Charlotte-born star of ‘A Dog’s Purpose’: ‘I’ve never cried so hard’

This was originally going to be a warm and fuzzy piece about a warm and fuzzy movie that chronicles a dog’s relationship with various owners through several lives, via reincarnation.

In mid-January, I spoke with Charlotte-born actress Britt Robertson, 26, about her role in the new family dramedy “A Dog’s Purpose,” which opens Friday. We talked about her Carolina roots, her longstanding ability to pass for a high school kid on screen, and dogs (of course). A nice chat.

But five days later, TMZ posted a video that allegedly showed a trainer on the 2015 set of “A Dog’s Purpose” forcing a frightened German Shepherd into rushing water. Within 24 hours, PETA had called for a boycott of the film and Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment had canceled its Hollywood premiere.

Lead actor Dennis Quaid, producer Gavin Palone, the film’s trainers, and the author of the book on which it’s based (W. Bruce Cameron) all made public statements: Quaid said the video was edited and questioned why it hadn’t come out in the 18 months since it was allegedly shot. Palone and Cameron both said they watched more footage shot that day and admitted mistakes were made (the trainer did try to force the dog in, and the dog’s head did go underwater briefly) – but also said the video was edited to mischaracterize what happened. The trainers agreed the dog didn’t want to go into the water at one point, and did have his head go under, but called it “falsely edited.”

So it was impossible to write a story about “A Dog’s Purpose” without mentioning that. I haven’t been able to talk to her since, but here’s some of what she said about the film:

She said she worked exclusively with a Golden Retriever named Trip – her character is in love with the dog’s owner, a high school football star played by K.J. Apa – and that there was a German Shepherd as part of a later storyline about a K-9 police officer. (So she would have had no reason to be on the set when that dog was being filmed.)

During our conversation, she did underscore some of the challenges of working with canine actors.

“The only time that it was hard for me was when the dog wouldn’t be able to get the trick or whatever his job was to do,” she said. “That was really hard for me to watch. The trainers are incredible, and they’re so sweet and they’re kind, but you can see the dog struggling and it’s so sad, because they’re just animals. You can only ask them to do so much for so long. They’re like children in a way, you know? Their capacity for those types of things is just not that of a human, so it can be a bit of a struggle when you’re watching them struggle.”

Overall, she said, the experience of working on “A Dog’s Purpose” was purely joyful.

“Lasse (Hallstrom), the director, he was really sweet,” said Robertson, who has two rescue pups herself and is a lifelong dog lover. “He was always asking us to interact with Trip and just do whatever comes natural. So that was really fun. It was basically just me playing with a dog for a month. ... It’s partly why I did this movie, because I was like, ‘God, this sounds like a frickin’ dream. I’m literally just gonna be swimming with a dog, riding bikes with a dog, on a rollercoaster with a dog, in a car with a dog’ – I was like, ‘This is perfect.’ ”

She found the experience of watching “A Dog’s Purpose” much more difficult.

“I won’t be seeing it again because it was really heart-breaking for me. I’ve never cried so hard in a movie in my life.”

I’ve seen it, too, and would back her up by saying that in addition to being a love letter to domesticated dogs, it’s a shameless tearjerker of “Old Yeller” proportions. At the screening I attended, the woman next to me went through about a dozen tissues.

If you’ve seen the trailer, the climactic scene has already been spoiled, but I’ll put a mild spoiler alert here before giving Robertson the floor again.

She was waiting to do a dialogue-recording session (called an ADR), and listening to the one before hers: Actor John Ortiz, playing a police officer whose dog passes away. “I shed like 45 tears just watching the ADR of his whole scene... When you imagine your own dogs having these personalities and these thoughts and hopes and dreams and conflicts – it kills my soul.”

It remains to be seen how the video story and PETA’s boycott will affect interest and box-office returns for the film.

Whatever happens, this will be a big year for Robertson, who turns 27 in April. Her next movie debuts just a week from Friday: The romantic drama “The Space Between Us,” with Asa Butterfield. In April, the veteran of CBS shows such as “Under the Dome” and “Swingtown” returns to TV as Nasty Gal cofounder Sophia Amoruso in a new Netflix original series called “Girlboss.”

And after 10 years of playing high schoolers, in movies ranging from 2007’s “Dan in Real Life” (which came out when she was 17) to “A Dog’s Purpose” (which she shot when she was 25), she says she’s ready to grow up.

“Oh yeah, I’m so good on high school. I’m like on overload of high school,” said Robertson, who was raised in a split home between her dad in Chester, S.C., and her mom in Greenville, S.C. She was home-schooled by her mother, then moved with her grandmother to L.A. when she was 16 to pursue acting. “This is the last time you’ll see me in high school.”

Is she sure about that?

“I mean, I think. You never know... I did a movie just in the last year called ‘Mr. Church,’ and in that film, I go from high school to being 30... But for the most part, I’m trying to cut the high school out of my career at this point. I’m 26. It’s time to move on... Now I’ll go to college for 10 years.”

This story was originally published January 24, 2017 at 2:40 PM with the headline "Charlotte-born star of ‘A Dog’s Purpose’: ‘I’ve never cried so hard’."