Amber Tamblyn, one of the four stars of the big-screen adaptation of Ann Bashares’ teen-girl fave “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” should have been a little blue.
Word had come a couple of days earlier that “Joan of Arcadia,” the television series that earned Tamblyn a 2004 Emmy nomination, had been canceled.
Instead the 22-year-old sat upstairs in a LoDo hotel restaurant playing a combination of old pro and big sis to Blake Lively, her 17-year-old co-star in the movie.
Wearing fabulous hanging earrings that her character, Tibby, never could carry off, Tamblyn listened while Lively praised her debut feature outing.
“This is my first job,” she said, burning off excess energy by tapping a foot throughout much of their breakfast. “It was just such a great experience.”
Tamblyn, who spent seven years playing Emily
Quartermaine on daytime television’s “General Hospital” before landing her role on “Joan,” chimed in that Lively would come to appreciate even more the loving environment director Ken Kwapis and his cast had created.
“You don’t always get to work with girls that are nice and not jealous,” she said. “And Blake’s so beautiful, she’s going to come into find that. For now it’s good she started out strong. She’s a quick learner.”
Based on the first of Bashares’ best-selling young-adult novels, “Sisterhood” follows teenage friends Carmen, Tibby, Lena and Blake as they embark on the first summer they have spent apart.
A magical pair of bluejeans becomes the conduit for a summer of love, both tough and tender, for each of them. The movie’s best fashion statement: Friendship matters. Deeply.
Tamblyn plays Tibby, the aspiring filmmaker with the punk-dyed hair and cynical back talk. Lively’s character Bridget – beach blond and long-limbed – may seem sunny in comparison. Early in the film we learn of her mother’s dark moods and early death. As Bridget heads to soccer camp and her first sexual experience, this fact gives Bridget’s seeming brazenness a complicated spin. America Ferrera (“Real Women Have Curves”) and Alexis Bledel (“Gilmore Girls”) round out the appealing ensemble.
Lively, like Tamblyn, hails from a showbiz family.
Tamblyn is the daughter of Russ Tamblyn (“West Side Story,” “Twin Peaks”). Lively’s mother is a talent manager. Her father and siblings are actors.
Lively credits brother Eric for landing her this first feature.
“My whole family is in the business, so I never felt the desire to go look for acting,” said Lively. “But my brother thought I would love it, so he kind of pushed me into it. He had his agent take me on auditions. I ended up getting this movie after a very short while. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be acting. I wouldn’t be right here, now.”
With “Sisterhood” depicting female friendship in a way that offers adolescent girls a balm to last season’s “mean girl” assault, “here” turns out to be an intriguing place.
“I think what’s cool about this film is that it doesn’t stereotype women,” Tamblyn said. “You rarely see women whose core strength comes from each other as opposed to men or money or something like that.
“To me this is really different, especially for this age range. “
