Latest news with #TheNotebook
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
16 Surprising Stars Who Almost Played Noah and Allie in 'The Notebook'
Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling starred in the beloved 2004 movie The Notebook Several other stars — including Britney Spears — were up for the role of Allie Meanwhile, Gosling was a beloved choice early on in the processThe Notebook became an instant classic when it premiered in 2004. Although Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling ultimately played beloved love interests Allison "Allie" Hamilton and Noah Calhoun, there were several other stars who almost snagged the roles during the 2002 audition process. Director Nick Cassavetes and casting director Matthew Barry chose Gosling earlier on in the process, while it took longer to scour the country for who would play Allie. "[Gosling was] weird enough in a certain respect that you would believe that he would know that he could take one look at somebody and know that that was the person for them," Cassavetes said in an interview. After meeting with dozens of actresses, the directors tested out 10 different women with Gosling for a chemistry read. "Everybody who was anybody that year wanted this part," Barry told the Daily Mail in 2023. The search later dwindled down to McAdams and Britney Spears, but they ultimately went with McAdams — who was relatively unknown at the time — because of her chemistry with Gosling. "When Miss McAdams came in and read, it was apparent that she was the one," Cassavetes said in the same video. So, who were the other actors and actresses who auditioned for The Notebook? Here's everything to know about the stars who didn't become Noah and Allie. The role of Allie ultimately came down to either Spears or McAdams. "At the height of her career she was like, 'I want to be really prepared for this,' " Barry recalled to E! News in 2021. "So I said, 'OK, come work with me and my partner.' And she came in eight hours, two days in a row and worked with us. She was fantastic." Barry later told the Daily Mail that Spears' audition "blew away" him and the other producers. "Britney wasn't just good — she was phenomenal," he told the outlet. "It was a tough decision. Britney blew us all away. Our jaws were on the floor. I was blown away. Absolutely blown away. She brought her A-game that day." However, Barry told E! News that Cassavetes had some hesitations over casting Spears while she was soaring in fame (she had just acted in the 2002 film Crossroads). Although they went with McAdams for the role, Spears later addressed the rejection and said it was for the best. "The Notebook casting came down to me and Rachel McAdams, and even though it would have been fun to reconnect with Ryan Gosling after our time on The Mickey Mouse Club, I'm glad I didn't do it. If I had, instead of working on my album In the Zone, I'd have been acting like a 1940s heiress day and night," she wrote in her 2023 memoir, The Woman In Me. "Living that way, being half yourself and half a fictional character, is messed up. After a while you don't know what's real anymore." Spears ended up acting in a few more movies — Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Pauly Shore Is Dead (2003) and Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) — but she prioritized her music and released albums In the Zone (2003) and Blackout (2007). Casting director Barry told E! News that Reese Witherspoon was initially thought of as a potential candidate for Allie. However, before she auditioned for the role, Barry and the rest of the team "realized she was too old for the role." At the time of the movie in 2004, Allie and Noah were both supposed to be 17, while Witherspoon was 28. Of course, not getting The Notebook was far from detrimental, as Witherspoon became a leading romantic comedy actress and starred in Legally Blonde, Sweet Home Alabama, Vanity Fair, Walk the Line and Just Like Heaven — all from 2001 to 2005. Before Jennifer Lawrence had her big break in The Hunger Games, she auditioned for the role of Allie. However, Barry recalled that she was just 13 years old at the time, so "she was way too young," he told E! News. Lawrence continued auditioning as a young teenager and scored her first major role on the sitcom The Bill Engvall Show (2007-2009) and the film Winter's Bone (2010). In 2012, she skyrocketed to fame when she acted as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games film series. Scarlett Johansson has not openly spoken about auditioning for Allie, but Barry told the Daily Mail that she was one of the women who auditioned for the role. At the time of her