In An Education, aspiring Oxford student Jenny (Carey Mulligan) dreams of a world that’s bigger than her genteel neighborhood, set in 1961 suburban London. She longs to smoke, wear black and listen to Jacques Brel with other like-minded Francophiles, and to be free of her upwardly mobile parents. A fateful rainstorm introduces her to David (Peter Sarsgaard), a 30-something music lover who serves as her entrée to all things sophisticated: art collections, jazz clubs and fashion. His world-class charm — powerful enough to convince Jenny’s parents to send her off with him for a weekend away — sweeps the 16-year-old off her feet. The film, based on a screenplay by author Nick Hornby — it was based on a short memoir by journalist Lynn Barber — was directed by Lone Scherfig ( Italian for Beginners), who spoke to us about the film from Denmark last week. Read on to learn how she found star Cary Mulligan and where they found all the fabulous clothes from the film. An Education is in theaters now. — — Rebecca Harper (), Editor

Carey Mulligan is the breakout star of your film. She was also in Pride & Prejudice (2005), but how did you discover her?
Director Lone Scherfig: She was just in a pile of casting tapes. She had done very little, so it was chance. I knew that we probably had to find someone unknown because [her character] Jenny is so young. She was always my first choice — but we saw her again and again, and now I feel really bad that we took so long to make the decision. It’s been going so well, so maybe she doesn’t have to go through all that again.

I hope so, too! An Education is set in 1961. How did that particular time period play into the film? What did that mean for Jenny?
I think it’s really important. The way London was changing at that time is so in sync with how she’s changing. The way she’s bursting with energy for a future she can’t describe because she doesn’t know what it is yet is the way London was shaking the war off its shoulders, wanting to do things for fun and to have much more appetite for life, for art and for literature — and music in particular. That became so much more dominant straight after she [would have] entered Oxford.

I known here in the U.S. right now, that time period is really resonating with our culture — if you look at Mad Men, for example.
It’s a bit different. Maybe what is so attractive with Mad Men is that it’s a period where they, in some ways, were more liberated and also more innocent than it’s the case now. It’s a bit different in England because Jenny, she’s among the last generation of women who had that little future and so few possibilities. It’s almost as if Lynn Barber, who wrote this story, had been fighting at that. What that means is that women since Lynn could relax and take for granted that they had the right to do the things that they like to do, to try and to find individual futures for themselves and to live that future, or live that adult life, at least, if you have an education.

But my guess is about America is that it’s this combination of innocence and freedom that attracts you. Here in Denmark, as well, it was more liberated than it is now, and was definitely more innocent and less dangerous. I mean, when I was a teenager, the world was a lot safer than it is now for my daughter as a teenager, which meant that I could have a lot more fun. It wasn’t risky the way it is now.

Were you familiar with Lynn Barber’s story before you started this project?
It was just a 10-page article in a literary magazine. Later on, I think Penguin commissioned some more chapters, and she oddly became a journalist for Penthouse. She almost went too far because I know her, and I think she’s a woman who’s had a very rich, varied and happy life that is right for her. Her only regret seems to be that she now thinks that she should have been a better wife to her husband, whom she met in Oxford. But apart from that, she has fulfilled a lot of her dreams, and she’s a brilliant writer.

But no, I wasn’t familiar with her or her work, but obviously I started reading it when I got the job, to get to know her better and to portray her better. But Jenny is different. Lynn is more sarcastic, more of a fighter, and her piece has much more self-irony. Because Nick Hornby and I are not her, we could describe her with some warmth that’s not in her piece.

