As the ensemble of actors came together, the filmmakers faced the challenge of "casting" the location that would serve as the visual and emotional canvas for Tom and Sarah’s ill fated romantic getaway.
"Tom and Sarah are on this can’t-miss, idyllic honeymoon, but they are getting progressively more irritated with each other," explains Harper. "We needed a romantic setting to offset some of the newlyweds’ growing acrimony."
Since Harper and Simonds had both spent their honeymoons in Italy, that country seemed the natural locale for Tom and Sarah’s post-nuptial holiday. After considering setting the story in Rome, the filmmakers decided that Venice, considered by many to be the most romantic city in the world, would serve as ground zero for the explosive honeymoon.
For Shawn Levy, shooting practical locations abroad was essential in differentiating JUST MARRIED from other romantic comedies. "We really felt it was necessary to shoot a large part of JUST MARRIED in Italy," he explains, "because most romantic comedies are typically contained in terms of scope. We wanted to see what happens when you put a story in a cinematic location that is much larger than the genre usually demands."
The decision to shoot in Venice allowed the production to also take advantage of the city’s proximity to the picturesque Italian Alps and its surrounding regions. The beauty and serene nature of the mountains was an ideal starting point for Tom and Sarah’s wedded "bliss" and the mishaps that add to the newlyweds’ growing tension.
Once shooting began in Italy, it soon became apparent that the ambitious Italian shooting schedule would prove invaluable to the filmmakers in conveying the disorientation and occasional frustrations of being in foreign country.
"At the start of the Italian shoot," remembers Simonds, "there was this not-so-vague sense of terror, which helped create the frenetic energy that comes from being in a foreign country and feeling a little off-center and unfamiliar with the surroundings. That energy permeated the film, helping convey the uneasy feeling between Tom and Sarah, who are unable to control and fix what goes wrong on their honeymoon."
"Chaos isn’t something that is easy to fake," adds Kutcher. "Being unaware of what’s around the corner definitely helped the acting feel more authentic. I don’t speak Italian, so I didn’t have a clue what the crew and extras were saying on set. That really helped me feel like an outsider, which was exactly what my character was supposed to be experiencing."
After JUST MARRIED completed the northern leg of the Italian shooting schedule, which included locations in the snow-capped mountains of Cortina and in century-old castles in the valley of Campo Tures, the production headed south to Venice.
While the city’s canals and lack of roads and motorized vehicles give Venice its distinctive flavor, they also presented a tremendous challenge for the production and dictated a more hands-on filmmaking approach. For example, massive equipment had to be ferried on narrow gondolas – instead of the usual trailers and trucks found on a typical film set.
Movie Database
In Theaters