audition, she had started to see success from her roles in The Horse Whisperer (1998) and Ghost World (2001). However, she didn't let the process get her down, and she scored a BAFTA Award for Best Actress for her role in the 2003 movie Lost in Translation. Over the next three years, she acted in Girl with a Pearl Earring, A Love Song for Bobby Long, Match Point and Scoop, among others. At the time of The Notebook auditions, Kate Beckinsale had been receiving praise for her role in the 2001 movie Pearl Harbor with Ben Affleck. Barry explained that because of her rise to stardom, they immediately thought of her early on in the role. "Nick flew to San Francisco to go meet with her," Barry told E! News. "And there was no chemistry between the two of them. So Nick was like, 'She's out, find me somebody.' " Shortly after being passed over for the role, Beckinsale found success when she starred as Selene in the Underworld film franchise from 2003 to 2016. She also went on to act in The Aviator (2004), Van Helsing (2004) and Click (2006). Jessica Biel had already solidified her acting chops by the time she was approached to audition for The Notebook. In 2002, Biel had already starred in 7th Heaven and Ulee's Gold (1997) and was working on the 2003 film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when she read the part of Allie. "The director Nick, Ryan and I actually flew to Texas where she was filming Texas Chainsaw Massacre and taped her in her trailer between shots," Barry recalled to the Daily Mail. Biel also rehashed the audition during a May 2025 episode of The View when she remembered thinking that The Notebook would be "the greatest option for me in my career." "We auditioned in my trailer at work, and I didn't get it of course, we know this is the answer," she said. "But in my mind I just remember having blood on me and being in that white tank top, and took my cowboy hat off, and was like, 'Okay, I'd love to fall in love with you, let's do this.' It was very strange, a very Hollywood moment, you know?" Biel went on to act in The Rules of Attraction (2002), Blade: Trinity (2004), Stealth (2005) and The Illusionist (2006). Barry confirmed to the Daily Mail that Amy Adams was one of the women who originally auditioned for Allie. Adams, who has not spoken about her audition, made her film debut in the 1999 film Drop Dead Gorgeous, but she had her breakout role in the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can and later Junebug in 2005. Claire Danes was another actress Barry named who auditioned for Allie. When Danes tried out for Allie in 2002, she had already had success while starring in the 1994 teen drama series My So-Called Life — where she won a Golden Globe Award and earned an Emmy Award nomination. She also acted in Little Women (1994), Romeo + Juliet (1996), The Rainmaker (1997) and Brokedown Palace (1999). From 2002 to 2005, she starred in several films, including Igby Goes Down (2002), The Hours (2002), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Stage Beauty (2004), Shopgirl (2005) and The Family Stone (2005). Mandy Moore auditioned for the role of Allie but ultimately wasn't chosen, according to Barry. At the time of her 2002 audition, Moore had already solidified her career as a pop star with the release of her first studio album, So Real in 1999. She also began acting and had roles in The Princess Diaries (2001), A Walk to Remember (2002), How to Deal (2003) and Chasing Liberty (2004). Even though she didn't snag The Notebook role, she continued her dual career by singing and acting and went on to star on Racing Stripes (2005), Because I Said So (2007) and License to Wed (2007), among others. Jennifer Love Hewitt was one of the final six actresses narrowed down for Allie, Barry told E! News. Before throwing her hat into the ring for The Notebook, Hewitt had already broken through in Hollywood and had starring roles in Party of Five (1995-1999), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and its sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), Heartbreakers (2001) and The Tuxedo (2002). After The Notebook premiered in 2004, Hewitt acted in the two Garfield live-action films (2004-2006) and the drama Ghost Whisperer (2005-2010). Barry told the Daily Mail that Kate Bosworth was one of the actresses they recruited to audition for Allie, but she wasn't a final contender. Bosworth has not spoken about the audition, but she previously recalled struggling during auditions at that time in her career. During a 2019 episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Bosworth revealed that she auditioned for the role of Mary Jane Watson in the 2002 film Spider-Man but lost out to Kirsten Dunst after she "tanked" the audition. 