Why Danes Fell for Dancy; Plus, Streep's Evening with her Daughter

It's no surprise Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy fell for each while making the upcoming drama Evening.

From the sound of it, director Lajos Koltai turned his entire film set into one big lovefest. 

"We really work with love," Koltai said in his thick Hungarian accent last night at the American Cinemateque's screening of Evening at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. "I start every day out in the makeup trailer. I hug everybody, kiss everybody...We get through the whole day with love, all the time. Everybody wants to be there. Everybody's happy to be there."

But why would this lead to a Danes-and-Dancy real-life romance? "When we went away, it's the same thing," Koltai said. "It's the same love. So, there's a lot of love, and people give it and take it, and those two, they're really great together." 

Danes and Dancy costar in this emotion-packed adaptation of Susan Minot's bestselling novel alongside Meryl Streep, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Toni Collette, Glenn Close and Patrick Wilson.

Streep's real-life daughter, Mamie Gummer, also appears in Evening in her first major role in a feature film. The 23-year-old Gummer plays Streep's character at a younger age.

Don't assume Gummer got the job because of her mom, though.

Koltai said he saw 130 different actors for the role that would eventually go to Gummer. At the audition, Koltai asked Gummer to do one particularly difficult scene two different ways. "She was strong and beautiful," Koltai said. "I said, 'Jesus Christ, I love her so much. She's so similar with Meryl!' And they go, 'That's her daughter!' I didn't know."

—Additional reporting by Matt Donnelly