Maggie Grace in Sony Pictures Clasics' "The Jane Austen Book Club".

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iCelebrating her birthday on September 21st, twenty-four-year-old flourishing actress Maggie Grace plays Allegra, the daughter of Sylvia (Amy Brenneman) in the film directed and adapted by Robin Swicord based on the acclaimed book by Karen Joy Fowler.

We speak to her in exclusively about the wonderful romantic drama.

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Question:

So how did you come to star as the 20 something member of the gay teen alliance? Was this a long casting period?

Maggie Grace:

“Yeah, I mean I am a Jane Austen fan myself and I read the book when it came out so I was excited to get the script and I had such a great meeting with writer/director Robin. You know, it worked out and I’m really pleased. My family thinks it’s hysterical that I managed to find a movie that has Jane Austen in the title. “

Question:

This is the most dramatically challenging film role that I’ve seen you in so far. How do you go about selecting your roles, what appealed to you about this project?

Question:

How much different is the movie from the book?

Maggie Grace:

“I thought that Robin did such a wonderful take on it and it kept so much of what was charming about it but as she says herself, the book is more like a series of six stand alone, episodic kind of short stories. So she definitely brought them some more schematic elements that tied them all together, to make it more of a film. And of course, had to lose a lot of the characters’ pasts because we just couldn’t do that; we had budget constraints and time constraints and everything. I really like the changed she made.

She’s actually developing another Jane Austen property before this, I mean talk about well-read on the subject.”
She talks about her love for “Little Women” another Robin Swicord adapted film – “If she can translate little women to the screen…it’s something that I read so many times as a child and loved and I was really prepared to seriously dislike the movie. You read something as a kid, you know, and you picture it a certain way, but I loved that movie! So, I was really happy to work with her?

Question:

Would you consider yourself very romantic?

Maggie Grace:

“yeah…uhh…hmm…In some ways, but I think there’s a bit more of Eleanor than Marianne in me!”

Question:

How did you build the mother / daughter relationship with Mary Brenneman? She looks so young as a mother of a daughter of your age! She looks like a sister.

Maggie Grace:

*she laughs*
“Yeah, we did have a giggle about that. She started the family really young. They were high school sweethearts.”

Question:

How long did this shoot for? I heard there were 37 locations, was this a tiresome project?

Maggie Grace:

“The way it was setup…we had these locations because it was literally across the street or in the building adjoining or they dressed one side of the shot as one thing and then the other side as another.”

Question:

So I heard they call you Maggie Graceless? I find that hard to believe. How’s that come about? Were you a tom boy growing up and how closely do you relate to this character?

Maggie Grace:

“Oh!”

*laughs*

“My cast mates on another projects called me that and it kind of stuck.”

Question:

Why did he call you that?

Maggie Grace:

“Because I trip a lot! In fact one of my boyfriends in high school got me a medical alert braceless. I’m accident prone.”

Question:

Not that it has anything much to do with this film, but there was another film about Jane Austen this year called “Becoming Jane,” did you see that?

Question:

Do you have any role models. Was acting what you always wanted to pursue?

Maggie Grace:

Yeah! I started doing plays when I was pretty little and my whole life. As soon as I’d get out of school there’d be rehearsal, community theatre when I was, you know, pretty young in Ohio, kind of local products, Shakespeare troupe. It was wonderful, yeah I mean I suppose it was my whole life but at the same time I didn’t know if I could say that I wanted to be an actor because you know when you’re living in Ohio, it’s not the most accessible and realistic thing in the world. So you don’t want to go around saying ‘I’m going to be an actress.’

People are probably going to roll their eyes, it’s like saying when you’re little ‘I want to be a ballerina, then I want to work in a cookie factory and then I’m going to do this, then do that.’ But yeah, it was definitely a big part of my life.”

Question:

So as you grow with each role, tell us what Allegra’s character has done for you.

Maggie Grace:

“Gosh, I’d love to be a little more of a free spirit, I love that about her, and just be so open to love.”

Question:

Can you talk about some of the upcoming projects you’re working on? Can you talk about “Taken,” “Suburban Girl” a.k.a “The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing?”

Maggie Grace:

“Yeah, another book which…both of which…that and ‘The Jane Austen Book Club’ people like to slap the unfair label chick flick on which I’m not a big fan of!” *she laughs*
“um…but yeah and then ‘Taken’ is obviously a departure from the last couple. I think it’s the Ying and the Yang, the estrogen and the testosterone…to follow it up. It’s an action thriller, and really, such a suspenseful script by Luc Besson and director Pierre Morel who worked with Luc for a fairly long time. We shot a good part of that in Paris.”

Question:

Had you been to Paris before that?

Maggie Grace:

“Yeah, a bit but obviously seeing it from an entirely different point of view and now I have friends that are Parisian so, very different view point. I actually just got back a couple of hours ago!” *she laughs* “Yeah, just got off the plane, I went back for my birthday to see my friends. It was wonderful.”

Took place on October 3rd, 2007 from 4:20 PM.