GOSSIP GIRL’S BLAKE LIVELY AGELESS IN “THE AGE OF ADALINE”

Press release

Time is a mystery, so is love in the sweeping romantic movie “The Age of Adaline” starring Blake Lively, known for her recurring role in the television hit series “Gossip Girl.”  In “The Age of Adaline,” Lively stars in the titular role of Adaline Bowman, who has lived all by herself in almost eight decades since she discovered that she’s immortal, she stopped aging after turning 29.

                Actress Blake Lively, who plays Adaline Bowman, knew she had found an enchanting adventure and timeless love story the first time she read the script. "I couldn't put it down," she says. "It read like a beautiful novel. The story is romantic, poetic and unique."

                The actress was also excited to find an original story told from a woman's point of view. The idea of a woman who experiences so much, so deeply, during one of the most diverse centuries in human history intrigued Lively. "Her life spans a hundred years, it crosses many different eras," the actress says.          

                The role of Adaline Bowman required the kind of presence that few young actresses have today, says Krieger, a combination of understated elegance, a thoroughly modern sense of style and the wisdom that comes from a life lived fully. “It was critical that whoever played Adaline looked like she was in her 20s, but could carry herself with a century of experience,” says the director.

                Acting in film and television since she was eight, Lively starred in the wildly popular television series Gossip Girl and appeared in high-profile movies including The Town and Savages. Her uncommon grace and self-possession add to the image of a woman who has lived an extraordinary life, according to Rosenberg. “We needed somebody absolutely modern who was also a little bit of a throwback to other eras. There aren’t many people who have that as well as the acting ability to pull off this role, but going back in time with Blake feels seamless.”

                “All of us were excited to see what Blake could do in a leading role,” says Krieger. “Even at 27 years old, she’s very sophisticated and carries herself with a kind of poise that few women her age do.”

                The actress admits it was a challenging role, but an extremely rewarding one that allowed her to delve more deeply into a character than she ever has before. “I had to play so many women within one. Adaline lives through such different time periods, but she can’t be a fractured woman. She is smart enough to evolve and change with the times, yet she is always the same person.”

BLAKE LIVELY AT CENTER OF UNUSUAL LOVE TRIANGLE IN “SAVAGES”

“Gossip Girl” and “Green Lantern” sensation Blake Lively stars as Ophelia, an extraordinary beauty who shares an unconventional relationship with two men, in director Oliver Stone's unpredictable thriller “Savages.”

             Also starring Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson, John Travolta, Benecio del Toro, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch and Demian Bichir, “Savages” is shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas starting Feb. 20. Moviegoers can catch it at Glorietta 4, Greenbelt 3, Trinoma, Alabang Town Center and Market! Market!

             In the film, Laguna Beach entrepreneurs Ben (Johnson), a peaceful and charitable Buddhist, and his closest friend Chon (Kitsch), a former Navy SEAL and ex-mercenary, run a lucrative, homegrown industry—raising some of the best marijuana ever developed. They also share a one-of-a-kind love with Ophelia, or simply, O (Lively). Life is idyllic in their Southern California town...until the Mexican Baja Cartel decides to move in and demands that the trio partners with them. And so begins a series of increasingly vicious ploys and maneuvers in a high stakes, savage battle of wills.

Lively plays the beautiful, warmhearted O—a free spirit who, when kidnapped, proves to have just as much grit and fortitude as the Baja Cartel. About his choice for the part, Stone commends: "Blake's an impressive actress. She was only 23. She had a lot of input into her character and is fearless. Blake has to appear in the movie often in an unflattering light, and she never flinched."

Lively becomes the voice of “Savages,” as O narrates the tale, and Stone used the voiceover technique as efficiently and specifically as possible. The director explains: "The idea of O narrating the movie grew naturally from the book, where she tells the story to the reader. But a voiceover in a film can potentially sap it of its tension by making it overly self-conscious. Insofar as the book has more than a hundred scenes and many characters, far more than we can afford in a movie, we worked to minimize the information and still use the voiceover to connect the dots."

For her part, Lively liked the fact that "O is the one thread that ties everyone together." Indeed, she interacts in multiple scenes with most of the other actors and had to run the gamut as a performer, and calls the shoot "intense, tumultuous and challenging." Says the actress: "It was amazing because I got to exist in each character's world, from this privileged life with the boys in Laguna to being tortured and in cages and being shipped off to Tijuana. It was a challenge to experience so much in a film on so many different levels—from ultimate happiness to ultimate pain."

The Southern California native was fascinated by the story's take on a nontraditional family and how three people could love each other that much. Lively offers that she treated O's story with respect and care: "One of the main reasons that I felt that Ben, Chon and O were together is that they were each other's family. They were each other's everything. None of them had real families. They did not have anyone to learn from, no one who was there for them through thick and thin. And they found that in each other."

             Lively was named Breakthrough Performer of the Year at CinemaCon 2011. She most recently starred opposite Ryan Reynolds in “Green Lantern.” Prior to that, she starred alongside Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner and Ben Affleck in “The Town,” which Affleck also directed. 

She first gained the attention of critics and audiences with her first starring role in the 2005 hit “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” for which she earned a Teen Choice Award nomination for Choice Movie Breakout Performance—Female. In 2008, she reprised her role in the sequel, “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.”