'I tanked it really, really badly,' she said at the time. 'Auditioning is literally a layer of hell. It just sucks regardless, and I was really nervous. ... I was not good at it. I knew. I just kind of froze. And I was really young!' At the time of her 2002 audition, Bosworth had wrapped filming the hit movie Blue Crush. She went on to star in Wonderland (2003), Beyond the Sea (2004) and Superman Returns (2006). In addition to McAdams, Spears and Hewitt, Jaime King was one of the final six actors who were in talks to play Allie, Barry told E! News. Before auditioning for The Notebook in 2002, King had already had a successful modeling career since getting discovered at 14 years old. She transitioned into acting in 2001 with the movie Pearl Harbor and later went on to star in Bulletproof Monk (2003), White Chicks (2004) and Sin City (2005). While Barry and Cassavetes were meeting with different actresses to play Allie, Gosling suggested that Jane McGregor should be considered for the role. Barry told E! News that Gosling was a "big champion" for McGregor, so she was "high on everyone's list at the time." Before trying out for Allie, McGregor had starred in the 2002 comedy, Slap Her... She's French and the independent film Flower & Garnet. She later acted in Supernatural (2005), That Beautiful Somewhere (2006) and Robson Arms (2005-2008). Tom Cruise was once considered for the role of Noah. However, Cassavetes later decided against the idea of Cruise, because he didn't want "an actor that's fallen in love with 10 other actresses [on screen]," he told Entertainment Weekly in 2024. "I've seen him do it a million times. Then you get to the point where you're like, oh, look, it's Tom Cruise, falling in love with somebody different this time. It doesn't feel quite as authentic," he explained. "And we were lucky to have them at the beginning of their careers. And you really believed it." Cruise had already had a decades-long acting career. He rose to fame in the films Risky Business (1983), Top Gun (1986) and Rain Man (1988). At the time of The Notebook, Cruise had already won a Golden Globe Award for Magnolia in 1999 and later acted in Vanilla Sky (2001), Minority Report (2002), The Last Samurai (2003) and Collateral (2004). George Clooney was another swoon-worthy actor who almost stole hearts as Noah. Before The Notebook cast Gosling as young Noah and James Garner as older Noah, Clooney was in talks to play young Noah alongside Paul Newman. Clooney explained in 2020 that he was close with the late Newman, so they thought it would be "great" to play younger and older versions of themselves. 'We were going to do The Notebook together,' Clooney said at the time, according to Deadline. 'Basically, I was going to play him as a young man, and it was funny. We met and said, 'This is it. It's going to be great.' " However, Clooney later backed out of the idea after he watched some of Newman's films from when he was Clooney's age, and he didn't think he could stack up. "He's one of the handsomest guys you've ever seen. We met up [again] and I said, 'I can't play you. I don't look anything like you. This is insane,' " Clooney shared. "We just wanted to do it because we wanted to work together, [but] it ended up being not the right thing for us to do." Clooney had already asserted himself as a heartthrob on the medical drama ER (1994-1999) and later acted in the hit movies From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), Three Kings (1999) and the Ocean's film series (2001-2007). He went on to win an Oscar for the movie Syriana in 2005 and got nominated for Oscars in the films Michael Clayton (2007), Up in the Air (2009) and The Descendants (2011). Before Barry and Cassavetes chose Gosling, they expressed interest in Hayden Christensen because of his role as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in the Star Wars film franchise. Before meeting with him, Barry and Cassavetes went to see him in one of their beloved sci-fi films and decided that they wouldn't be moving forward, Barry told E! News. Christensen continued acting in the Star Wars prequel trilogy films from 2002 to 2005 and also acted in Shattered Glass (2003), Awake (2007) and Jumper (2008). Clooney explained in 2020 that he and Newman were originally in talks to play the older and younger versions of Noah. However, after Clooney backed out, Newman also did, and his role went to James Garner. Newman was an award-winning actor, philanthropist and director for most of his life before he died in 2008 at the age of 83. He won an Oscar for his role in The Color of Money (1986) and