The (500) Days of Summer stars talk dancing, karaoke and romance as their superb comedy hits the DVD shelves.

Joe, can you relate to the guy in this movie, because we don’t often see a guy going through all this?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Yeah!

Zooey Deschanel: We do in real life, but we just don’t in the movies!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Yeah, all of my friends and all of my neighbors actually.

Zooey Deschanel: Like, I know ten of these guys!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I think everybody whether you’re a guy or a girl, can relate to this character. We’ve all been there.

What music did you both listen to in the morning to prep for the day and to get you in the mood?

ZD: I would listen to a lot of music that would make me feel happy and make me feel easy going, I guess, because it was a character that has a lot of stuff going on. She leads a charmed life, so that was my way of preparing.

J G-L: We listened to Stubborn Kinda Fellow (Marvin Gaye). We listened to that a lot. That was our song.

ZD: And I listened to Marianne Faithful a lot. I liked her version of As Tears Go By.

This was a very different role for you, how did you feel about playing a character like this?

J G-L: I was delighted to do it. I guess you are comparing it to some of the more dramatic stuff I’ve done recently, well, I think that is a big part why this movie is so funny is that it’s genuine. And it’s not kind of shallow surface level gags, but the humour is emotional and I wanted to bring the same emotional truth to this movie as I brought to some of the more ‘dramatic’ movies that I’ve made recently.

The director [Marc Webber] said you were just a natural when it came to the dancing!

J G-L: (Laughs) I was really into it. Well, that’s kind of him to say so.

Zooey, how did you feel when they asked you to play someone who’s a bit of a troublemaker in this film?

ZD: Very flattered! To be honest, it’s the not the way I would think of myself. But if they had picked one of those girls, you know one of those beauty girls… there are actresses who everybody thinks: “Oh my God, she’s just so amazingly beautiful”, and that’s their sort of thing, I don’t think that would have worked. Because this is partially romanticising a little bit of quirkiness, I guess, which I feel is one of the interesting things about the movie. But yes, I was certainly flattered that Marc thought of me for this.

J G-L: And you’re as beautiful as anyone.

She was quirky, but do you think guys prefer a woman who has something different about her?

J G-L: I don’t think you can generalise guys. Some guys are scared of an individually unique woman. I’m more attracted to someone I can talk to; I mean if there’s nothing to talk about, it’s hard to get turned on.

This is why this movie was so real, because it’s two real people having a real conversation.

ZD: Right. That was what we were trying to do.

You two had great chemistry on set. Did you find that out when you started working together?

ZD: We’ve been friends for ten years. We did a movie together ten years ago.

J G-L: It’s called Manic and it’s kind of opposite to the Leo and Kate thing. It was a really serious movie and so different to this breezy one.

ZD: So, it’s easy because we are friends and I have great respect and admiration for Joe. He’s cool, so that helps.

J G-L: It makes it so much easier to be doing scenes like this in a play relationship like this with someone who I am friends with and whom I trust and who I admire.

There was a lot of the color blue in the movie. Why is that?

ZD: They wanted me to stand out in the movie. To have a color that was only used once. It was used in the dance sequence, because everyone reminds him of Summer. But no-one else was allowed to wear blue. If I wasn’t wearing a lot of blue, there would be a big blue thing, like I’d be right next to tons of blue wall paper or a big blue poster. There would be something giant and blue somewhere in the shot! It was a cool cinematic thing. It was Marc’s idea.

J G-L: I think it speaks the strength of Marc. Not only is he super technically savvy to be doing something with colour like that, but he also knows how to tell stories and how to work with actors. Most people who are as good at crafting a scene of dialogue as Marc is wouldn’t necessarily know how to do something so sophisticated like that with colour.

Did you both enjoy the karaoke scenes? Do you enjoy karaoke?

J G-L: Sometimes.

ZD: I’ve done karaoke with you before. Joe got kicked out of somewhere before.

J G-L: Because I rocked too hard!

ZD: He wasn’t drunk or anything, he just got so into the song like he was pulling down the curtains.

You seem to be singing in every film you do now, is that a requirement in your contract?

ZD: I try to avoid it. I’m very skeptical of it, because it’s like happened a lot of times – “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could sing… ” They always feel they need to figure out an opportunity for me to sing. You really don’t. Unless it’s like a musical because it gets complicated as you have to sing in character, and somebody has something to say about how you sing. But for Summer, it was just karaoke.

b>The same can be said for Joe who got punched in the face.

J G-L: I know how to sell a good punch, what can I say?

ZD: That’s right, you do get a lot of punches in movies.

J G-L: It’s true. I always get punched in the face, I like it. It’s actually the only time I’ve ever been punched in the face in my life was doing a scene. I don’t engage in fights in general. I avoid them, but yeah, it’s the only time I’ve been hit.

In the film, the girl is a realist and we usually see movies where the girl is waiting for her knight in shining armour. This is a role reversal. Do you think that is more accurate now?

ZD: I don’t think it has anything to do with gender. We’ve been talking about this a lot because people have said that, but I think with our generation, those gender roles aren’t something that really can apply anymore. There are a lot of guys who get heartbroken and there are lots of girls who are cynical about it. I just find that people tend to go between one extreme or the other. There is no practicality about love because love and marriage being lasting is not necessary. So what’s keeping people together is the question. Love is not necessary like it was done in generations prior where you got married because you had to start a family. Those were the rules and society was very much a part of enforcing those rules. That doesn’t apply anymore to what keeps people together and that is the question. I think one thing that this movie says about love is that just because something doesn’t last, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. You will discover things about yourself if you’re being romantic even if it doesn’t last.

Are you a romantic person? Do you think it’s out there?

J G-L: I do, but I think that certain clichés like that – love at first sight – are dangerous because then you are letting someone else define it for you. And you have to make it for yourself. You have to figure it out for yourself and you have to know that love for you is definitive. If it’s real love it’s going to be unlike anyone else has ever felt before, so their descriptions of it – it’s never going to be summed up in someone else’s line, like love at first sight.

(500) Days of Summer is released on DVD on January 18th. [SOURCE]