Wanderlust (noun) – the strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world. In the comedy of the same name, Jennifer Anniston and Paul Rudd play a New York couple that leaves the pressures of the big city and joins a freewheeling community where the only rule is to be you. George (Rudd) and Linda (Aniston) are overextended and stressed out. After George is downsized out of his job, they find themselves with only one option: to move in with George’s awful brother in Atlanta. On the way there, they stumble upon Elysium, an idyllic community populated by colorful characters that embrace a different way of looking at things. Money? It can’t buy happiness. Careers? Who needs them? And clothing is optional! I sat down with everyone’s favorite friend to talk about the film and working with her longtime friend Paul Rudd.
So your character Linda and Paul’s character George are in a difficult spot in their careers and their marriage when the film opens which is a situation all too many people can relate to these days. They are relatable in the sense that they’ve been married for a while, and they’re sort of stuck in terms of just being caught up in the rat race trying to just sort of survive, and I think they’re sort of just maintaining, and they don’t connect really anymore.
Could you personally identify with your character in any way? I felt very parallel to Linda and what she was going through. You know that kind of coming out of your shell and just getting out of the rules and letting the walls down and your guard down.
Linda just falls in love with this tiny little community the two of them have stumbled upon quite by accident. What’s the draw for her? She wants to stay because she’s found her, as Paul (Rudd) would say, Wanderlust. She doesn’t want to leave. She’s finally contributing. She’s finally part of a community and helping and giving, you know and making a difference.
You mentioned Paul Rudd your co-star in the film and he’s also your very good friend in real life. How do you guys manage to make it through some of those scenes without just cracking up laughing? We do, we definitely do breakout laughing, they just don’t leave that in the movie.
Who were some of the other folks you enjoyed working with on the film? Kerri Kenney, Kathryn Hahn, Malin Akerman…can you say girl crush fest. This was a group of people, where when we left, I haven’t had that kind of a feeling since..I mean the closest thing to it was Friends in terms of an ensemble of people that you felt so instantly kind of connected too. It’s a shame it had to end in three months. I wanted this to go on for 10 years.
So it’s safe to say you had a good time working on this film? It really was one of the most ridiculous amounts of fun I’ve ever had. We went to this little town that we thought was going to be just not as easy of an experience as it turned out to be, and it turned out to be the best version of itself. It felt like we were a million miles away.