got nominated for his performances in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Absence of Malice (1981), The Verdict (1982), Nobody's Fool (1994) and Road to Perdition (2002). At the time of The Notebook, he was starring in Road to Perdition, Empire Falls (2005) and the Broadway play Our Town (2003). In addition to the roles of Allie and Noah, The Notebook also featured the character of Allie's fiancé Lon Hammond. James Marsden ultimately scored the role, but Bradley Cooper was also up for the job, Barry told E! News. However, they ultimately advocated for Marsden because of his performance in X-Men (2000). Barry said of Marsden, "He's just the absolute greatest. Hollywood is full of dysfunctional people and a------- and he's not one of them. He was just fantastic." Despite not getting the role in The Notebook, Cooper made his film debut in Wet Hot American Summer (2001) and later starred in Alias (2001-2006) before rising to fame for his roles in Wedding Crashers (2005) and The Hangover (2009). Read the original article on People
See - Sada Elbalad
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- See - Sada Elbalad
"What Lies Beneath" TV Series in Works
Yara Sameh Robert Zemeckis' 2000 supernatural horror thriller "What Lies Beneath," starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer, is heading to the small screen as the latest Hollywood blockbuster to be getting a TV adaptation. The synopsis for the movie reads: "It had been a year since Dr. Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford) betrayed his beautiful wife Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer). But with Claire oblivious to the truth, Norman's life and marriage seem so perfect that when Claire tells him of hearing mysterious voices and seeing a young woman's image in their home, he dismisses her terror as delusion. Claire moves closer to the truth and it becomes clear that this apparition will not be dismissed, and has come back for Dr. Spencer and his beautiful wife." Mark Johnson, who is well known for producing features like The Chronicles of Narnia trilogy, Rain Man, The Notebook and more, said the property as one of several projects being considered for TV adaptation. We're very excited about the idea of maybe doing a television show — I'm not sure I should say this but I'm going to — our movie What Lies Beneath, that could lend itself to a very good, perhaps limited, perhaps not, TV show," he told Deadline . Johnson has been part of the production team for some of AMC's biggest hits over the last two decades, and that doesn't seem about to change as he has recently penned a renewal of his first-look deal with AMC Studios. Currently, one of his biggest roles is overseeing the Anne Rice universe that has delivered "Interview With the Vampire" and "The Mayfair Witches", and even as he turns 80 this year, the producer has no plans to step away from making shows he loves. He added in his interview: 'Why wouldn't I be at AMC? They truly celebrate the story. You look at the success they've had, it is still very much the leader and the benchmark: good writing, good characters and good television.' read more New Tourism Route To Launch in Old Cairo Ahmed El Sakka-Led Play 'Sayidati Al Jamila' to Be Staged in KSA on Dec. 6 Mandy Moore Joins Season 2 of "Dr. Death" Anthology Series Don't Miss These Movies at 44th Cairo Int'l Film Festival Today Amr Diab to Headline KSA's MDLBEAST Soundstorm 2022 Festival Arts & Culture Mai Omar Stuns in Latest Instagram Photos Arts & Culture "The Flash" to End with Season 9 Arts & Culture Ministry of Culture Organizes four day Children's Film Festival Arts & Culture Canadian PM wishes Muslims Eid-al-Adha News Ayat Khaddoura's Final Video Captures Bombardment of Beit Lahia News Australia Fines Telegram $600,000 Over Terrorism, Child Abuse Content Sports Former Al Zamalek Player Ibrahim Shika Passes away after Long Battle with Cancer Sports Neymar Announced for Brazil's Preliminary List for 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers News Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly Inaugurates Two Indian Companies Arts & Culture New Archaeological Discovery from 26th Dynasty Uncovered in Karnak Temple Business Fear & Greed Index Plummets to Lowest Level Ever Recorded amid Global Trade War Arts & Culture Zahi Hawass: Claims of Columns Beneath the Pyramid of Khafre Are Lies News Flights suspended at Port Sudan Airport after Drone Attacks News Shell Unveils Cost-Cutting, LNG Growth Plan
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
L.A. Affairs: I grew up on Disney princesses and fairy tales. Was I ready for my own happily ever after?
