Like his other best known stories, most notably the poignantly romantic Message in a Bottle, that became a hit motion picture in 1999, A Walk to Remember was originally inspired by author Nicholas Sparks' own family. "It's a very personal story," says Sparks. "As writers do, I drew from events in my life to bring something original to the reader. The character Jamie Sullivan is modeled after my sister, who was a great, great person. It's my way of letting the world get to know who my sister was."

The story first came to producer Hunt Lowry's attention in the form of a screenplay by Karen Janszen, which faithfully conveyed the power and spirit of the Sparks novel and made an indelible impression on Lowry.

"When Courtenay Valenti [Senior Vice President, Theatrical Production, Warner Bros. Pictures] called me and said that this script had come in with Denise Di Novi -- whom I've known for a long time -- attached to produce, I agreed to read it. Courtenay didn't send it, she walked it from her office all the way across the lot to our office," Lowry says, recalling the production executive's enthusiasm for the story. "I read it all the way through and immediately called my partner, E.K. Gaylord II, and said 'we have our first movie.' On the way home, I stopped and bought the book to read that night.

"E.K. called the next day and wholeheartedly agreed, as did everyone else in our office who had read the script," Lowry continues. "It was the first project we loved enough to produce under our newly formed Pandora division of Gaylord Films."

Producer Denise Di Novi's passion for the story began from the book itself. "I was just bowled over by this book," she says. "It is such a beautiful, powerful and meaningful story. By the end, I was so moved, I was crying my head off just like everybody else who has read it. When I developed the script with Karen Janszen, it brought that experience right back to me, vividly. I was thrilled when people felt the screenplay had captured the power of the book."

Executive producer Bill Johnson agrees. "'A Walk to Remember' taps into the emotions that we so often try to keep tucked deep inside ourselves," he offers. "It speaks to the universal theme of joy through found love."
Di Novi took the script straight to director Adam Shankman, who recently made his directorial debut with the romantic comedy "The Wedding Planner" and is one of the entertainment industry's leading dance and comedy choreographers with an extensive list of well-known comedies, dramas, thrillers and animated films to his credit.

"I had worked with Adam as a choreographer and had seen his film, 'The Wedding Planner,'" she says. "I felt he had the right spirit. He has a really big heart and I knew that he could bring the emotion to the screen in a young, fresh way."

Before making his decision to take on the project, Shankman read both the script and the book. "Beyond not being able to put it down because the writing and the central story is so beautiful," he recalls, "I connected to the love, the faith and the theme of being non-judgmental. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by this story. I felt that I had something to say about those themes."

"He really got it," says Lowry of Shankman's honest reaction to the material. "He got the characters immediately, he understood the story from their point of view and he came into our first meeting knowing exactly what he wanted to do. He had obviously done his homework and came in with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of good ideas."

One of those ideas, which the producers had already discussed, was to lift the story into the 90s rather than the 1950s, which was its original setting in the novel. Although the events and characters are really timeless, Shankman wanted to present it as a "contemporary rather than a retrospective story." Also, since music is so much a part of the lives of young people and gives expression to feelings they cannot always articulate, he wanted "A Walk to Remember" to include an evocative soundtrack and felt that "audiences would be better able to relate to the music of the 90s."

"He brought a modern edge to the story, which I knew he would," says Di Novi of Shankman's touch. "He made the teenagers totally contemporary and believable and brought in the element of their own music to underscore the action in a very dramatic and subtle way. The music is cool, everyone looks cool -- yet he's dealing faithfully with the emotional and serious elements of the story at the same time."

The story is set in Beaufort, North Carolina, a small, quiet town located on the coast. For practical reasons, availability of production facilities and crews, it was filmed at several locations in and around Wilmington, North Carolina, that evoke the same timeless quality that Nicholas Sparks found so inspirational in Beaufort.

Casting

With their director on board, the filmmakers set out to cast the young leads - the characters of Jamie Sullivan and Landon Carter - whose love is the heart of the film.

"I wanted young actors with whom teenagers could connect," Shankman explains. "I wanted to make them real because they're not playing archetypal kids here - they're playing fully developed, multi-dimensional individuals who are flawed. One of the interesting elements in this film is that the best characters as well as the worst characters are all flawed. There is no perfection."

