I think that you love who you love, and there are people who you love that people aren't going to understand why, and that sort of doesn't really matter.

I was bookish and dorky in high school, so the best part of this movie was getting to be on the other side.

I've never been one for sitting on beaches.

Most people, at least in my experience, when they love someone sort of hold something back, somewhere hidden in themselves.

That's what I think we're all looking for - an honest love wherever you can find it.

There's no changing your mind about who you love. That's part of the tough thing about being in love - it's sort of undeniable.

Well, I don't think I have ever loved like she has. It's pretty dangerous actually to give all of yourself away.

Willem Dafoe seems to move between kind of avante-garde theatre and film, and I think eventually that's what I'd like to do.

It’s hilarious to work with a woman like Diane Keaton. Sort of dreamy, I have to say. She’s a magnificent woman. Magnificent. Intelligent, politically astute, artistic. She’s got a rockin’ bod for 60. I’m kind of infatuated with her. (It sounds like you have a crush on her.) 
I do! I follow her around like a puppy. It’s embarrassing. I’m just going to embarrass myself.

I developed a huge crush on her (Diane Keaton). She's fantastic and she has a great ass - at 60. I don't even have an ass like that. She's fucking awesome. She's dazzlingly erotic and magnificent. She has beautiful hands.

[while filming Lost and Delirious] I'm kind of a book addict and we were lucky because a lot of time we filmed next to the library at Bishop College. I was reading...angst and love poetry. It was great because if I wasn't in the shot, I could go back to the library.

(You were in another film, The Cave, with Lena Headey, who plays Rachel’s love interest, Luce. Was it a coincidence that you guys ended up in another film together? ) 
It wasn’t. We did The Cave first. We were the only women in a very testosterone-heavy action film. We’re in a foreign country, underground, in the dirt, and it was not that nice. I was lucky that she was a really amazing woman, and right away I was like, “What’s the Romanian word for beer?” and we’d go off together to just hang out with another woman. We became really good friends. So when Imagine Me & You came up and Lena was being considered for a lead, she was on the phone with me immediately asking “Have you seen this script? Have you read this character?” And the two of us were plotting to get Ol Parker to let me play Rachel.

She’s actually a friend of mine, and so while she was working on 300, she came to New York a couple of times, and we would see each other.

I mean, she’s so pretty, I think people assume certain things about pretty, skinny English girls, but she’s certainly not to be toyed with. And, I’m excited to see it. It’s nice to see her so sexy, too. She’s such an interesting person that, but she gets cast as these sort of quirky characters.

Yeah, and she’s so-o-o-o beautiful.

Even on that poster [300], you just see that beautiful back, and you’re, like, ‘Who’s that?!’

I'd always thought Piper was ace- smart and spunky and funny and beautiful, the last two very rarely going together.

Flying over to New York to meet her I thought it was a long shot, but I talked to an accent coach before I went and she said 'find out if she reads. If she reads, if she's got a brain, you'll be fine.' So we met, and we talked about books, and she'd read more than me, and I liked her enormously so it wasn't a tough decision.

as for sophia, she was one of several excellent actresses that we thought about, or that thought about us, before I got on a plane to new york and met the fabulous piper perabo. and once I'd met her, it was another easy decision.

I did have reservations about casting an american, yes. but then I went to new york and met piper, and she read for me, bless her, although she was doing another movie and was totally unprepared.  and her accent was pretty great even then.  but she had and has a strong work ethic, she's passionate about what she does, so she came to england early and worked her tail off.  her face used to hurt at night from all the new muscles she was using.  and by the time filming started, her accent was so good that nobody even bothered commenting on it to praise it.  a remarkable achievement, by a remarkable person.

Lena and Piper had a ball throughout this. My main problem on set - and it's a high class problem - was stopping them laughing long enough to say the actual lines. All you can do is hope that some of that genuine chemistry and affectation translates onto the screen.

I'd work again with piper and lena, together or separately, in a heartbeat.  you'd have to ask them if they'd want to work with me, but my life and my film were hugely enriched by their presence. so yes, is the answer to your question.  a big thumping yes.

And yes, the scene in the back room of the flowershop was a deeply embarrassing one for me.  I was actually sitting on the bed that's at the end of the ladder luce leans on, doing the camera for the topshot, where we look down on them.  and we had another two cameras going.  so there were a lot of people in a tiny room, very hot with all the lights.  and in the middle of it all, two actresses laughing very hard.

the truth is, I don't really know what happens in the almost-kiss.  what I wrote, if you're interested, was

LUCE
OK, well ... thanks for the evening.  

RACHEL
Thank you.

LUCE
It was my birthday.

RACHEL
No, today?  You should've said.  It's mine at the weekend.  

LUCE
We're practically twins.

RACHEL
Well ... happy birthday.

She goes to kiss her.  But neither of them know whether to go cheek, or mouth, or which cheek. They have an incredibly awkward nose-bumping moment, before they figure it out, peck each other politely.

They pull back, look at each other.  Their faces are very close now ... The headlights of a passing car illuminate them for a second.  And they both jump back. Then the car has gone.  And the moment has passed.

RACHEL
OK then.  Goodnight.

LUCE
Yeah.  Night.

and then I gave it to two wonderful actresses.  who - correctly - didn't do the polite peck.  they just played awkwardness, and confusion, and lust and morality.  all of that very late at night, after a 14 hour day, in the freezing cold ...

actually through many drafts of the movie, rachel did actually shout 'I love you' just before piper whacks her big smile out on the roof of the car at the end.  and we even shot it.  but then they were both so beautiful, and they smiled so joyfully at each other, that just silence seemed to do the trick.  

they can both move some, and they should teach us to move.  I actually kind of shafted them that day.  because I'm a crap director, and failed to plan ahead, although I'd known for weeks that we had the rights to the kelly marie song, I only gave it to the actresses that morning about twenty minutes before they were due on set.  luckily lena numbers choreography among the lengthy list of her talents, so they emerged from the trailer shortly afterwards with their routine all planned out.  and left our jaws on the floor.

it's true that piper and lena spend a lot of time looking at each other in the movie.  there's a beat between them in their first scene at flowershop, just before luce says 'anyway, I was just serving a customer' that more or less makes all words redundant for the rest of the film, I think.  scenes with the two of them were enormous fun to direct - they're very great friends, so we'd all just laugh a lot.  

piper and lena were nothing less than lovely on set and off.  they were excellent friends already, which I knew when I cast them, and that made for a fantastically happy atmosphere.  they're both kind, warm, generous, and funny people, as well as ferociously smart.  piper was mildly nervous about her accent at first, but it was so outstanding so quickly that she didn't have to worry for too long.  the two of them just laughed together, and gelled together, and I just got to watch.  and take the credit.  

lena and piper never actually tested together. piper read for me when I went to new york, but that was mainly about the accent, I wasn't worried about her acting chops. and lena I knew and loved anyway. she and piper had hung out a lot while making 'the cave', and you could just see from the big smile each had when I asked about the other how well they'd got on. and if people are having a good time before and after the cameras are rolling, they'll probably have a pretty good chemistry onscreen. they just laughed a lot together. which made my life and my job not just easy, but fun.

Ol Parker describes Lena and Piper in one word:

piper – adorable
lena – heartbreaking

Mandy Moore – And the scene with us in our underwear was particularly difficult because we kept going back and forth between - Piper was fine; she was the one I think right off the bat that was like, 'Yeah, all right, I'll be in a thong, I don't care.' Lauren and I were petrified and kept going back and forth between like should we have body doubles, should we do it ourselves?