Marriage has been ingrained in me since I could form memories. That my purpose in life is to get married and have babies. I know this sounds old-fashioned and maybe that has something to do with the fact that I was born a girl in the Soviet Union to a Jewish family, but I've spent my life toggling between the tradition of marriage and the liberal Los Angeles ideologies I internalized. I've often found myself wondering if it is even possible to be a good writer, an artist and be married. At 11 years old, I was a flower girl at my cousin's wedding in Calabasas. I remember walking down the aisle with a tiny basket of rose petals, a pair of adult-sized breasts and a petrified look on my face, unable to smile even though I was a generally happy kid. The horse and carriage, the vintage bridal kimono, the perky orchids, the flash, flash, flash of cameras, the expectations on everyone's faces, the stressful night's sleep no amount of Valerian root could remedy — I wasn't sure if all this was for me. But I loved love. I had grown up on an unhealthy dose of Disney princesses and fairy tales and the idea that one day my prince will come. I memorized the entirety of the film "The Notebook." I would often fantasize about lying on my deathbed with the love of my life, hand in hand, like Noah and Allie. Read more: L.A. Affairs: Oh, how my body wanted my pickleball partner! Then he opened his big mouth In my teens, I flirted for hours with strangers on AIM. I hooked up with boys in the landscaping at the Century City mall after sharing a bowl of orange chicken at Panda Express. I had boyfriends and friends with benefits and cutouts of my idols: Victoria's Secret models like Adriana Lima taped to the walls of my childhood bedroom. I was fully liberated by the over-sexualized, MTV-obsessed early aughts. Then I lost my virginity to my high school sweetheart who soon became my boyfriend of seven long years. In a conversation I don't remember having, my cousin asks me when I think I will be married. I reply matter-of-factly: "By 25." She then scoffs and laughs in my face. "Yeah, right.' By the time I reached my mid-20s, I had broken up with my high school sweetheart whom I had little in common with other than the fact that we were supposed to get married. I was living alone in a studio apartment in Palms, sleeping in the same room as my refrigerator. I had stacks of books near my bed, a county government temp job in a downtown L.A. skyscraper and a stream of notifications from a dating app lighting up my apartment at odd hours of the night. Read more: L.A. Affairs: Men who don't understand L.A. won't understand me. What's a city girl to do? Marriage was beginning to seem impractical, uncool. I was living a life my immigrant parents deemed 'acceptable,' but what I really wanted was to be a writer, although I was too scared to even utter the fact that I was an artist back then. I honed my craft and spent my nights in adult-education writing classes. Meanwhile, I dated plenty. A musician. A botanist. An artist. An art writer. I fawned over a co-worker, a photographer a decade older than me. Eventually I met someone my own age: a graphic designer from work who I ended up dating for 4 ½ years. A year into my relationship with the graphic designer, marriage began to follow us around like a hungry dog. I was a bridesmaid in two different weddings, one week apart. I wore a grass-green, floor-length dress. I wore a lace, Champagne-colored floor-length dress. I got my face airbrushed. My lips lined. My eyes powdered. My cheeks contoured. My hair sprayed. I looked like a Russian mail-order bride. I was a reverse mail-order bride, born in Belarus, now an American. Actually, no one had ordered me. I had never been so unlike myself. My graphic designer boyfriend noticed. His knees buckled as he watched me dance the hora and attempt to catch the bouquet again and again. What's funny is that my own parents didn't get married until their mid-30s. My dad was divorced, and my mom was an old maid by Belarusian standards. But I was raised on their love story: the couple of life-altering years in which they got married after three months of dating, had me and moved to the U.S. Read more: L.A. Affairs: Nothing scared me more than intimacy — except L.A. freeways. But I had to face them both The graphic designer and I broke up in 2020. I was a mess, but it was clearer than ever what I needed to do: stop trying to control everything and just let life happen. A few months later, a kind, gentle, handsome, funny, optimistic, wildly creative man replied to one of my prompts on Hinge, agreeing that mayonnaise was indeed disgusting. Tyler and I fell in love and dated for four years. Together we lived through family tragedies, the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, my grad school, his grad school, supporting each other's creative practices, quitting jobs, finding jobs, moving in together, adopting our sweet mutt Agnes. In the summer of 2024, he proposed at Crater Lake, surrounded by a swarm of dragonflies. At first, I felt weird talking to people about the engagement. Some of our friends were newly married, some were single by choice (or not), but most were in long-term monogamous relationships with no plans for marriage. I had never been happier, but I still