The press tour for Safe Haven marked the second time I was in the same room as author Nicholas Sparks, and if I’m to be completely honest, I asked him the one burning question I had for him the last time around: “What is it like knowing that basically every boyfriend out there hates your guts?”

OK, that’s not exactly what I asked him. According to my notes, it was more of a statement than a question: “Men must come up to you all the time and say, ‘You’re making my job so much more difficult.’”

But some of them might hate his guts this Valentine’s Day weekend if they were really hoping to catch A Good Day To Die Hard, which also comes out this week in a diabolical bit of counterprogramming, and instead find themselves treating their significant others to a screening of Sparks’ latest.

When Sparks and stars Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough visited WCCO last month, I asked them to discuss what they thought couples would get from the movie. Here’s a few things they said:

——-

Duhamel: I think males are going to come out in droves to see this movie. Groups of males friends are going to go out and see this.

Sparks: I think they’re going to get caught up in the story … it twists off into directions that they might not expect.

Duhamel: For me, it’s the whole package. I think when you go to Die Hard you get exactly what you expect.

Hough: I think the guys will think, ‘Oh, I didn’t see that coming!’ … There’s an element of escape, but it’s not too far-fetched to what people experience. But it’s definitely romantic.

Duhamel: If they’re like me, this is not typically the first movie that I’d see. But if I hear that it’s a good story and that the performances are good, I don’t care what kind of movie it is, as long as it’s authentic.

Sparks: Every story genre has purpose. If you go to a thriller you want to be thrilled, if you go to a horror movie you want to be scared. The purpose behind what I do is to take readers through all of the emotions of life, so by the time the credits roll, you feel as though you’ve experienced all these emotions with the characters.

Hough: I think men actually do love this s***, but they just don’t want to admit it. They’re too proud.

——-

Just as a side note, I got the impression that had he not actually written the original book adapted into the film, Sparks might actually be the type to choose Die Hard over Safe Haven. When asked what directors he’d like to see adapt his works in the future, he chose James Cameron.

“Michael Bay does The Wedding,” joked Duhamel.