On acting and reality

© Warner Bros Pictures

The relationship between fiction and reality is exploited a lot in the film. As actors, what do you think of that?  

Hugh Grant
I always say that being an actor is about exploring different and unknown parts of yourself, so of course you’re playing fiction when you act, but you also have to find emotions within yourself that can then become quite real, and that’s sort of what happens to our characters in the film: the songs they write bring them out of themselves and help them to find themselves and each other. I love it when Alex says, “the reality is that most of the time life is a negotiation.” It’s very true, but in the end their realities end up more like a dream than a negotiation, and that’s life too: sometimes the most unlikely of things turn into reality.  

Drew Barrymore
Acting is incredible because you can have so many lifetimes in one, and play so many different people. It’s fiction, but it’s still life, and it’s still real. I find that so exciting.