housed the fear that getting married was too status quo, out of fashion, an uncool thing to do. My favorite writers certainly thought so with the most popular books that year being about divorce and self-actualization: "All Fours" by Miranda July, "Splinters" by Leslie Jamison and "Liars" by Sarah Manguso. The Paris Review once asked writer Helen Garner whether being a writer and marriage are generally compatible. She replied: 'They probably are, but it probably takes a lot of generosity and flexibility. If you're burdened by a classic idea of the artist as a figure to whom everything is owed and whose prerogatives are enormous and can never be challenged, forget it." In one of her more judgmental essays titled "Marrying Absurd,' Joan Didion chastises those who choose to get married in Las Vegas. She insists that they are doing it not out of convenience, but because of the fact that they don't know 'how to make the arrangements, how to do it 'right.'' How do you do it right, Joan? Read more: Joan Didion made her mark on L.A. Here are 10 places she knew and loved Tyler and I got married in January (nine years after the age I insisted to my cousin I would get married) in Las Vegas, by an Elvis impersonator singing 'Can't Help Falling in Love' at the famous Little White Chapel with three dozen of our closest friends and relatives in attendance, two weeks after L.A.'s devastating wildfires, and the week of Trump's inauguration. While I had my hair and makeup done in front of the hotel window overlooking the faux Eiffel Tower, with the Bellagio fountain going off every 30 minutes, I was weepy. But not because of the usual suspects: cold feet or the last-minute cancellations or the eczema reappearing after years of dormancy on my arms or the lack of sleep, although I did forget to pack some Valerian root. At some point, I had convinced myself that getting married was uncool, not what an artist does, but here I was doing it. In fact, I was marrying the man who supported my creative pursuits the most. I had changed my mind about marriage yet again. It's a symbol of hope in a hopeless world, a sacred pact between two people, and it can be whatever the hell you want it to be. And yes, it might not work out, but also, it might. Maybe the question isn't: Does marriage make you less of an artist? Maybe the question is: Who gets to be an artist anyway? The author is a freelance writer from Los Angeles. She's on Instagram: @druzova_. L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@ You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here. Sign up for The Wild newsletter to get weekly insider tips on the best of our beaches, trails, parks, deserts, forests and mountains. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. Affairs: I grew up on Disney princesses and fairy tales. Was I ready for my own happily ever after?
Marriage has been ingrained in me since I could form memories. That my purpose in life is to get married and have babies. I know this sounds old-fashioned and maybe that has something to do with the fact that I was born a girl in the Soviet Union to a Jewish family, but I've spent my life toggling between the tradition of marriage and the liberal Los Angeles ideologies I internalized. I've often found myself wondering if it is even possible to be a good writer, an artist and be married. At 11 years old, I was a flower girl at my cousin's wedding in Calabasas. I remember walking down the aisle with a tiny basket of rose petals, a pair of adult-sized breasts and a petrified look on my face, unable to smile even though I was a generally happy kid. The horse and carriage, the vintage bridal kimono, the perky orchids, the flash, flash, flash of cameras, the expectations on everyone's faces, the stressful night's sleep no amount of Valerian root could remedy — I wasn't sure if all this was for me. But I loved love. I had grown up on an unhealthy dose of Disney princesses and fairy tales and the idea that one day my prince will come. I memorized the entirety of the film 'The Notebook.' I would often fantasize about lying on my deathbed with the love of my life, hand in hand, like Noah and Allie. In my teens, I flirted for hours with strangers on AIM. I hooked up with boys in the landscaping at the Century City mall after sharing a bowl of orange chicken at Panda Express. I had boyfriends and friends with benefits and cutouts of my idols: Victoria's Secret models like Adriana Lima taped to the walls of my childhood bedroom. I was fully liberated by the over-sexualized, MTV-obsessed early aughts. Then I lost my virginity to my high school sweetheart who soon became my boyfriend of seven long years. In a conversation I don't remember having, my cousin asks me when I think I will be married. I reply matter-of-factly: 'By 25.' She then scoffs and laughs in my face. 