Not every love story needs to be a saga, like Dr. Zhivago. Sometimes the simplest stories make the best movies, and Nicholas Sparks has made a mint feeding a public ravenous for romance.

First love, as depicted in Dear John, is especially poignant.

“I’m very drawn to a story of that first love one has,” says Channing Tatum (G.I. Joe), who stars opposite leading lady Amanda Seyfried in Lasse Hallstrom’s adaptation of Sparks’ 2006 novel. “At that age, you have no idea what love is, what a relationship is, what you have to do to be in one. And there’s no way for it to work out perfectly.

“The characters Amanda and I play have no idea what’s coming down the road, but it’s going to be a hard one to travel. As an actor, you have to put yourself in that world and state of mind. Fortunately, Nicholas Sparks is the best at this kind of story.”

Filmed partly in Charleston, the film debuts nationally Feb. 5.

Dear John pivots on the star-crossed encounter of John Tyree (Tatum), a young soldier home on leave from the Iraq War, and Savannah Curtis (Seyfried), an idealistic college student he falls for during her spring vacation. Over the course of the next seven years, the couple are separated by his increasingly hazardous deployments. While meeting only sporadically, they stay in touch by sending a continuous stream of love letters overseas, correspondence that eventually triggers fateful consequences.

Written for the screen by Jamie Linden (We Are Marshall) and co-starring 2009 Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins, the film is the latest foray into the human heart by Hallstrom (Chocolat, The Cider House Rules), last seen in these parts helming the 1995 Julia Roberts comedy Something to Talk About.

But a love story is all about the chemistry between the leads.

“Chan and I got along so well because we both have the same kind of mentality on set: have as much fun as you can before you have to go into the serious mode,” says Seyfried, who earlier wowed audiences in Mean Girls and Mamma Mia! “We wanted to make it come alive, and it was this chemistry that helped. We were all on the same page with our method of work.

“Neither Chan or I take anything too seriously, and that’s a perfect co-star.”

If there is some mystical connection between acting in Mean Girls and winning the female lead in a Sparks adaptation — her Mean Girls co-star, Rachel McAdams, also toplined (the Charleston shoot of) The Notebook — Seyfried isn’t aware of it. She’s just relieved to have sidestepped typecasting as the ditzy blonde she played in MG and to discover she was more than capable of playing a romantic lead.

“I got a lot of auditions for ditzy blondes after that,” she recalls. “But the fact is that you don’t want to get stuck in any kind of role. And it was obvious I needed to take a different path.”

That path was the drama Nine Lives (2005), which preceded what Seyfried terms her career-turning point in 2008′s Mamma Mia!

“I wasn’t sure I was ready to do a romantic lead, but I knew I wanted to try. I’ve been inspired by romances all my life, which is part of the reason I’m here today, doing what I’m doing.”

For Tatum, playing Tyree was a matter of believability.

“Look, I’m not a soldier. I have never been a soldier or will I ever know what it’s like to be a real soldier,” he says. “But with any movie, you could substitute a plot point or aspect of character that gets in the way of a relationship. My character being a soldier just makes it much more complicated. Everybody has missed someone, or realized they’ve made mistakes and may not have all the tools to deal with the obstacles and trying times that come up in a young life.”

The stars voice similar hopes for what filmgoers may take away from the movie. “What I really want people to do is think about that first person they loved, or the person they’re going to love for the first time,” says Tatum, who is currently filming The Eagle of the Ninth. “If you’re young and haven’t been in love, when you do fall in love, learn from ‘Dear John.’ But I also want people to simply enjoy the movie. It’s not a war film; it’s just about two kids in love.”

Seyfried, who has completed the 2010 releases Chloe and Letters to Juliet, wants audiences to take it a step further.

“I hope that not only will they fall in love with Savannah and John, but that it inspires them either to find love or keep love. People take their partners for granted all the time without realizing it. And this is one of those movies that makes you realize how important love is.”

Source: Post & Courier