The new family-friendly flick “Harold and the Purple Crayon” opens in movie theaters this Friday, Aug. 2.
People in the D.C. area can get a sneak peek as the film’s movie stars Zachary Levi and Zooey Deschanel visit the Library of Congress for a special event on Tuesday, July 30.
“We’re coming there soon!” Levi told WTOP. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to the Library of Congress.”
“One of the coolest places ever,” Deschanel told WTOP. “I got to go last year and it was incredible.”
Based on the beloved 1955 children’s picture book by Crockett Johnson, the adventurous Harold (Levi) can make anything come to life simply by drawing it.
After he grows up and draws himself off the book’s pages and into the physical world alongside his sidekicks Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds), widowed single mom Terri (Deschanel) and her son Mel (Benjamin Bottani) help him realize that he has a lot to learn.
“There is a bit of a Venn-diagram overlap with ‘Elf,'” Levi said. “In fact, when we went to Zooey to see if she wanted to play the role, I was afraid that she was gonna be like, ‘This is a little too much like ‘Elf,’ But fortunately she didn’t think that.”
“Will (Ferrell) in ‘Elf’ and me as Harold both have this unbounded optimism and joy because we’re both from a world that is not the real world,” Levi added. “To have this fish out of water … to miss all of those social cues and think that people honking at you in traffic are really just saying hi, there’s something that’s really fun to dive into.”
The event starts at 5 p.m. by screening of an advanced clip from the movie, followed by an in-person Q&A with Levi and Deschanel in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium. After that, visitors are invited to view a display of Library collections featuring original drawings and books from the series from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
“I definitely read it as a kid, but what I really mostly remember is reading it to my kids because they are seven and eight years old now, so they were like three and four then — and it was just a great book,” Deschanel said.
“It’s so fun to read. It’s the type of book you can kind of read over and over again. It’s really a magical book and it’s one of those where it’s fun for parents to read. … I think the movie takes that and expands on that and makes it cinematic.”
Free tickets can be obtained online at the Library of Congress website.
Hear the full interview, including memories of “New Girl” and “(500) Days of Summer,” on the podcast below:
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