'Yeah, right.' By the time I reached my mid-20s, I had broken up with my high school sweetheart whom I had little in common with other than the fact that we were supposed to get married. I was living alone in a studio apartment in Palms, sleeping in the same room as my refrigerator. I had stacks of books near my bed, a county government temp job in a downtown L.A. skyscraper and a stream of notifications from a dating app lighting up my apartment at odd hours of the night. Marriage was beginning to seem impractical, uncool. I was living a life my immigrant parents deemed 'acceptable,' but what I really wanted was to be a writer, although I was too scared to even utter the fact that I was an artist back then. I honed my craft and spent my nights in adult-education writing classes. Meanwhile, I dated plenty. A musician. A botanist. An artist. An art writer. I fawned over a co-worker, a photographer a decade older than me. Eventually I met someone my own age: a graphic designer from work who I ended up dating for 4 ½ years. A year into my relationship with the graphic designer, marriage began to follow us around like a hungry dog. I was a bridesmaid in two different weddings, one week apart. I wore a grass-green, floor-length dress. I wore a lace, Champagne-colored floor-length dress. I got my face airbrushed. My lips lined. My eyes powdered. My cheeks contoured. My hair sprayed. I looked like a Russian mail-order bride. I was a reverse mail-order bride, born in Belarus, now an American. Actually, no one had ordered me. I had never been so unlike myself. My graphic designer boyfriend noticed. His knees buckled as he watched me dance the hora and attempt to catch the bouquet again and again. What's funny is that my own parents didn't get married until their mid-30s. My dad was divorced, and my mom was an old maid by Belarusian standards. But I was raised on their love story: the couple of life-altering years in which they got married after three months of dating, had me and moved to the U.S. The graphic designer and I broke up in 2020. I was a mess, but it was clearer than ever what I needed to do: stop trying to control everything and just let life happen. A few months later, a kind, gentle, handsome, funny, optimistic, wildly creative man replied to one of my prompts on Hinge, agreeing that mayonnaise was indeed disgusting. Tyler and I fell in love and dated for four years. Together we lived through family tragedies, the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, my grad school, his grad school, supporting each other's creative practices, quitting jobs, finding jobs, moving in together, adopting our sweet mutt Agnes. In the summer of 2024, he proposed at Crater Lake, surrounded by a swarm of dragonflies. At first, I felt weird talking to people about the engagement. Some of our friends were newly married, some were single by choice (or not), but most were in long-term monogamous relationships with no plans for marriage. I had never been happier, but I still housed the fear that getting married was too status quo, out of fashion, an uncool thing to do. My favorite writers certainly thought so with the most popular books that year being about divorce and self-actualization: 'All Fours' by Miranda July, 'Splinters' by Leslie Jamison and 'Liars' by Sarah Manguso. The Paris Review once asked writer Helen Garner whether being a writer and marriage are generally compatible. She replied: 'They probably are, but it probably takes a lot of generosity and flexibility. If you're burdened by a classic idea of the artist as a figure to whom everything is owed and whose prerogatives are enormous and can never be challenged, forget it.' In one of her more judgmental essays titled 'Marrying Absurd,' Joan Didion chastises those who choose to get married in Las Vegas. She insists that they are doing it not out of convenience, but because of the fact that they don't know 'how to make the arrangements, how to do it 'right.'' How do you do it right, Joan? Tyler and I got married in January (nine years after the age I insisted to my cousin I would get married) in Las Vegas, by an Elvis impersonator singing 'Can't Help Falling in Love' at the famous Little White Chapel with three dozen of our closest friends and relatives in attendance, two weeks after L.A.'s devastating wildfires, and the week of Trump's inauguration. While I had my hair and makeup done in front of the hotel window overlooking the faux Eiffel Tower, with the Bellagio fountain going off every 30 minutes, I was weepy. But not because of the usual suspects: cold feet or the last-minute cancellations or the eczema reappearing after years of dormancy on my arms or the lack of sleep, although I did forget to pack some Valerian root. At some point, I had convinced myself that getting married was uncool, not what an artist does, but here I was doing it. In fact, I was marrying the man who supported my creative pursuits the most. I had changed my mind about marriage yet again. It's a symbol of hope in a hopeless world, a sacred pact between two people, and it can be whatever the hell you want it to be. And yes, it might not work out, but also, it might. Maybe the question isn't: Does marriage make you less of an artist? Maybe the question is: Who gets to be an artist anyway? The author is a freelance writer from Los Angeles. She's on Instagram: @druzova_. L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@ You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
Tatler Asia
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Tatler Asia
10 wealth-gap relationships in film that actually worked out
