Shake-a-doo.
That is West Virginia lingo for “Wow, what a life!” according to the new romantic comedy movie, “Win a Date With Tad Hamilton,” starring Kate Bosworth and currently red hot Josh Duhamel.
Imagine, for a moment, what it would be like to win a night out with one of the sexiest leading men in movies — sipping champagne, riding in limousines, dining at fine restaurants. And, maybe getting a goodnight kiss from Ashton Kutcher, or perhaps for a slightly older set, Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt.
“That’s the fun of the movie,” Bosworth said in a recent interview. “Most people have some sort of celebrity crush.”
Bosworth, who most recently was seen in independent film “Wonderland,” but is likely better known for her surfer chick turn in 2002’s “Blue Crush,” said people perceive celebrities as being one type or another of a person based on how they appear on screen or in media stories.
The “fun” of “Date with Tad Hamilton,” she said, is that it plays with these stereotypes, in some cases turning them on their head and in other cases reinforcing them.
Take the example of Tad Hamilton (Duhamel). He is a star of many films and one of Hollywood’s highest paid hunks. He dates beautiful women and lives in a mansion high in the hills above Tinseltown. But Tad is a pretty shallow dude, emotionally speaking.
Enter into his life a hometown sweetheart from rural West Virginia, Rosalee Futch (Bosworth), or just plain Rosie. She is a check-out clerk at the Piggly Wiggly supermarket whose best friend Cathy (Ginnifer Goodwin) works next to her and whose other best bud, Pete (Topher Grace), manages the store.
Rosie adores Tad and tapes pictures of him to her work locker. She and Cathy keep up with his goings on and when reporters write mean things about him in the tabloids, they just know it cannot be true.
Shake-a-doo lifeBut Hamilton has a problem. Many of those tabloid tales are true, so his handler concocts a scheme to hold a contest, pick a homespun sweetie like Rosie to be photographed “dating” Tad and resurrect his image as an all-American good guy.
Rosie, of course, wins and goes on that limousine ride, hence her “shake-a-doo” exclamation. But a funny thing happens on the way down Rodeo Drive — Tad falls in love.
Back to West Virginia Rosie goes with a smitten Tad on her heels, determined that he’s a changed man. New problems arise, however, when Pete, who has long held a crush for Rosie, finally lets her know that he, too, is in love with her.
“Win a Date with Tad Hamilton” plays with celebrity in a way that Bosworth has seen first-hand since “Blue Crush” led to a swell of publicity surrounding her, and she said she tries to ignore the headlines in order to keep her head on straight.
“You get driven a bit insane when you read something and say, ‘that is so not true,”’ she said. “That’s why I choose not to read a lot of it.”
She said the most difficult part of being a star is the loss of privacy, but adds that she knew it would happen.
“It can be difficult when you can’t go outside in your pajamas or without makeup. On the other hand, you sort of know it comes along with the territory,” she said.
Bosworth said that her role in “Wonderland,” in which she plays the drug addicted girlfriend to porn star John Holmes, was “extremely challenging” because she had to explore a different type of character than the one’s she played in “Crush” or before that in “The Horse Whisperer.”
Next up, she stars in “Beyond the Sea,” portraying a former Hollywood sweetheart, Sandra Dee.
Shake-a-doo!