Speaking of Nick, what did he bring to the screenplay? Did he make any significant changes to Lynn’s story?
The story is short, so he fleshed it out. There are a couple of characters that are his, especially the teachers, but the structure and a lot of the details are actually in her original piece. I think he’s given it a tone that’s definitely Nick Hornby — and jokes, too. He’s really humorous. [Lynn] says that Alfred Molina’s role (as Jenny’s dad) is a lot more sympathetic than she had imagined. I hope we have added something as well. It’s just layer upon layer, and as long as we’re telling the same story — a group portrait of a girl and the people her surrounding her, particularly David … the more time we spent on it, the more time [it was] in this development situation, the more detail you see, the more contrast and the more integrity. But it’s the same piece that we’re all working on, and that was really important to me as a director that everyone was making the same film, that everyone contributed to the package and tried to strengthen it and get as many facets as possible but not be over-inventive, just tell the story as well as we possibly could.

I really enjoyed Alfred Molina’s performance. Can you tell us what he brought to his character?
He has really good timing. He’s very musical, and so is Nick. That means that lines are something where Alfred Molina feels immediately at ease and pitches them very well from the beginning. Also, [Alfred] felt that he knew that world very well — he grew up in Notting Hill and he thought that Jack who he portrays was definitely someone that he knows, and that Jack and England have a lot in common at the time, the xenophobia and the fear of everything: the fear of food, the fear of excess of any kind, and also the insecurity because he didn’t have an education, so that’s one of the reasons why they would let someone like David into their home. He seems worldly, and they’re afraid to be prejudiced as well. So they let him in and let him run off with their little girl.

I wanted to ask you about the clothes. I loved the costumes in this film, particularly Helen’s [a friend of David's who takes Jenny under her wing], but also Jenny’s as well. I read that you brought mood boards to your meetings with Odille Dicks-Mireaux, the costume designer…
That was about Paris, though, it wasn’t about clothes. But I did a board for each of the characters because it is a character-based film. I thought that’s a good place to start, to ensure that if I have a language problem, that’s not going to be our problem, that we’re all speaking the same language. A lot of film people, it’s helpful to have visual examples rather than to explain. So it was clothes, but it was also photos of real people at the time and props. Because a lot of people on the crew and in the cast had not experienced that period, it was also about communicating that London was not that “swinging” yet, and it wasn’t that long ago. It may be a period film, but a lot of the things are the same still.

She and I had a really good collaboration, and all of the costumes are just real clothes that have been saved. We only made one single dress, which was the nightclub singer’s dress. It was a copy of my Barbie doll’s ’60s dress. Because the singer is so small, she didn’t fit into any of the clothes that they had at the prop house. But it was so easy, and they have so much stuff in England, it’s probably the biggest place in the world for that kind of thing, and because the actresses are so beautiful, they just jump into anything, everything just fits. It was a good way for me to go and talk to the cast about the characters and to be at the costume fittings because then you get to express the character’s style and what would be in his pockets. I do the same thing with the props department, which kind of wristwatch would she have, who gave it to her, it’s a very concrete and specific way of building characters. It’s a good place to start dialogue with the actors, rather than sitting at reading tables.

Thanks, Lone, for speaking to us about the film. An Education is in theaters now.

We all know him as Jim, the affable, shaggy-haired salesman from the Dunder Mifflin paper company. But actor John Krasinski (who also appeared in this summer’s Away We Go) has set out to prove he’s no one-trick pony. With his latest project, a film adaptation of the late David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Krasinski proves he can hold his own behind the camera, as well, directing such stars as Will Arnett, Will Forte, Christopher Meloni, Bobby Cannavale and Timothy Hutton. Today Hulu premieres an exclusive “making of” featurette (featuring an intro from Krasinski himself) for this pet project. We also had the opportunity to speak to the 29-year-old actor about the film, which hits theaters September 25. (You can watch the trailer here.) And for all of you Pam and Jim fans — is that “Jam” or “Pim?” — we asked for a little scoop about the Season 6 premiere of The Office, which airs on NBC tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT. We’ll have it on Hulu first thing tomorrow morning. — Rebecca Harper (), Editor

There’s a bit of an announcement we’re hoping you can make about Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Can you tell us about that?
John Krasinski: Hulu’s premiering the movie first on the Internet [after it finishes its run in theaters], so we’re a part of that, and that’s fantastic. I think anybody in this business would be incredibly fortunate to be a part of anything having to do with Hulu, to be honest. Hulu is one of those ideas that is so cutting edge, that you just know it’s going to be a huge, huge part of people’s lives from now on. Not only for what it is doing and is capable of doing now as an interactive site, but also for what it has potential to grow into, which I think is nothing short of world domination. [Laughs] So we have that to look forward to, that our president will be Hulu.