2. 'Titanic' (1997) James Cameron's epic uses the doomed voyage of the Titanic as a powerful metaphor for class division. Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio), a struggling artist from the lower decks, and Rose (Kate Winslet), a young woman engaged to an aristocrat, come from worlds that rarely intersect. Their romance is propelled by the thrill of rebellion against societal expectations. Rose's yearning to escape her gilded cage and Jack's carefree poverty illustrate how class shapes identity and opportunity. The stark differences between their lives heighten the tragedy, as the ship's sinking parallels the collapse of the class system—if only momentarily. 3. 'Maid in Manhattan' (2002) In this romantic wealth-gap comedy, Marisa (Jennifer Lopez), a hotel maid raising a child alone, catches the eye of Chris (Ralph Fiennes), a rising political star. Their initial misunderstanding—he believes she is a wealthy socialite—sets up a narrative where class and identity intertwine with romantic possibility. The film delves into the awkward realities that follow when economic disparity is revealed, exposing insecurities on both sides. Marisa's dignity and Chris's idealism are tested by societal preconceptions about who belongs in whose world, highlighting the emotional toll of crossing class boundaries. 4. 'Crazy Rich Asians' (2018) Crazy Rich Asians explores wealth disparity not just as income but as inherited power embedded within cultural and familial expectations. Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), a middle-class professor, confronts the extravagant lifestyle of Nick Young's (Henry Golding) family, who epitomise Singapore's ultra-rich elite. The film foregrounds the pressures faced by those entering such circles, where lineage, reputation and tradition govern acceptance. Rachel's outsider status forces her to navigate subtle class codes, from luxury consumption to social manoeuvring, making the romance as much about cultural capital as personal affection. 5. 'Notting Hill' (1999) William Thacker (Hugh Grant), a modest London bookstore owner, and Anna Scott (Julia Roberts), a glamorous Hollywood actress, negotiate the chasm between ordinary life and celebrity privilege. Their romance examines how fame and wealth alter perceptions of normalcy and intimacy. William's quiet, unassuming background contrasts with Anna's world of cameras and adulation, creating a tension between public identity and private connection. The film's charm lies in its nuanced portrayal of love struggling against the alienation caused by class and status disparities. 6. 'The Notebook' (2004) Based on Nicholas Sparks's novel, The Notebook centres on Noah (Ryan Gosling), a working-class man, and Allie (Rachel McAdams), a young woman from a wealthy family. Their passionate summer romance is stifled by social expectations, particularly from Allie's parents, who disapprove of Noah's lack of fortune. The film captures the enduring conflict between societal pressure and personal desire. It portrays how class can act as a gatekeeper to relationships, while illustrating the perseverance required to overcome such barriers. 7. 'An Education' (2009) Set in 1960s London, An Education tells the story of Jenny (Carey Mulligan), a bright but sheltered schoolgirl from a modest background, and David (Peter Sarsgaard), a suave older man with money and connections. Their relationship reveals the complexities of power, manipulation and class privilege. The film critiques how economic advantage can be wielded to exploit vulnerability, while portraying Jenny's coming-of-age struggle to reconcile romantic fantasy with harsh social realities. Class shapes not only romance but also education and opportunity. 8. 'The Great Gatsby' (2013) Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's novel depicts Jay Gatsby's (Leonardo DiCaprio) obsessive pursuit of Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), a symbol of old money and social prestige. Gatsby's self-made fortune attempts to erase his humble origins, but the entrenched social hierarchy remains unforgiving. The film exposes the fragility of newly acquired wealth and the rigid codes protecting established privilege. The romance, idealised yet doomed, serves as a critique of the American Dream's class illusions. 9. 'Cinderella' (2015) This live-action retelling of the classic fairy tale focuses on Ella (Lily James), a servant girl whose kindness endears her to Prince Kit (Richard Madden). Unlike earlier animated versions, this adaptation foregrounds Ella's resilience and integrity within a rigidly stratified society. The wealth-gap romance directly challenges inherited privilege and questions the fairness of social structures. Their relationship imagines a love that can dismantle class barriers, though it remains firmly rooted in fantasy. 10. 'Brooklyn' (2015) Set in the 1950s, Brooklyn follows Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), an Irish immigrant navigating a new life in New York. Her romance with Tony (Emory Cohen), a working-class Italian-American plumber, is tender and understated, shaped by the immigrant experience and the constraints of social class. The film poignantly portrays Eilis's internal conflict between pursuing love and seeking upward mobility, reflecting the compromises immigrants often face. In this wealth-gap story, class and cultural identity are inextricable from her emotional journey.
