girl’s movie, and I think we’re working hard to advertise it so everyone knows that. It’s a good time for everyone, men included.”
Heigl also took on the role as executive producer, something she had done before with Life as We Know It and The Ugly Truth. She felt compelled to be producer in order to keep the film as close to the original book as possible, in order to please the fans and herself also because she fell in love with the books and the character.
“I just think there’s something about her that’s really endearing,” Heigl said. “You just really like her. She’s a decent person with a big heart, and she’s fearless and courageous, but perpetually puts herself in situations where she’s in over her head … but doesn’t take herself very seriously. She doesn’t take other people too seriously. She has this great perspective on life that happens to be really funny and witty and charming as well. I just like everything about Stephanie, and she’s that hapless heroine that we don’t get a lot of. Normally you get the overly perfect heroines that you can never aspire to be like, but Stephanie’s a sort of everyday girl.”
Stephanie has some unfinished business with Joe Morelli (Jason O’Mara), who jilted her in high school. But even though there’s still a love/hate relationship, she soon believes there might be more of a story behind his alledged participation in the murder. O’Mara said he was instantly attracted to the role, but didn’t start reading the books until he got the part. But he agreed there was pressure to please the fan base.
“The legacy of the books ... obviously they cast a large shadow. Even though I was aware that there was some pressure to do right by the books I just loved this character,” O’Mara (Terra Nova) said. “I loved how we meet him and his world has already been flipped upside down. He’s already been looking through the looking glass. He’s a cop on the run, a fugitive. I think that’s a pretty cool character to play.”
Director Julie Anne Robinson, a British director with a background at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Court and the National Theatre, said she was impressed by the chemistry between Heigl and O’Mara.
“I always felt there should be an element of improvisation when shooting because these two were so great at bouncing off of each other,” Robinson said. “They would just go on riffs and I would let the camera role ... I wanted it to feel fresh in that way ... but seeing the way the banter emerged between them I felt was very gratifying. The chemistry was great.”
There’s another man in Stephanie’s life. She hires Ranger (Daniel Sunjata) to get formal training, something she sorely lacked. Cool and confident, Ranger saves Stephanie from a few harrowing experiences. One thing the filmmakers wanted to get right was that Jersey accent, which for Sunjata, wasn’t that much of a challenge.
“I got a lot of help from a dialect coach,” Sunjata said. “After every line delivery, if there was a syllable off or a vowel that wasn’t quit right, he would come over and give us gentle corrections, which I think helped keep us on track. I lived in New York City for 13 years, so the tri-state area, Jersey, is right across the water. I think the Jersey swagger was very familiar with me.”
Stephanie has to deal with a number of colorful characters along the way as she tries to hunt down her meal ticket. One of those is Lula, a prostitute played by Sherri Shepherd, who is a “die hard” fan of Evanovich’s books and Lula, with her outrageous outfits and dyed blue hair, as well.
“I read ‘One for the Money’ about seven years ago,” Shepherd said. “I saw the evolution of Lula. I loved the character. I pictured Lula as a person walking through a clearance store and something’s been on clearance for three years and she’d be like, ‘Why didn’t someone snap that up?’ When I got on the set and I talked to the wardrobe people. I said, ‘I don’t think anything is too over the top.”
Heigl said she took tips from Shepherd because she was such a fan, but one thing she said she regrets is not talking to the Evanovich prior to filming.
“I didn’t speak to her until after the movie was made and after she saw it,” Heigl said. “I really wish I had gotten to talk to her on the phone beforehand, because I think she would have relieved a lot of pressure. She was so supportive and so cool about it, and just took the angle of, ‘Look, you’re always going to have a few people that don’t think you’re the right fit for the role. But I think you are, and I think it’s great. So just be you and do your Stephanie, and people will embrace it.’ That was such a relief to hear from the creator of the novels because I was trying so hard to fit myself into ... It’s hard to know what anyone else is thinking of the character. You only have your imagination to go off of. But I was trying to read people’s minds and fit myself into it somehow. And ultimately, I just have to do my thing. That’s the best I can do.”
Being brunette was a must, Heigl said, to play Stephanie.
“Her look is very specific in the book, and once you get attached to that idea in your head, I couldn’t imagine Stephanie any other way,” Heigl said. “It would have been really weird to play Stephanie blonde. It just wouldn’t have worked. But the other side of that is that most people know me as a blonde, so it was disconcerting, I think, for certain fans to see me as a brunette. And then it was disconcerting for the fans of the book to imagine me as Stephanie because I’m blonde and blah, blah, blah. So I dyed it brown before we started filming, trying to get people on board. And then I ended up just wearing a wig because I don’t have curly hair and Stephanie does. Then I went back to blonde while I’m promoting the movie. I didn’t really think it through, but hopefully people will buy it.”
While she’s dodging bullets and car bombs, Stephanie has to cope with a meddling, somewhat dysfunctional family, but she has a close relationship with Grandma Mazur, played by the legendary Debbie Reynolds.
“I was complaining one day about the hours, as I normally do, and Gary (Lucchesi), our producer, said, ‘Oh, you ought to hear Debbie’s story about her hours on ‘Singin’ in the Rain,’” Heigl said. “So then I asked her, and it was so horrifying what that woman went through to make that movie. She was so young at the time. It was her first big break, and she’s working with an icon. And they were dancing and singing, and I think she said they were working something like 20 hours a day and she would just get a few hours of sleep on the sofa in her dressing room and then go back to work a few hours later. It was just so much that I couldn’t really even believe it. I thought she was exaggerating, and it was sort of one of those ‘When I was your age I walked to school in bare feet and 10 feet of snow.’ I thought, ‘This can’t be true.’ And then she told me how she had to dance with bleeding feet at one point. Gene Kelly, he wanted to stop it. Like, ‘I guess we should stop. Debbie’s feet are bleeding all over the scene.’ And she was like, ‘No, no. I’m fine. I’ll wrap them up. I’m fine. I can keep going.’ So then I stopped complaining about my hours.”
Heigl is hoping that she will revisit Evanovich’s world again.
“They (the books) just keep getting better and better and more and more fun,” Heigl said. “I love when Lula and Stephanie team up and are detectives together. And it’s very Cagney & Lacey, and it’s super weird. And then the relationships keep bouncing, which is going to be so much fun.”
One for the Money Details:
Genre: comedy, action
Release date: January 27, 2012
Production Company: Lakeshore Entertainment/Sidney Kimmel Entertainment
Distributor: Lionsgate
Official site: www.oneformoneyfilm.com
Cast and crew for One for the Money:
Starring Katherine Heigl, Jason O’Mara, Daniel Sunjata, John Leguizamo, Sherri Shepherd and Debbie Reynolds.
Directed by Julie Anne Robinson
Written by Liz Brixius, Stacy Sherman and Karen Ray
Produced by Sidney Kimmel, Wendy Finerman, Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi