February 06, 2014

By: Nicole Williams

LAWT Contributing Writer

 

It’s the classic one-night-stand-turns-something-more story – where the “rules” of a relationship fluctuate and reflect the more contemporary world we live in today. What is the fine line when it comes to beginning and maintaining a relationship? How does someone properly deal with the feelings of another?

Taking place in downtown Los Angeles, the more risqué adult-love movie “About Last Night” explored a few angles on how some deal with relationships and the vulnerability that comes with it. Based off the original 1986 film “About Last Night” starring Demi Moore, the movie reunited part of the cast of “Think Like A Man,” Kevin Hart, Regina Hall and Michael Ealy. The cast was also complimented by Joy Bryant.  Kevin Hart plays Bernie, the loud-mouthed friend to Danny, the slightly heartbroken good guy who is played by Michael Ealy. Regina Hall plays Joan who is the more passionate and sometimes outlandish friend of Debbie, played by Joy Bryant who is the successful businesswoman and the more grounded and reserved of the two. Bernie and Joan play a more dysfunctional love interest pair, while Danny and Debbie play the more conventional love interest pair. It’s hard to say exactly what’s normal in a relationship and the cast agrees that there are different ways to view the “rules” of relationships.

“I think it depends on who you are, the person you’re dealing with and also like my grandmother used to say, ‘you make your bed, you lie in it.’ If that’s what you want to do, there may or may not be consequences for your actions,” Bryant said.

Bryant’s character of Debbie explores the way she deals with a relationship that started off of a one-night stand. Bryant, who’s been married for around 6 years, jokes that the opportunity to work in a lot of movies that require romantic scenes is “legal cheating.” Her and Ealy’s connection in the movie was undeniable and super steamy as the movie was filled with a lot of sex scenes.

“Our thing was sort of like ‘You kiss with tongue? Yeah, okay it’s fine?’ Those are the technical things you want to get out of the way when you’re doing love scenes,” Bryant said.

Both Debbie and Danny’s relationship in the movie goes through its ups and downs and reveal certain relatable moments to how people deal with certain feelings in a relationship. Ealy, who recently got married in 2012, says he can relate to his character Danny in more than one way.

“What I realized was how happy I was that I have evolved and matured beyond this phase. The character of Danny is definitely informed by me in my 20s. Danny is 28 in the movie, I was 28 when I was like Danny,” Ealy said.  “I think for me, I just didn’t have the maturity like Danny to confront whatever issues I have with work or anything else that’s going on in my life. I didn’t have the ability to handle it, so I took it out on whoever I was with in ways just like Danny…ignoring them, becoming curt, just blaming them, running from the issue and being pretty bad at communicating my problems,” he continued.

In the movie, Danny and Bernie are best friends. Bernie spends a lot of time coaching up Danny to go after the “single and mingle” status. The resistant Danny perseveres against the pestering ways of Bernie, who happens to have romantic issues of his own.

Bernie’s love interest, Joan is his dysfunctional match. She’s extremely passionate and very vocal about what she wants from Bernie, while Bernie puts on an act that he doesn’t have the exact same feelings for her. Hall said that it was fun working with Hart and comfortable.

“We just had the opportunity to discover some stuff about us that we didn’t even know. We had so much fun and we had a lot of comfort,” Hall said.

Hall says she’s been through her own bad break up years ago. As a result, she got into yoga as a way to fuel her energy into something else. In a sex scene with Hart, Hall’s leg is behind her head, making everyone wonder, was that really her leg?

“We improv’d a lot. We had fun improvising. There’s stuff that wasn’t in the script that we did. That was my leg behind my head,” Hall laughs.

Both Hall and Hart brought the comedic element to the movie. The connection between the two was explosive. When one wasn’t making the audience laugh, the other was and the two still laugh at their performances on set today.  Ealy mentioned a swimming scene in the movie where Danny and Bernie are in the pool taking a lap, which was right up Hart’s alley.

“For the shot, we put him (Ealy) like four body lengths in front of me. And said action!” Hart said.

Hart beat Ealy in that lap in the pool and says it’s because he’s a hotshot when it comes to swimming.

“I swam all my youth.  Made it into the Junior Olympics and everything. Real deal,” Hart said.

The cast of “About Last Night” share an electric chemistry with many more riveting and hilarious scenes. Check it out in theaters nationwide on February 14.

Category: Arts & Culture