Trailer: Josh Duhamel, Julianne Hough Romance in Nicholas Sparks' 'Safe Haven,' Plus Q&A Highlights

The trailer for Hollywood's latest adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' library of novels has arrived online. We shared four new photos from Safe Haven with you yesterday along with info on where you can participate in a Q&A session with Sparks, Hough and Duhamel following the trailer's release.

Well, here it is, the first trailer along with some highlight moments from the Q&A session. The film is directed by Lasse Hallstrom, who helmed The Cider House Rules and Choclat.


Q: What attracted you to the role?

Julianne Hough: I love Nicholas Sparks, Josh. Honestly, I can relate personally and a lot of women can relate to her. She's a strong girl, who's very guarded, there's a little bit of a secret she's keeping from people, but she breaks down those walls and of course there's love.

Josh Duhamel: When I first read the script, I loved the overall story. It made me think, what make a guy who's been widowed, who has two young kids, who doesn't have too much exciting going on the surface, tick?


Q: What made you decide to write Safe Haven?

Nicholas Sparks: Safe Haven was a story that really added a second theme to a love story. I wanted to write a story that added an element of danger. When you're thinking of adding an element of danger, you could add a person, a place or a thing. I went with a person and it made the story come alive. There's a sense of danger that grows and grows and people are going to be on the edge of their seats.


Q: What was your favorite Nicholas Sparks book and movie?

Hough: Walk to Remember was my favorite movie and book. Bend in the Road though, very sexy. It was the first time I read anything sensual and I was probably 13 or 14 and hid it from my LDS (Church of Latter-Day Saints aka Mormon) father.

Duhamel: Safe Haven would be my favorite book, but I gotta go with Notebook. I just thought it was incredible. It's one of those movies that you're going to look back on in time. When I think of Nicholas Sparks, I think of that movie. Ryan and Rachel were so awesome. And yes, I cried.


Q: What makes Josh and Julianne the perfect actors to portray these characters?

Sparks: It's really fun when you go thru the casting process. Josh was the first person we cast. He had this ability to add depth to the character. That's what his Alex character needed. Once you have Josh, well then you start going thru a lot of different actresses and you're looking for this magical thing called chemistry, how their eyes sparkle, how they interact and so forth. Julianne came in and we looked for someone who plays this secret but comes alive and finds her way thru this small town.


Q: Did you do anything special to get into character?

Duhamel: [Producer] Marty Bowen calls me up and says you're going to be shirtless on the beach. We both knew that was coming. Truly for me this was a guy who like Nick says, needed to be a guy who had been thru a lot. This isn't a sort of love story where two young people come together. These people have been thru a lot. I just sat and thought and wrote about what it would be like for this guy to go thru losing his wife and raising these kids. And a lotta sit ups.

Hough: For me, it's hard to play someone guarded and still be interesting. That was the biggest challenge; playing someone nervous, who doesn't want to open up to anybody but is still interesting. A lot of it goes into figuring out who she was before the novel or movie began. My first week of shooting was a lot of running, barefoot in gravel, with a lot of corn syrup on my hands.


Q: Does the storyline stay true to the book?

Duhamel: Anytime you're adapting a book to film, there's going to be differences. Nicholas was a part of the changes. You can't be as descriptive, you can't have all the things you imagine in the book. We took what the story was and made it better. So it's similar but better in a lot of good ways.

Sparks: It's as close any of my novels that have been adapted to film. The characters are the same and the secondary characters are the same and the overall story arc is the same, so you'll love the movie.


Q: What's coming up after this film?

Sparks: We've got another film that's probably going to start filming this spring, The Best of Me. Some TV shows in production, some Broadway stuff, another novel that I just finished that'll be coming up soon.

Hough: Trying to be strategically smart about the next films I want to do. Creating and developing some things with my brother, that's still in the early stages.

Duhamel: Similar to what she's doing. Developing stuff, have a movie coming up called Scenic Route. Life couldn't be better.


Q: What was your favorite book of all time?

Sparks: I like the collected works of Stephen King. I think he's just the best overall writer that the U.S. has ever produced. For me it's hard to pick. The Stand, The Green Mile was a good serial novel. The guy can do things that no other writer has been able to do.


Q: What's everyone's favorite scene?

Hough: I would say the diner scene. That was the worst and best day of my life. The worst was because I had to improvise on something that I knew nothing about. A lot of the movie was improvised. But then one of my favorite parts is a romantic moment in the diner.

Duhamel: That was probably one of the most fun times I had, but one that I felt really good about was the break-up scene. It felt like it was supposed to. It wasn't any fun to shoot, but you're anticipating it for weeks in advance and it felt really good.

Hough: Another improvised moment was when Katie just talks about things that went on in her life. It felt very personal and emotional and from the heart.

Sparks: I'm going to say, the parade. I think when everybody sees the parade, it's just so nice and then there's that "uh-oh" and it just twists and turn and moves in different direction. And that's what I think good films do, just when you think you have it figured out and it moves in another direction.


Safe Haven will open February 8, 2013, right in time for Valentine's Day.

Follow along on Twitter @DerrickDeane and @Fandango.

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