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— by Corey Moss
With "New York Minute" being their first movie not to bypass the big screen, it was important to stars and producers Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen that it appeal to more than just their rabid young following.
The sick bastards who flood the numerous Web sites counting down the days until the Olsen twins turn 18 had to like it too. (For the record: It happens 37 days after "New York Minute" opens on May 7.)
Before the opening credits are even finished, Ashley strips down and hops in the shower. And a good half of their visit in New York is spent in towels. It's not exactly child porn, but the terry cloth wasn't worn for comfort either. So what inspired the Olsens gone wild?
"We just wanted to poke fun at ourselves," Ashley said, lounging with her sister and entourage in a plush Beverly Hills hotel room.
"So it's not too serious," Mary-Kate added.
In one of the movie's most memorable scenes, Mary-Kate and Ashley's characters break into a hotel room (similar to the one they're in now) to clean up, but they're interrupted when a handsome young man enters his mom's room and finds the towel-clad twins. Though the movie obviously doesn't go there, the scene hints at what a Rolling Stone cover story once called "America's Favorite Fantasy."
"They're not dumb girls," said Jared Padalecki, the lucky co-star of the scene. "They know that guys dream about twins and about coming into their room and finding twins in bathrobes on their bed. They were having a fun time."
Padalecki and Riley Smith, who play Mary-Kate and Ashley's eventual love interests, respectively, had fun with their roles as well, especially when it came to taunting their friends.
"We got calls from everybody," Smith said. "I had, like, people I haven't talked to in five years that were like, 'So I'm thinking about taking a trip to New York just coincidentally. Could I swing by set?' I'm like, 'No, you can't.' I [was] selfish."
"I just know if my friends were to come out and visit they would've been like, 'So, hey um ... you know,' " Padalecki added, doing a bad pick-up line impression. "And I would've been like, 'God, no, no, no,' like hiding my face."
Padalecki and Smith had a right to be a little territorial with their co-stars. The twins, after all, handpicked them for their parts. "To be honest, we've done that our entire life," Ashley said, almost embarrassed. "It's just kinda like part of the process."
"When we were younger, of course, it was like, 'OK, who gets the cute boy? I want this one,' " Mary-Kate reminisced. "Then we'd fight over that one and be like, 'OK, if you pick this one this time, then I get to pick next time, but you have a boyfriend, so I get the cute one.' "
For "New York Minute," they were slightly more mature about it. "First of all, they had to be good actors and obviously fit the part," Ashley said.
Choosing their big-screen boyfriends might be a childhood pastime for the girls, but "New York Minute" marked the most time they ever spent picking music for one of their movies. Not only does the soundtrack feature a variety of styles, from Elvis Presley to Blondie to Jason Mraz (who recorded a new version of "Curbside Prophet" for the movie), but a lot of the songs fit perfectly in their scenes. For instance, when Ashley hitches a ride across Manhattan on Smith's bike, the action is set to Lucky Boys Confusion's "Hey Driver."
"We pushed for different music," Ashley said. "We didn't want everyone to kinda just hear the expected music. I think we definitely have an eclectic taste in music, and I think that it kinda shows in the movie."
Music is also an important element to the "New York Minute" script, as Mary-Kate's character is a drummer in a band (with Jack Osbourne) and the goal of her visit to New York is to find some A&R guys at a video shoot and pass along her band's demo. For the video scene, the girls convinced Simple Plan to make a cameo.
"They're just cool guys, good band, good energy," Mary-Kate said. "They were perfect for the part."
"And they have a huge fanbase, especially with people that we're trying to reach out to," Ashley added.
In "New York Minute," Mary-Kate plays the artsy, laid-back troublemaker, while Ashley plays the business-minded, uptight neurotic. The above exchange might suggest similarities, but the girls insist you don't read too much into the casting.
"I'm sure that we can both find different qualities in the characters that we can relate to, but they're not like our personalities," Ashley said.
The girls decided who was going to play who in "New York Minute" based on the characters they're used to portraying in their dozens of direct-to-video releases. In real life, Mary-Kate and Ashley have much more in common. In fact, even based on personalities, they're hard to tell apart.
"I still can't tell," said Smith, who spent several weeks on set with the twins. "If they came in right now I'd probably have to be just like, 'Hey, girls.' "
"I could probably tell," Padalecki said. "It's just really hard when they're both wearing the same thing."
Mary-Kate and Ashley start "New York Minute" with very different looks (Mary-Kate rocks a Metallica T-shirt) but later change into identical "I (heart) New York" outfits. And then, of course, there's the towels.
"They were taped and tucked," Mary-Kate volunteered. "The only problem we had was when we had to do the stunts."
"Yeah, then you had some major issues going on," Ashley said.
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Photo: Lester Cohen/WireImage.com
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