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Over Her Dead Body in our magazines

THE MOVIE: Over Her Dead Body

THE STARS:
Eva Longoria Parker • Paul Rudd • Jason Biggs
• Lake Bell
DIRECTOR: Jeff Lowell

THE CONCEPT:
Demanding and controlling Kate (Longoria Parker) is obsessed about her upcoming wedding to easy-going veterinarian Henry (Rudd). On their wedding day Kate is accidentally killed by a falling ice sculpture of an angel. A year later, Henry is unable to move on, so his sister convinces him to see Ashley (Bell), a psychic who also runs a catering company with her gay friend Dan (Biggs), hoping that a message from Kate will come through and help him. But when Kate sees that Henry and Ashley are attracted to each other she is determined to destroy their relationship.

U.S. RELEASE: February 1 2008, Nationwide
• Rated: PG-13

THE COMMENTS:

JEFF LOWELL:
“The movie started with a fight with a friend of mine who is actually a believer in psychic phenomenon. I am definitely a skeptic, and being a writer I immediately thought, ‘How can I turn this into a movie?’ What would it take for a skeptic to fall in love with a psychic?”

EVA LONGORIA PARKER:
“When I read the script I thought the ghost was the best character, because I thought she had all the fun stuff to do, she had all the physical comedy. Ghosts are obviously limitless, you can do anything. I’ve never played a ghost, and I thought, ‘Oh what a fun time to levitate and float. It was a pain in the butt [to levitate] because of the wiring, and there’s such a safety thing. I’m like, ‘I’m only raising four feet off the ground, I think I’ll be fine.’ But it’s such a process doing those scenes, and then because they have to digitally erase the wires you can’t really change positions; I couldn’t really do anything. So it’s a little limiting in your acting, but when you see it, it looks great.”

LAKE BELL:
“I have visited a psychic, particularly because of this movie. I wanted to see what it was like to be in the room with someone who literally claims to be able to do that. I was a skeptic of clairvoyants, but I went in with an open mind as much as I could. By the end of it I was definitely impressed to the point where I had taken notes, and when I referred to them, when events happened in my life, it was a little eerie. I guess she was right, so I’m under the impression that certain people have more connections to their spirituality than others. I want to believe, I think it’s really fun and interesting.”

JASON BIGGS:
“Lake is awesome. I think she has this whole Julia Roberts thing going. She’s beautiful and funny, and really likeable and I think this film is going to be great for her. She’s really funny, smart and cool.”

LOWELL on the fine line the Eva’s character walks, being bossy and yet likable:
“The original title was'Ghost Bitch', and to her credit Eva embraced that, she thought that should have been the title the whole time. She plays it very sweetly and it’s a sympathetic case, it is this woman who lost her husband on her wedding day, and then is trying to protect him from someone who’s lying to him. With all these things you trade on the charisma of the actor.”

LONGORIA PARKER:
“I just didn’t want her to come off as not justified in her anger. We only had that one scene at the beginning of the movie with Henry and Kate to see our relationship and then I’m dead. So you had to see in that one scene the he really adores me. It was a fine balance to justify it and particularly for me to differentiate Gabrielle (in Desperate Housewives) from Kate. She is more egotistical and conceited, Kate is more on a mission, she is going to protect Henry.”

BIGGS on psychics:
“I’m a bit of a cynic I have to admit. I’m open-minded enough to be proven otherwise, but I’m a scientific guy. I’m a tangible evidence kind of guy. But if I see a ghost or the psychic spews out a whole bunch of information that only she could know because she’ a psychic then you got me.”

Written by Judy Sloane. Back to top

Visit the official Over Her Dead Body site
Images above © New Line Cinema
Feature © 2008 Visual Imagination Limited.
Not for reproduction.

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