Shane West was the filmmakers' ideal choice for Landon Carter. Shankman was looking for someone who could evolve from very dark to very light and yet maintain his personal charisma throughout. He wanted an actor that guys could feel comfortable with. Also, it had to be someone new and fresh, someone the audience doesn't already think they know.

A working actor since his early teens, West recently appeared in the feature romantic comedy "Get Over It," and is a series regular on "Once and Again." Like his co-star Mandy Moore, he also has a musical background, currently fronting the Los Angeles-based pop-punk band Average Jo.

"I was reading a teen magazine," says Shankman, "because I read 850 teen magazines when I got this job so I could become familiar with the rising talent out there, and on the cover of one of them was Mandy Moore interviewing the top five guys she thought were Hollywood's most interesting. And Shane was one of them. I arranged to meet him for lunch and as we talked, I thought, 'holy moley, this is gold!' He is not only a fine actor, but he has this great gravelly and wonderful voice and there is so much going on in his eyes.

"It was just sort of an instinct that I had about him," Shankman continues, "but once he got to the set, he proved to be a miracle. I couldn't have asked for a better Landon. He's in practically every scene of the movie, having to be either incredibly angry and self-hating or madly in love and heroic - sometimes in the course of a day."

West agrees that the role of Landon suited him, although he was initially unfamiliar with the story. "I don't generally read love stories," he admits, "but after reading the screenplay, I knew I couldn't wait to read the book so I could truly understand Nicholas Sparks' story and how he envisioned the character of Landon. It's a beautiful story and the characters are very believable, which is what attracted me to the project.

"There is some of Landon in me," West confides. "My parents divorced when I was four and I lived with my mom. I love her very much, but, like Landon, I had some family problems and like many teenagers, I was aloof. I could really relate to a lot of the situations in the film."

As for the group that makes up Landon's popular clique at Beaufort High, West has them figured out too. "They have a small-minded mentality that can't see beyond their own tight group," he says. "They are the type of people who live in a small town and dream about getting out but don't have the confidence to do it. They see Landon as a threat because he's willing to go beyond his social circle and take a true risk."

Addressing the transformation that he portrays on screen, West says, "As an actor, this role gave me the incredible opportunity to play two different characters within the same person. The movie starts out with a scene that reminds you of 'The Outsiders' and then develops into a love story and takes a whole different tone."

According to author Sparks who visited the set on the second day of shooting, West truly nailed the role. "In the film, as in the book, Landon undertakes a journey from a person who's a little on the rough side to someone who really begins to understand about the important things in life," he explains. "And Shane has a real talent for playing that. He's obviously gone through enough in his life that he can play this character to perfection. I can't think of anyone who would have done a better job."

Shankman's first choice for Jamie was pop singer Mandy Moore, who recently made her feature film acting debut in "The Princess Diaries." "Mandy has the voice and the face of an angel," Shankman says unequivocally. "She's luminous. Just before I was hired for the movie, I heard her on the radio singing 'I Want to be With You,' which was included in the soundtrack for 'Center Stage' and, after I was hired, I knew there was no one but Mandy for this role."

It turned out that A Walk to Remember was one of Moore's favorite books. "My mom and I are big Nicholas Sparks fans," she recalls. "We had read Message in a Bottle and then I read Walk to Remember and made my mom read it. Even then, before there was any talk of a film, I felt like there was a lot of Jamie in me."

For Sparks, Moore fit the character perfectly. "Mandy is a delightful and charming person," he says. "She brings the Jamie Sullivan that I wrote about to the camera. As I've come to know her during production, she's a very kind and good person, and that's essentially the character I created. In movie lingo, they call it 'camera friendly,' where the camera catches the spirit of the person - what they are inside. With Mandy, it's perfect casting."

Describing the essence of her unique character, Moore says, "Jamie does not see herself as an outcast. She never allows the judgment of the other kids to damage her. If she's alone most of the time it's because she chooses not to have a lot of shallow friendships. She's not interested in being popular. She's very happy, comfortable and confident with herself, which is really rare in a teenager. Even more rare is Jamie's relationship with her father. Most teens rebel against their parents, but it's clear that Jamie's father is her best friend."

