Eva Amurri Shares Behind-the-Scenes Secrets and 'Love Letter' to Saved! in Celebration of Film's 20th Anniversary

Eva Amurri looks back on a special moment in her acting career.

The actress, 39, reflected on the creation Saved! 20 years after the release of the indie film. Although the anniversary was earlier this year, Amurri was inspired to discuss the shoot after finding memorabilia from the experience. Sharing never-before-seen photos on Instagram, she wrote how much the film meant to her.

“The cookie shop closed but kept the receipts! 😜😇🙏🏼🤘🏼📷🎞️ A forgotten film from when we shot Saved 20+ years ago is on the blog…plus a little love letter I wrote for the whole experience,” she said wrote.

In a blog on her website, Happily Eva After, Amurri recalled being cast as Cassandra Edelstein at age 16 despite “being a little different or ‘green’ in the industry.”

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She also revealed that instead of Mandy Moore, Anne Hathaway was originally cast as Hilary Faye Stockard.

“It’s so weird to think about this now because in my mind Mandy Moore IS that role and she made it iconic. People don’t realize that so many movies you know and love are like these! Often there are completely different casts attached when the movie first route he puts together, which then changes depending on funding or the availability of the cast’s schedule!” she wrote.

Moore ended up playing Hilary Faye, the best friend of main character Mary (Jena Malone) in the film, which follows Mary as she tries to “save” her boyfriend from being gay and getting pregnant in the process. The film also stars Mary-Louise Parker, Patrick Fugit, Macaulay Culkin and Heather Matarazzo.

A scene from the movie ‘Saved!’ from 2004 United Artists/Courtesy Everett Collection

The cast was originally supposed to film in Miami, but assembled a few months later in Vancouver. Although she has emancipated herself to work on the film, Amurri said there is “one caveat when filming Saved!”

“Not only would I be working for adults, but I also had to finish all my high school assignments and my college applications in my spare time while I was in Vancouver filming,” she revealed.

“I told my parents that I could totally do it, no big deal. In reality, I look back on the experience and I have NO IDEA how I did it,” admitted the daughter of Susan Sarandon and Franco Amurri.

Amurri later wrote, “I guess it’s a good thing teenagers have endless energy, or I probably wouldn’t have survived it! I was also incredibly excited to do any of it at all. I’d say the experience of managing work, school, food, money and health and then fun and being a teenager ended up being one of the most formative experiences of my entire life.”

Amurri also recalled how actor Macaulay Culkin, her love interest in the film, “relaxed” her.

Macaulay Culkin, Jena Malone and Eva Amurri in the movie ‘Saved’ from 2004.

United Artists/Getty

“He is such a bundle of joy and light, he was so kind to me, funny and a complete homebody,” she said. “He wasn’t pretending at all. Our scenes together were so much fun to shoot.”

The mum-of-three admitted she now thinks “it’s almost time” to share the film with her children – daughter Marlowe Mae, 9, and sons Major James, 7, and Mateo Antonio, 4.

“It has a great message and I love that so much of who I was at the time and what I was experiencing comes through the film. In many ways, it’s like a time capsule of my teenage years. It’s weird to look back on one of the first experiences that you have experienced in your career and to be able to say with all your heart that it was the best, but it really was,” she wrote.

“The work of that, the creativity of that, and the life of that. I think for the rest of my career I was hoping to have the acting experience to match that, but only a few projects came close. I’m so happy to get that little bit of time that I can forever keep with you.”

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Source: HIS Education