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| Rachel McAdams in The Notebook. |
Director Nick Cassavetes (John
Q) adapts the best-selling romance by Nicholas
Sparks with a sharp young cast, including Ryan Gosling
and Rachel McAdams. (2 hrs. 1 min.; PG-13)
— LOGAN HILL AND BILGE EBIRI
Spotlight: Rachel McAdams
She was the hottest chick in The Hot Chick,
she was the meanest girl in Mean Girls, and
now, with The Notebook, Rachel McAdams
is attempting to make the leap from stunning starlet
to bona fide star. Not bad for someone who, not so
long ago, was best known as Rob Schneider’s
drag body double. Right? “Oh no! Well, I guess
that was kind of my launching pad,” the
27-year-old admits, laughing into a cell phone while
driving down a Los Angeles freeway. “I guess I
owe a lot to Rob Schneider.” McAdams beat out
stiff competition (including Britney Spears) for her
new role, as Ryan Gosling’s lover in New
Line’s forties romance based on the Nicholas
Sparks best-seller—and early tests were so
strong that she was immediately cast in the
studio’s forthcoming The Wedding
Crashers, opposite Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.
“I think I’m beginning to move beyond
the anxiety and a little more into the excitement
now, because it’s dawning on me what’s
happening here.” Working with Nick Cassavetes,
son of the maverick director and actor John
Cassavetes, she says, “I’m starting to
have a sense of my shortcomings: I need to be
pushed, I love to be pushed, and I hate that I love
to be pushed.” Aside from the creative
restlessness, McAdams says she’s also getting
a crash course in Hollywood starmaking.
“I’m learning that this business is so
full of contradictions, that you have to play a
certain game to get by—and that the ability to
make choices is a gift.
Opens June 25
• Showtimes
& tickets (movietickets.com)
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