ALICE EVE (Molly) and KRYSTEN RITTER (Patty) FEATURE

Last year, while cast and crew were busy filming the new romantic comedy, “She’s Out of My League,” the town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania became an honorary camp site for the young stars of the film. Thrown together for three months in a downtown hotel, the 20-something cast (by their own admission) sometimes behaved like pre-teens, suddenly freed from parental supervision for the very first time. Food and fun were the rule of the day.

For British star Alice Eve—cast as the near-perfect Molly, the object of the less-than-perfect Kirk’s (played by Jay Baruchel) affection—one hang-out was particularly memorable. Eve states, “It’s called Primanti Bros., Pittsburgh Primanti Bros. They make these sandwiches that have cheese and French fries, and more cheese and more French fries, and meat. And you eat it all in the sandwich. It’s excessive, certainly…but sometimes, it was necessary. When we ate there the first day before we started filming, it was like the beginning of one of those reality TV shows, with everyone sitting around, checking everyone else out.”

“Yeah, and flash forward a month,” says American Krysten Ritter, who plays Molly’s witty best friend and business partner, Patty, “and we’re hanging out in each other’s rooms in our pajamas. The set was really fun. We were together in a Pittsburgh hotel for three months. It was camp, and we spent all of our time together, exploring the city. The boys were really funny. I was definitely outnumbered and I had a great time. They made me laugh all day, and they would be competitive about it—comedians, right? We were always at Dave & Buster's—this huge restaurant with all these games. We're all basically the same age and at very similar places in our careers, too. So we were like...in harmony.”
Eve finishes, “We were thrown together in a house, so we thought, ‘Okay, now we can be young.’”

Harmony is a good way to describe the off-screen bonding and on-screen chemistry that resulted with the young and comically talented cast. Following Eve’s casting, Ritter was brought into read—as Molly’s best friends and with plenty of screen time together, their relationship would need to be a strong one. After one reading, filmmakers knew the two would be perfect as the lovely and nice Molly (“She's the nicest character I've ever read. When I read her, I thought, I would die to play that girl that way!”) and the lovely and not-quite-as-nice Patty (“We're friends, and that translates to the screen. Chemistry is so hard to find”).

When describing what happens in the film, Eve matter-of-factly states, “‘She’s Out of My League,’ well, it’s kind of explained in the title really well. It's about a guy who thinks this girl is so great that she's out of his league. And it's the story of their romance, and all the friends around them—and the friends’ opinions and skepticism, and how they feel about the relationship. Ultimately, though, it has such a sweet message—I love the message in this film.”

Even though the film states using a numerical scale to rate possible romantic partners can be misleading (there’s usually more than meets the eye, right?), the ladies admit that it does sometimes come into play—but not in the way the film portrays it. Alice comments, “See, I don't think that Kirk and Molly are a five and a ten, though. That's the thing—I think it's Kirk's perspective. Like he feels like a five and he feels like she's a ten. But she doesn't feel like a ten. I mean, looks last for, what, thirty seconds? But then that gets old. It’s a bonus if you think the other person’s attractive, but what really counts is who they are, how they treat you and talk to you.”

Krysten elaborates, “See, I think anybody can be a 10. You know, it's all about personality and comedy. But, in actuality, the whole numbers rating system—women don't think about that stuff. Men have no idea. Really, sometimes, they don’t have a clue!”
That said, Ritter admits, “I did I have a boyfriend that I thought was out of my league. Yeah, he was too gorgeous. I'm like, man. I felt like a completely different type. Here's this conventionally handsome, gorgeous man, who’s great to look at—just like a specimen of male perfection. And you're like, ‘What I am doing with him?’ You feel like a slug of a human being.”
She stops and says, “Well, not really as bad as that. But you know what I mean?”
So there seems there’s some truth to “She’s Out of My League” after all.