'Traveling Pants 2:' The girls are reunited

Four young actresses, who had evolved into television stars since they were last together three years ago, had a day off during the filming of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2." They were on the sun-drenched Greek island of Santorini, which they described as a paradise.

They spotted three local boys taking turns leaping into the ocean from a rocky perch. The boys, fans of the movie, urged the girls to make the dizzying jump - 100 feet into crystal-clear water bordered by dangerous rocks. All four did it, not bothering to change into bathing suits.

Then, giggling in triumph, they took the plunge three more times, fully clothed.

It was that way with the sisterhood, both on and off camera, the actresses recounted in a recent interview.

"It was chaos. We got along way too well, and sometimes things happened," said blond Blake Lively, who plays Bridget, a tomboy soccer player and archaeology student. She's the star of the controversial "Gossip Girl" on TV when she's not being a nice girl in movies like this.

In the three years since the first "Sisterhood" movie, America Ferrera has won an Emmy for TV's "Ugly Betty" and is nominated for another. She plays the insecure, plain Carmen in the movie. She admits she was a holdout on the diving bit. " 'No way,' I said, but, then, the rest of them did it. I went in last."

"I wouldn't say you were chicken, just almost chicken," said Amber Tamblyn, star of the two-season CBS show "Joan of Arcadia" from 2003 to 2005. In the movie, she plays the red-headed hippy character, Tibby.

When the actresses suggested the dive be recreated for the movie, director Sanaa Hamri readily agreed.

"This happened all the time," she said. "Things happened that we'd include in the movie because their real friendships fit the plot. At times, I told them to just forget the script."

Ann Brashares, author of the four "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" best-selling novels, didn't mind. "I think the movies - two movies now - got the spirit of the girls, and that's what counts. The new movie takes liberties because it's based on three novels rather than one - the second, third and fourth in the series.

"At first, I worried about the purists who have been so faithful to the books, but then I think they'll go along with some characters being cut and some events being condensed, as long as they get the basic feeling of the friendships."

It was an all-girl confab at the Regency Hotel in New York City last week when the director, author and the four actresses met to reflect on a movie that has four plots and takes place in such widespread locations as Connecticut, Maryland, Turkey and Greece.

The author realized that she, and the movie, had a problem in that the latest plot deals with the four characters - Carmen, Lena, Tibby and Bridget - trying to renew their friendship after their first year of college.

"There are four plots. That's true," Brashares said, "but there had to be a fifth plot - the unifying one. When girls this age go away to college, they tend to drift apart. The challenge for them, and me, as a writer, was how to preserve the friendship and yet have them grow up, and apart, at the same time.

"It's a coming-of-age story, but not just that. It's a group of love stories, but not just that. The link is the togetherness and support they have for each other, and a little something different that these are girls, growing into womanhood, who don't compete and don't back-stab each other. Guys need to see this."

It's somewhat unlikely that they will, though, because it has "chick flick" stamped all over it, even if the chicks are appealing and interesting. (Say the phrase "chick flick" with this group and you're playing dangerously. They, understandably, don't like that stereotype.)

The traveling pants in the title - the ones with magical qualities - don't appear as much in the new movie. You might say they've dropped the pants.

"The pants," the writer said, "was a unifying link, but it was a fantasy. Bringing closure to the drama, the girls don't need them anymore. The friendship speaks for itself."

The first movie did only moderately well in theaters but proved to be a huge hit on DVD. The sequel, the producers hope, will capitalize on what some are calling the "summer of women" at the movies. Films like "Sex and the City" and "Mamma Mia" have proved that women will come to theaters if you give them a reason.

The characters have spread all over the place in the three years since the last "Sisterhood" movie. Carmen is studying drama at Yale and takes a summer job at a theater festival in Vermont, where, to her surprise, she gets the lead in a production of Shakespeare's "A Winter's Tale." Tibby stays in New York City, studying film at NYU and working in a video rental shop. Bridget goes to Turkey for an archaeological dig. Lena, played by Alexis Bledel from the award-winning series "Gilmore Girls," separated from her Greek love, Kostos, after the first movie and meets a nude male model at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Preppy girls. Boy troubles. It has possibilities.

Lively said she thinks the premise of the movie is, maybe, shaky. "I think it would be more likely that two girls would be best friends, not four. It's hard to get four who get along. Two is more believable."

Ferrera said she thinks "Sisterhood 2" "shows there's a strength in women. These four people bond in a way that guys wouldn't, and they try to support each other in a way that guys wouldn't. It's hard to hold that bond together, once you grow up and go separate ways. It's really hard, but it's not impossible."

One of the main problems in making the film was to get the same four actresses back together. All had gone on to larger careers, mainly in TV series. "We would not have made the movie if we couldn't get all four back," director Hamri said. "It wouldn't have worked. TV schedules are tricky."

Ferrera compares the two media: "A TV series is a marathon. A movie is a sprint."

Tamblyn is the daughter of famed MGM dancer Russ Tamblyn, the boyish star of such classic movies as "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," "West Side Story" and "tom thumb." She doesn't mention him in any of her publicity, but she admits she's watched "Seven Brides" with him. She's a writer when not in front of the camera and says she never was tempted to follow in her father's dance steps.

The four actresses are not, apparently, a part of wild, young Hollywood. So far, they have not been a big target of the tabloids.

"Who has time?" Ferrera said. "When you have to be at the studio at 5 a.m., you aren't going to be out dancing around all night."

Lively added, "It's simply not my style to show up at clubs wearing no panties."

Tamblyn contributed, "Clubbing is a bore. Everyone staring at everyone else. Get a life. Or, maybe, get a job."

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com