To have Hulu support you in any way and display the ads for the movie and things like that is incredibly exciting, but then to have the movie be premiered on Hulu after its first run in the theaters is incredible. I think that Hulu’s done an incredible amount for The Office, and we are indebted to [Hulu] in a huge way. I think that it’s a massive part of our popularity, and why people have continued to watch us. We’re really, really lucky to be part of it — I have had experience with being part of a project [The Office] that benefits from being on site like Hulu, so to have our movie on Hulu and accessible to anyone at anytime, it’s really an honor, to be honest.

Well, thanks! And of course, I would say we wouldn’t be Hulu without The Office.
Awww, that’s nice.

Now you lined up some really incredible people for this project. Did you have some of the actors in mind from the start?
Absolutely. When I got the pilot to The Office, I used that money to buy the rights [to the book], but I had actually started writing the script a little bit before I got the rights, which was incredibly — in a negative way — ambitious. I’m sure it’s what more people would call stupid. In doing so, I started writing the script and knew exactly who I was going to cast. At the time, I was waiting tables in New York, and though I was having a great time, I wasn’t necessarily creatively stimulated, so I was constantly looking for inspiration anywhere I could find it. I definitely found it all the time in the theaters, by going to the theater, and by going to independent movies. I just consistently did that as often as I could. The people who I saw have these awe-inspiring performances were the people that I knew I wanted to be in this movie. And all these incredible New York actors who were just so brilliant on stage and in these small, independent movies, where a lot of them were coming out in New York, I just knew that those were the people I wanted in it, and I was just lucky enough to get them.

This being tied to David Foster Wallace, did that make it easier to get these actors?
Yeah, I’m sure it did. I think that being part of a project that is not only based on but also very much his actual writing … The movie’s not at all based on the book. It is completely the material itself. In doing this movie, my only intention was to bring his material to a wider audience in a different medium, but in no way to take the movie and change it in some drastic way. My being involved in the movie and so connected to the book was because of his writing, so I just wanted to do him justice and sort of show more people how incredible this author is and show what an impact he could have on you. I think that, truly, without him knowing it, I think David Foster Wallace wrote near-perfect acting material in these characters. So I didn’t have to pitch the movie very hard to these actors who I said had to come in a day, maybe two for some of them, and have these interviews that they could basically act in one day and really sink their teeth into. They very much appreciated it.

As a writer, how do you approach such a revered author’s work? I would have been intimidated!
Yeah, it’s funny, because to be really honest, Brief Interviews is the anomaly, I think. I can totally see why he hasn’t been adapted before, because his work is incredibly intimidating in that respect. It’s intimidating because you’re so admiring of it as a reader. When you’re a reader of his books, it’s a unique experience that you’ll never have with anyone else. I think he’s bar none one of the best writers ever to have lived, and he’s right up there on the pedestal with all the greats, in my opinion. And the real truth is, there’ll ever be anyone who writes like him again. For me, this book is the anomaly because he actually wrote these characters speaking dialogue, so there are actual words being said that were actually written as characters representing themselves. To me, it was almost near-perfect dialogue and the biggest challenge was editing it down to a piece that could actually fit into a watchable movie rather than an epic miniseries or something. And then also, he was also an incredibly literary guy, and so there were moments where I chose to leave some of the literary vibe into the dialogue, and some where I had to tone it down in order to allow the guys to be a little more accessible. But other than that, really, the script in the movie is all David’s work. I can’t take much credit for it, because the work he did as a writer in this story is what brings such incredible life to these characters.

