North by Northwestern and two other publications sat down with actor Adam Brody and director Jonathan Kasdan earlier this month to discuss Brody’s taste in music, the title of the film and marketing movies.

See what Brody had to say about the movie in our audio slideshow, or click to read parts of the interview that weren’t included in the slideshow.

How was the transition from The O.C. to film?

Adam: When you’re on the set, it’s just a camera and dialogue, and it’s really what happens after that that really differentiates. Film is a slightly more detailed, collaborative process, because you’re allowed a lot more time per scene. It’s fun and it’s a little more serious, maybe. For The O.C., I could go on autopilot so easily; this I was a little more present, I suppose.

How do you compare your role in this movie and your role as a drug-dealer in the upcoming film Smiley Face?

Adam: That makes it sound as if I’m in a drama; I’m in a comedy about pot. I don’t ever think of it like I played a drug dealer.
Jon: He’s unrecognizable in that movie. You’re going to have to be really paying attention.
Adam: So, they’re super different. And I also did them a year and a half apart, so there’s no comparison. They’re as different as night and day.

How did you come up with the idea for the script?

Jon: It’s the kind of movie that I really like. I’m a big Jerry Maguire fan, I’m a big Say Anything fan; those are the kinds of movies I really like. In fact, there are references to those kinds of movies in [In the Land of Women]. And they’re not something people are making a lot of in Hollywood right now.

We heard you wrote an advice column for women in high school…

Jon: That is sort of inaccurate, and it only goes further to perpetuate the myth of my cross-gender lifestyle. But it wasn’t so much that I wrote an advice column. To be specific, it was that I wrote a column for my school paper that was a very personal kind of nonfiction writing about being a teenager and about what that was like. I wrote very literally about the people I knew and in my school and such. But I never used any of their names, so it became this very popular thing. Every time the newspaper came out, it was like tuning in to a soap opera that was like my version of how things were going down. It’s like Sex and the City! Yeah, that’s exactly what it was. It was an enormous power.

What’s the story behind the movie’s title?

Jon: At NYU, I did a photo thesis [of the same name] on various images of women in repose; women in their life, kind of quietly. And when I finished this script, it was something I remembered. I do think that the central idea of the movie is a guy who is preoccupied with women and fascinated with women and sort of enamored of women, and yet he doesn’t understand them at all and keeps discovering that again and again. Here’s this guy who is making an effort to escape this thing that has been the focus of his life and ends up being even more immersed in it.

What was it like to work with Meg Ryan and Olympia Dukakis?

Adam: Well, it was fantastic. I mean, first and foremost, they’re really good actors, and any time you get a chance to work with good actors, it only makes you better and makes you look worse, simultaneously. So that was fun, and — Jon’s family can do this, but I can’t: Meg can just pop off a story about Oliver Stone, and it’s true. It’s personal. It’s not even bragging. It’s completely part of their life and relevant to the conversation. [Their stories] just happen to be about Oliver Stone, or Tom Cruise or whatever.
Jon: Ah, I remember that weekend with Tom and me. Noodle salad.
Adam: Well, hey, Jon does have a personal anecdote about almost everyone in Hollywood via him or his family. And I’m getting there, but I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
Jon: But it’s a curse, too, because you try to meet new people, or girls, and they already have an opinion about you. They’ve heard shit about you. It’s terrible.

Do you have any other projects in the works?

Adam: Well I’m sure he’s thinking about lots of things, being a writer…
Jon: We want to write a movie together that wouldn’t be for Adam, necessarily. We have another idea that maybe Adam would play a role in, but it’s the kind of thing we’re interested in. Something a little more out-and-out entertainment than this movie.
Adam: Yeah, there’s always something to talk about, but I have confidence that he’ll actually do it and I’ll just sort of think about it.

What are you listening to right now?

Adam: I’m listening to a lot of older stuff right now, actually. I’m listening to some new stuff, but I’m not on the forefront. I don’t know what comes out. It’s just that four or five years ago, the indie music wasn’t as mainstream, and there just wasn’t nearly as many bands, volume-wise. And not because of [The O.C.], but in conjunction with the show a little bit, that scene has sort of taken off, and there’s so many new bands. So I’ve actually started to look a little elsewhere, too: I’ve been listening to a lot of ‘80s stuff. And also, new bands lately, it’s been all French Kicks. I love that album so much. I have the new Modest Mouse and I really want to open that; I just haven’t yet. I like the dancier stuff lately: French Kicks, Modest Mouse; it’s a little less folk-y and a little more pop-y. I like that.

You helped launch a lot of bands on The O.C. Have you had very much say in the music for In the Land of Women or other projects?

Adam: Well, fortunately on both The O.C. and In the Land of Women we have great, cutting-edge music supervisors. So as far as the soundtrack, it’s really Jon and our music supervisor, who is great and hipper than I am.
Jon: Although I will say, that movie really reflects my taste in music. But there is a moment at the very end of the movie, for the second-to-last major song cue, an INXS song called “Beautiful Girl.” Adam found that song.
Adam: Yeah, I just try to be as helpful as I can. And then the trailer is a different sort of animal. I saw a rough cut of the trailer years ago and it was like Dido and Coldplay and David Gray, and it was all temp stuff; it wasn’t a real trailer yet. But still, I was like ‘Look, let me give you some suggestions. It’s not cutting edge, it’s like old Nada Surf, old Rilo Kiley.’ But I’m like ‘It’ll be way cheaper and it’ll be just as Coldplay-y, but more original and it’d cost you literally tens of thousands of dollars less.’ And fortunately, they used some of it, which I’m so grateful for. They were really nice to listen to anything I had to say, to be quite honest. You don’t really have a say. The moviemaking and the advertising are handled by different people, and I always thought that was odd because more people see the advertising.
Jon: It’s how you’re presenting the thing to the world.
Adam: Sometimes much more is spent on the advertising than the budget of the movie, and so it’s like strangers are hired to make a new movie out of your movie.
Jon: The movie certainly has an element in it that is about romance, so people sort of relate to the idea of romance, then I think that [the poster] communicates certainly some romance.
Adam: Yeah, and at the end of the day, I think it is a good movie and it does revolve around love, so even though it’s not a straight-ahead love story as that would indicate, I hope that people won’t be pissed. But I think they’ll still leave hopefully having felt like they saw a good movie.

Have either of you spent very much time in Chicago? What do you think of it?

Jon: Neither Adam nor I had ever been to Chicago before yesterday and we have to leave in like two hours!
Adam: We’re dying. We want to see it! We want to see it!
Jon: It’s so beautiful-looking, especially since I have spent a lot of time in Detroit. I like it there; it’s beautiful suburbs. But the town is so ugly. And this is just the most culturally interesting place. I wish I could see Northwestern and all that; it seems like it’s a great campus.