'To Rome With Love' Stars Ellen Page, Greta Gerwig Discuss the 'Weird Magic' of Italy (Video)

As with Woody Allen’s past several movies, To Rome With Love takes place not in the filmmaker’s native New York, but the decidedly more exotic locale of Europe. Stars Greta Gerwig and Ellen Page tell THR that shooting in Italy gave the production a different sort of energy than domestic ones.

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“Being in Rome infused the stories and the acting of the stories with a certain magic,” Gerwig revealed. “I just remember walking through the Roman mall with Jesse [Eisenberg] and he was like, ‘2,000 years ago this would have been an incredible privilege.' ”

Page observed, “There’s this weird magic that you sort of get lost in, and I feel like the film tries to capture that.”

Gerwig and Page play longtime pals Sally and Monica, respectively, whose friendship is tested when Sally’s boyfriend (played by Eisenberg) becomes attracted to Monica. Monica, meanwhile, is characterized as a young woman who knows very little about a lot of things, making her seem smarter than she might actually be. When asked how their smarts compare to that of Page’s character, both declined to brag about their own intellectual aptitude.

“I call it like Dr. Page,” Page reveals. “I just throw out those facts, and it probably comes from like minimal internet reading. But I try to catch myself and go, ‘oh, that was Dr. Page there speaking’.” Gerwig, on the other hand, fears she’s a lot like Monica’s superficial know-it-all. “I worry that I’m like her character,” she says.

When Page reassured her that she makes great observations and sounds like she know what she’s talking about, Gerwig explained why: “I’m a really good trickster.”

Watch the video above for more behind-the-scenes tidbits from Page and Gerwig. To Rome With Love opens nationwide Friday, June 22.