Continuing with our Beautiful Creatures coverage this week we have an interview with Alden Ehrenreich who plays the male lead Ethan Wate and Zoey Deutch who plays Emily Asher, Ethan’s mean girl-ex.

Zoey talks about which Beautiful Creatures cast member would survive the arena in The Hungers Games and how such a nice girl like her pulled off being such a meanie. Alden discusses building on screen chemistry with Alice Englert and why he isn’t on twitter.

Q:Well, first of all now that the teaser is out, have you guys seen the teaser? What are your thoughts on it?

Zoey: I think it’s cool. I think Richard and everyone at Alcon and everyone involved in the teaser trailer did an amazing job in that short of time explaining such a complex story. It is really difficult; I can’t imagine trying compound all of that into that amount of time. A minute and forty seconds, is that what it is?

Alden: It looks so epic. It looks so huge. I mean we shot these huge war scenes but I still didn’t think of it like that. It didn’t look as grandiose as it does. It’s amazing

We have gotten a lot of feedback from it, and a lot of people are now convinced that you can play Ethan.

Alden: That I can now.

We were sold when we saw you on set.

Zoey: People what about him?

They like him.

Alden: Now. Not like when I first was announced.

Every fandom is that way.

Alden: I didn’t even know that. Have you all read the books?

Yes, the last book had me in tears.

Zoey: Oh, I can not wait to read it. Am I in it?

We’re not telling.

Zoey: I signed on for three.

Alden: Is she in the second?

Yes.

Alden: Is she in the third?

Q:Have you not read the books?

Alden: I have read the first, but I haven’t read the other ones.

Zoey: Richard told us not to read the other ones. Cause he wanted it to be true to the first story so we didn’t have any preconceived notions about what was going to happen in the rest because that changes your performance.

Alden: Exactly. When I find out that Lena is actually a dude in the third one I am really glad I didn’t know that when we did the first movie.

Zoey we read somewhere that you are a fan of The Hunger Games.

Zoey: Yes!

Q:Within the Beautiful Creatures cast, who would win in the arena?

Zoey: Emily Asher.

Alden: Characters or the cast?

Either.

Zoey: Emmy Rossum in both senses. She’s feisty.

Alden, we know that you spent some time off set with Alice, to sort of build that relationship. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Alden: We lived in the same apartment complex, so we’d watch movies. We’d watch a lot of Columbo. We like Columbo. We’d just hang out mostly, like all of us would. We’d hang out on set a lot. We would just talk. She’s really intelligent. It was nice getting to know her.

Zoey, you have a twitter. And you are very popular on twitter. Alden, you are not on twitter. We just talked to Thomas about that. Why are you not on twitter?

Zoey: For all the right reasons.

Alden: Ya, my feeling is I want to stay as in my own world of people that I can touch as possible.

Zoey: No totally, I understand that.

Alden: I am just bad at that stuff.

Zoey: I think that is important. I mean, when you are doing all this press, and you feel so vulnerable, and you feel so exposed, it’s nice to not have people know you. It’s different. People know your character and not you, and that’s what I struggle with. I feel an internal struggle with wanting to do all that social media stuff and not.

Alden: I mean people seem to be able to do it without tipping the hand of what their personal lives are, but ya, I like to be able to turn off. It’s important to the work that you do to stay a human being, a real human being, not in this play world.

Zoey: This public figure.

Alden: We are so famous.

Zoey: HUGE! We are really big in China (everyone laughs) No it’s true.

Alden: It’s not true.

Zoey: No not the China part. (everyone laughs) It’s easy to feel like you are a public figure. An artist is an artist. And sometimes it feels like everyone knows you now, everyone knows everything about you. It’s a little hard to maintain privacy. And yes, this is all very ironic and completely hypocritical what I am saying. I have a twitter and I talk about my personal life all the time. But I totally get the flip side and I struggle with it.

Q:Ethan seems like a really relatable character, but Zoey your character is really kind of a bully. She’s very much not like you. So how did you translate that onto the screen?

Zoey: Well initially I felt like it needed to be, obviously when you are playing someone, you want it to be as truthful to you, and when it’s truthful to you, it will be perceived as truthful. I thought the first thing that I needed to figure out how to do was not judge her which is difficult, because she’s kind of manipulative, and evil, and a bully you know. Everything comes from a place of love. Hurt comes from a place of love. She feels hurt. She feels neglected. She feels entitled. Feeling hurt and feeling entitled are not a good match. She feels like Ethan no longer loves her. She’s entitled. She doesn’t understand why. I think people can relate to a broken heart. Whether people see that as being relatable or not, I definitely see her as a fun character to play.

Alden: I think she makes it a real person. It’s different when you read something and actually see something and look into somebody’s eyes as they are doing it. I think she makes it as empathetic as she possibly can. That was probably one of the most surprising things. How much of a real person Emily Asher is.

Zoey: Thank you.

That’s the sweetest thing I have ever heard.

Zoey: I love him.

In the press conference you talked about the dialect coach, and discussed that Ethan’s mother raised him not to use the Southern dialect.

Alden: We made certain determinations, like when he’s with his friends, there’s a certain language they speak and the accent would be stronger. And then when he’s with Lena, and he goes to New York, that will change. I mean we definitely made choices about the dialect, but I think it modulates depending on who he’s with, which mask he’s showing for the world. That guy is genius and helped us so much. Understanding the culture that this story takes place in has a lot to do with how it’s done.

The Beautiful Creatures film hits theaters February 13, 2013.