In their latest movie The Break-Up, Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn play Brooke and Gary, a couple going through an acrimonious split. Since the pair can't agree on who should move out of their apartment, they carry on living together, with disastrous results. Vince Vaughn co-wrote and produced the film, which breaks away from the usually romantic comedy formula to create a story with real resonance and depth - and a lot of laughs too!

How have people reacted to the film, particularly Brooke and Gary's relationship?
Jennifer: People have loved it, they come and they say it's like having a mirror put up to their relationship, reflecting on their own past arguments, how silly they seem – it's been nothing but really positive. I've had nothing but positive comments from women and men truthfully because it's not just about how men have their downfalls, I think women have their downfalls too. It's just about how men and women communicate differently, or the lack thereof, and what the results are due to a lack of communication. Then things sort of fester and grow until a simple mix-up over some lemons is the straw that breaks the camel's back!

Vince, as the film's producer and creator, you felt it was time for the anti-romantic comedy. What does that mean?
Vince: For me, after September 11, I really made a clear path of choosing comedies, I thought it was a good time to try to make people laugh and bring people together through laughter.

The one genre that I was always getting sent scripts for but were always very disappointing out of Hollywood, was the romantic comedy. It was always the exact same story told again and again. They would be perfect people, saying the exact right thing, and it was always some kind of magical world that they lived in – for example, it always had some kind of sub-plot like 'if you don't marry the girl in the next six months you will not inherit my company and I'm going to leave it to this mean guy that works for me'. I always thought, 'That's kind of an uptown problem, relationships are strange enough as they are!'

I had the idea 10 years ago and I thought this was probably a good chance for me to get a more character-driven, situational-driven movie through a mainstream studio. So I found these two young writers who were very good and I said we have to write this movie without selling it to a studio which means quite frankly they just could not be paid! So we wrote very intensely for a period of time at my house because they had no money coming in and my lunch bills were getting very high! So we finished the screenplay and we took it out to studios.

Is it true that you shot two endings for the film?
Vince: We didn't shoot the last scene until six months after we had shot the rest of the film. The studio wanted us to explore a more traditional ending, but we never even screen tested the traditional ending, we all felt the traditional ending was not right, so we never even put that in front of audiences. Always with these character-driven films the last scene is never the ending. There's really an epilogue with a resolution after the main action of how the character's feel.

Were you surprised by how well the film did on its opening weekend in America?
Vince: I knew that this movie would play very well with audiences because there's such universal situations that we can all relate to. American audiences are not given credit enough by the studios and the critics to want something different, to be open to something refreshing. So, whenever you do something different you're always going to be judged by it. Sadly the state of affairs in America with the critics is that they don't really review a movie as much anymore saying this is a good movie, this is a bad movie, they always review that movie handicapping the box office. Part of the critique of the movie is what they think the movie will or will not do at the box office. And so when the movie opened and played as well as it did with the audiences I really felt good because I really felt like I wasn't out of touch with people wanting to experience something that's a liitle bit different and have some real emotion in it. Part of the reason I wanted to do this story was that it if we were able to do something a little bit different and audiences embraced it in the way they have, it could open the door to other film makers to take a chance, and that the studios would support people trying to do something different.

Jennifer, Brooke is quite a different character to the ones you have played before, why did you choose to play her?
Jennifer: I like to pick films that I respond to and that interest me and that I'm moved by. And all the parts that I've picked - well, we don't walk into a job knowing whether it's going to be a success or a failure. I think we're all hoping that something's going to hit the wall and stick.

This one attracted me just because, quite frankly, there have been a lot that I've read that are just so far-fetched and outrageous and unrealistic and I've done them and I don't feel I performed very well in them. So it was way overdue for me, I was just waiting for something that I responded to and it's just such a wonderful story, a simple story about two people, it was very equal male and female and they just don't come along very often.

Vince, your character Gary is a very laid-back guy - are you like that?
Vince: I think we all have a lot of different people inside of us and what happens in life is most people get caught up in presenting one persona they feel safest in, myself included in that statement. And the fun thing about being an actor is you get to bring different things to the forefront depending on the part. So, I could have had some similarities to Gary, unflatteringly so, I like to play video games and that kind of stuff, but I think I'm very different from him ultimately. When your acting, you want to come off like you're not acting, and it's very difficult to get to a place where it seems like you're comfortable because there's so much time in between set ups, you just have to maintain that energy.

Gary and Brooke get a lot of advice from their friends during the split. What's the best and worst relationship advice you've ever had?
Vince: I think to some to degree when you ask people advice there's a few things that go on. On one hand your mind's already made up sometimes, it doesn't matter what they say, you want to hear what you want to hear so no matter what they say to you, you go 'Exactly!' and then you go an do what you want to do. And I think also, when people give advice it's really based on their own experience and they just put whatever reality they've had and assume that must be the reality that you're having. So I think whenever you take advice, or search out advice, you kind of have to take it with a grain of salt and say who is the messenger, where is this coming from?

I think the best advice I've ever received from anyone is that no-one really cares, they don't want to talk about it anymore with me and I have to figure out! And it's kind of true, I think at some point you have to go to the mountain top alone and ask yourself the questions and figure out whatever it is that's the right path for you to take. And I think the worst advice I ever received was wait two days to call someone!

Vince, your dad appears in the film - how did that come about?
Vince: You know my dad was in Swingers with me and Jon (Favereau). It was kind of fun for us to have dad in it, and Favereau's grandmother was in it. And they were kind of a good luck charm to us. So then when we did 'Made Together', we used them again for good luck. Unfortunatly, Jon's grandmother has passed away – but I thought why not put my dad in this, and then also I put my mom in the movie because I figured I put my dad in two movies, time to put my mom in a movie! I really love my family, I'm fortunate to be really close to my family so it's just kind of a fun thing to do for me.

There's a toe-curling scene where you have dinner with your family in the film. What's the most cringe-worthy family gathering you've been to?
Jennifer: I come from a Greek family so there's many big dinners – I can say pretty much all of them have made my toes curl!