Moore credits the director for helping her delve into and develop the personality of Jamie Sullivan. "The first time I met Adam, we immediately bonded," she says. "He's amazing. He has a total passion for the story and pays close attention to every minor detail. He knows exactly how to get me into the character and helps me stay there. He knows what he wants Jamie to be and how to bring that out of me."

As Moore prepared for her role, it was the pre-production physical transformation that helped provide her inspiration. Jamie wears her hair loose and un-styled and dresses in plain, modest clothes - not at all what the singer's fans are accustomed to seeing in a music video. Production and costume designer Doug Hall needed to seriously alter Moore's pop star image. He dressed her in clothes made from simple fabrics that hung a bit too loose. And her blonde hair was dyed brown and cut to hang straight with bangs.

"Instantly, I became Jamie Sullivan," says Moore of her makeover. "Automatically, people looked at me differently and treated me a little differently when I wore her clothes. It helped me get into character. I didn't feel like Mandy anymore -- I truly felt like Jamie.

"And the amazing thing is that so many people on the set told me that they didn't know me any other way," Moore continues. "They don't know the image of Mandy with blonde hair and the hand on the hip and the pouty lips. They only knew me as Jamie with dark brown hair and bangs. It's great because I didn't have to get out of character for the whole two and a half months of production. But as soon as we wrapped, the hair went back to blonde and I went back to being Mandy the next day."

Still, Moore considers the long-term influence of her characterization philosophically. "People have often told me that when you do a film, a certain part of that character stays with you. If that's true, then I hope a little bit of Jamie always stays with me because there is so much good in her that I'd like to emulate. If I'm ever upset about something I might think back to this experience and consider the kind of person she was and how she would handle the situation."

Moore, who was singing and doing voiceover work professionally since childhood and released her debut album at age 15, performs two original songs in the film: "Cry," written by J. Renald, that accompanies the end credits and "Only Hope," written by Jonathan Foreman of the band Switchfoot, that is part of the spring play that Jamie and Landon are presenting for the school. Although it's heard by a full audience watching the play, she sings it as though it's meant only for Landon and it helps to create a suspended moment during which they seem to be the only people in the room. It's clearly a turning point in the story for both of them.

"I've worked with a lot of stars, a lot of great actors," says producer Di Novi, "and I'll tell you, these two kids are up to that level of acting in this movie. They really deliver powerful performances."

Although "A Walk to Remember" focuses on the lives of these young characters, it also presents two well-rounded adult roles that figure prominently in the story. The producers were thrilled when Peter Coyote accepted the role of Reverend Sullivan, Jamie's father, and Daryl Hannah signed on as Cynthia Carter, Landon's mother.

Coyote was attracted to the role because, as he says, Reverend Sullivan is presented as "really a decent man. He's not a snake-waving religious fanatic. He's a strict, upright man who loves his daughter."

As for the story, Coyote says, "Without being corny, there's no sex or violence, yet it manages to tell an engrossing story that's not sugar-sweet. It's about individuals as opposed to symbols. Ultimately, it's about how difficult it is to come to knowledge. That's what all literature and drama - and certainly tragedy - are about. 'King Lear' is about how hard it is to learn the smallest truths."

"The reverend is an interesting character," says Lowry. "Peter brings a cool, quiet calmness and intellectualism to the role. He's trying to be strong but underneath you know that he's scared to death of losing his daughter, especially after losing his wife years prior. Jamie is all he has left."

For Daryl Hannah, the part of Cynthia Carter was "an opportunity to play a person who is very real. She's not just the typical mom, not a stereotype in any way. She has an authenticity to her, a believability, as a woman raising a child on her own and struggling with it. She's a friend to her son and she's also a mother."

"Daryl Hannah expressed interest in playing the role of Cynthia," says Lowry, "and we all thought it was a great idea. It's a role that she hasn't played before and I knew she would bring strength to the character. She always does."

All of Hannah's scenes include interaction with West, who genuinely impressed her with his performance as Landon. "Shane is a terrific actor," she says. "He's fully committed. In those moments where he is most upset, he's so moving that you cannot help but react to it from your heart."

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