I understand that he actually called you to give you his blessing. How did that call go?
It was thrilling, for lack of a better word, it was just fantastic. He was incredibly kind, and incredibly generous. I remember him being so soft-spoken and so nice. He put me at ease right away. I remember him being flattered that someone had taken up this book and tried to run it up the hill. He told me that his intention for Brief Interviews was to write a story about a character that you never see or hear from, but by using all the characters around that person, you find out all you need to know about them. And that’s exactly what I’d done. I’d already written the script when I talked to him, and I’d done just that in the script, because all the signs were there. It was just incredible to have that connection with him; that I was not only on the right path, but charging down the right way. It was so inspiring and such a pick-me-up that it was a great way to go into the actual shooting of the movie, knowing that we were on the right path and that we were representing him in the correct way.

You know, the big cinematic move that I did and probably the biggest part of the adaptation that I did is that [the female lead, played by Julianne Nicholson] connected to one of the characters, and I remember he was incredibly excited about that. He said that he had seen Brief Interviews as sort of an incomplete project because it hadn’t fully tied into itself, and there was nothing that could tie them all together. So when I sort of brought one of the characters in the book and connected it to her personally, all of a sudden there was a linear aspect to the movie. I had written one draft that was extremely linear and had all these incredible arcs that were fitting in pretty well, but at the end, when you re-read it, you realized that it just didn’t feel right, that it was feeling forced and fake. And so I realized that the best way to adapt the book was to go back and allow it to be what it wanted to be, which was spontaneous and slightly erratic and something that basically presented itself when it wanted to present itself.

You end up appearing in the film, but that wasn’t always your intention.
It wasn’t at all. My intention was solely to direct. I was pretty sure that these actors could do any of these characters way better than I could, but then we had an actor pull out at the last minute. There was this scheduling conflict, just one of those things that happens. We only had two weeks until we shot the scene. Normally that would be fine, but unfortunately that is such a big monologue and, as such, a huge part of the movie. I had shot all of the other interviews, so it was the last one and it needed to fit in just right. It would be a very stressful situation for any actor to just come in and sort of take on that much dialogue and that much intricate storytelling without knowing any of the other pieces, and I was the only one who knew the pieces. So the producers and I sat down and we decided that I’d be the best person to do it, solely because I’d read it 100 times, for no other reason than I knew what I was talking about when I was sort of relating the story to her and how it would connect to everything else.

Because this was a passion project for you, was the acting easier for you?
It was by far the scariest performance I have ever given; rather, it was the most scared performance I’ve ever given. It has solely to do with the fact that I was the director, and not because it hard to direct myself or anything like that — that’s not at all what happened. The reason why it was so scary was that I had sat behind the monitor and watched all these incredible actors turn in performances that were nothing short of awe-inspiring. The day before, we had shot the bathroom scene, which is one of my favorite scenes in the movie, and so to literally be the last person to go and to be the last piece of the puzzle, and to know that if this didn’t work, the movie wouldn’t work, was probably the worst position I could have put myself in. But I really didn’t want to fail everybody else. Hopefully it works out.

I can imagine how challenging this must have been for you, but I think it worked, I really do. But I have to ask — on behalf of all of the fans of The Office — can you tell us what we’re going to see in the new season? A little teaser, perhaps?
It’s funny, the season premiere is just sort of an old-time structure of The Office — it’s just a really funny episode of The Office. There aren’t necessarily any incredible spoilers; it’s sort of getting back to the season in a way that I think is a really smart way to do it, which is just getting everyone back in the office. But then definitely the wedding episode is coming up and it is fantastic. I think that — and I think I can speak on behalf of the entire cast when I say this — we’re all just huge fans of the show and we love it so much. To get those scripts, we’re as excited as any fan would be to see what’s going to happen next, the way they deal with the wedding and how [Pam and Jim] get together. It’s a scary thing to get married on a show, because it’s always a tough conundrum of whether it’s good for the show or bad for the show. Of course the writers are so fantastic that they did it perfectly.

Last season was such a great season that I really can’t wait to see what’s in store now. Well, thanks, John for your time – we really appreciate it.
Absolutely. Thank you.