How Anton Met Felicity

“The first time we met, I saw him across a crowded room, and he was sitting at the bar of a Mexican restaurant, and I just prayed that this guy wasn’t going to be a douche,” Like Crazy star Felicity Jones said of her co-star Anton Yelchin at Tuesday’s Peggy Siegal Company premiere for the film, hosted by Tommy Hilfiger. “And luckily, he wasn’t.”

Yelchin remembers the moment a little differently. On meeting Jones, he said, “I thought this was going to be an awful experience, and I didn’t think it was going to work out. That was kind of my first impression. And I was right!,” he continued, poker-faced. “It’s a shame, it’s a shame. I feel like we could’ve made a different kind of film, that I would actually be proud of.”

We were onto Yelchin’s game, and asked whether perhaps he meant a film with more car chases and explosions. “More explosions, a little more CG, you know. I didn’t expect it to be so honest. It’s weird, that made me really uncomfortable, actually.”

Yelchin finally broke character, laughing: “I was glad you were going with me on that.” Then he told us the real story: “I was having a tequila at the bar, sitting around, and Drake came, and then I met Felicity. It was kind of like, in the first 20 minutes, we sort of really hit it off. We got along, which is lucky, because you never know how that goes. It was good.”

Both stars agree that after going through the process of filming Like Crazy—in which they portray a couple desperately in love and forced to live on separate continents because of a violated visa—it’s a little surreal to do press for the film. “We’ve been through something so intimate and intense, it’s like, we’re friends, you know? And we have each other’s backs in terms of all this shit,” Yelchin said. “It was like, we were either going to be completely committed to exploring the truths behind these characters or we weren’t, and we were, so I feel lucky to have her as my partner in this crime.”

We thanked Anton, and promised to check him out should he decide to take on a Transformers film. “Thanks, yeah! Every Transformers movie from here on,” he said. “Every CG movie. At some point I will stop acting, and just be a CG version of me.”

LIKE CRAZY IS OUT OCTOBER 28.
PHOTO OF FELICITY JONES AND ANTON YELCHIN, ABOVE, COURTESY OF DAVE ALLOCCA/STARPIX