ALEX PETTYFER TALKS ABOUT UNDYING ROMANCE IN “ENDLESS LOVE” MOVIE

This Valentine’s Day indulge in the Romeo and Juliet-esque forbidden love story, Endless Love, starring Alex Pettyfer and Gabriella Wilde.

In Endless Love, two teenagers from different sides of the tracks meeting and falling in passionate love while their families try to keep them apart. Starring Alex Pettyfer and Gabriella Wilde as the star-crossed lovers, the movie is based on the novel by Scott Spencer and is a remake of the 1981 film, which starred Brooke Shields.

Unlike the original film which focused on the highly sexual relationship between the two youths, the modern remake is a more innocent love story, purposely watered down to earn its PG-13 rating. It was adapted by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, best known for creating some of the best-known teen dramas including Gossip Girl and The O.C.

“When you’re telling a story about teenagers, everything seems so heightened and feels like life and death,” Schwartz explains. “We wanted to create a modern-day epic love story that still feels grounded, believable and has a bit of a Romeo and Juliet quality to it. Something that is always a huge part in the TV shows that Josh and I do is the theme of young people falling in love for the first time—losing themselves, making good and bad decisions and going on a journey—which is relatable for everybody. You’ve either been in love and had your heart broken or you want to be in love. Even when you get older, you often think about that teenage love and the first time that you fell.”

The next step in bringing this love story to life was choosing two fresh faces that had great on-screen chemistry. Pettyfer, who stars as David, has already made a name for himself with roles in hit movies such as Magic Mike, The Butler and I Am Number Four while Wilde, best known for her work in Carrie and The Three Musketeers, plays Jade.

While this remake differs noticeably from the original, there is still a level of stress to playing a character already made famous by someone else, but it was the character that drew Pettyfer to the role. “I love seeing a guy who was just purely in love with a woman and wanted to do anything he could do to just be with her,” he said in an interview with Neon Tommy. “I watched the original and read the book. And the original movie is very different to ours,” says Pettyfer. “[Ours] is more about two people in love that are finding themselves, and that journey that they both go on; one about David, who is trying to make a new life for himself, and Jade, who has led a very sheltered life due to her losing a member of her family, and wanting that escapism. And by those two meeting - yeah, endless love happens.”

Endless Love opens in theatres  February 14 stars Alex Pettyfer, Gabriella Wilde, Bruce Greenwood, Robert Parrick, Rhys Wakefield and Joely Richardson.

—By Sarah Khan