James Marsden is eating his words! The 39-year-old actor — who played the dreamy Lon Hammond in the 2004 classic The Notebook — recently revealed to OUT magazine that he initially thought the film (starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams) was going to be overly emotional.
"I never set out to make a bad movie. Some movies just turn out bad, and I want to scream, 'Why did you pick that take?!' Then there are some movies that I've been in that I was sure people would laugh at, that have become huge," he said. "I thought The Notebook was going to be a schmaltzy Movie of the Week–type thing, and here we are!" he admitted.
The Notebook, directed by Nick Cassavetes, was released on June 25, 2004 and is currently the 12th highest-grossing romantic drama of all-time.
And as luck would have it, the film — based on Nicholas Sparks' book — is actually one of the many films Marsden still gets recognized for. "They say, 'How do I know you?' So then I start profiling them," he joked about his various roles. "If you have a 7-year-old girl? Hop. A 19-year-old, college-student-age girl? The Notebook or 27 Dresses. Fanboy geek? X-Men," says the star, whose latest film, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, hits theaters in December 2013.