COME EARLY MORNING WAKES UP ARKANSAS

Joey Lauren Adams best known as the object of Ben Affleck’s affections in Chasing Amy takes her creativity into her own hands writing and directing Come Early Morning. Inspired by people she knew growing up in North Little Rock, Arkansas Joey says the story is emotionally personal to her and many of the locals chipped in to help plus it was comforting to use locations where she frequented.

Ashley Judd plays Lucy a character who can hold a job but can’t hold onto a relationship. She is in self destruct mode smoking too much, and drinking too much. When Ashley wasn’t working she drank in the beauty of Joey’s southern home town.

“One of my aunt’s friends was in Salem’s the big wholesale market place and had a basket full of stuff and we called when we needed something and she left her cart and came to help us. For me it was important because I make distinctions between different parts of the South. Arkansas is different than Georgia, than Mississippi, than North Carolina, they’re very different. And so I wanted to shoot there and show the landscape. Also just the comfort level of shooting in bars that I’ve been to and also when locations fall out I knew we could just go down the old Conway highway and shoot in this bar. There was a certain comfort level in doing that.”

Ashley was overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response from Joey’s friends and family who wanted nothing more than to make her feel at home.

“That I really loved. It was May, it was beautiful. The roses were in bloom. Everything was covered with some sort of lush green. There weren’t even telephone poles in Little Rock, Arkansas that are just wood. They’ve got honeysuckle on them. It was glorious.”

Come Early Morning opens today in theaters.

“They were really friendly. They were really friendly to me. Got a lot of social invitations at my house. Everyone wanted so very much to support Joey. She had an enthusiastic reception wherever we went. The little veterinarian’s office where we shot, her grandparents home which we shot, they were friendly there. And the snacks are good in Little Rock. In the film we eat all that junk food because Lucy is not very good at self care and it’s even stated in the script that at one point someone offers me a meal that you actually have to sit down to eat and not in a car or standing up at a hot dog stand. For my personal meal plan I went different and I ate beautifully the entire film.”