Felicity Jones marvels over the improvisation in 'Like Crazy'

EVERY FEW years a young British actress works her way into "It Girl" territory.

A few years ago it was Carey Mulligan after her star turn in "An Education," and now it's Felicity Jones, who's turning heads and winning awards for her lead role opposite Anton Yelchin as a lovestruck British exchange student in Drake Doremus' "Like Crazy," which wowed audiences at Sundance and Toronto and this weekend expands to a limited local run.

Jones was in Philadelphia a few weeks ago for the film's red-carpet premiere at the Philadelphia Film Festival, looking every bit the movie star, and the Daily News spoke with her the following day at the R2L Restaurant at Liberty Place.

The youthful 28-year-old said "Like Crazy" has exceeded expectations on the festival circuit (it was picked up by Paramount at Sundance) and has even made its creators look at it differently.

"We never even realized it was funny," she said. "It was only when we got to Sundance and people started laughing that we thought, 'Oh, this is a funny film.' "

"Like Crazy" is also unique. The film was shot without a conventional screenplay.

"It's all improvised and we had something called a scriptment which reads something like a short story," Jones said. "It had the characters and some of their backstory and described what happened in each scene, sometimes with some dialogue hints. From that template we found the dialogue and kept changing the scene until it felt truthful and worked.

"I love improvisation and I never realized you could make a film in this way," she added. "Drake and I have since made another [so-far untitled] film.

"These films are completely in unison with the technology," Jones said. "You couldn't have made this film without the [tiny] camera that we used to [secretly] film around the streets of Los Angeles. It gives you that very documentary-style quality."

Coming off the filming of a light, romantic comedy ("Chalet Girl"), Jones was ready for something different and was struck by the truthfulness of "Like Crazy."

"And it felt like something that hadn't been done before," she said. "I liked how melancholy it was."

Jones and Doremus were unfamiliar with each other at the time she was cast ("I hadn't seen any of Drake's work and he hadn't seen any of mine"), but they spoke on the phone at great length. Jones sealed the deal when she shot her audition tape with a handheld camera in the shower, mirroring the film's final scene.

Such intimacy has paid off with serious audiences.

"Every Q&A we've done, people have asked the most intelligent, provocative questions," Jones said. "It's always interesting that when the film ends, there's this sort of slow clap. It takes about 10 minutes into the Q&A before you feel people relax.

"In theater you have that direct relationship with the audience, but in film it really doesn't happen. But I've loved every single Q&A we've done because people watch you on screen and then they have to put their opinions and ideas about watching you with the actual person."

Jones, however, has occasionally found it difficult explaining parts of the film.

"A lot of things happen spontaneously" during shooting, she said, "and sometimes having to deconstruct it months later can be a very disheartening experience."

As for seeing the film here last month at the Annenberg Center's Zellerbach Theatre, Jones said, "The screen was the biggest screen we had. We were just mesmerized."

Now, she's just trying to get the word out.

"It's a sensitive film," she said. "There's a subtlety to it, and it's hard when there aren't big stars. You need the audience to discover it.

"You can't throw it in people's faces."

Next up for Jones, playing Hugh Dancy's Victorian love interest in "Hysteria," due out in the spring.