The star of the upcoming romantic dramedy, In the Land of Women, talks about life after The O.C.

The teen drama The O.C. ended just a few short months ago, but don't expect that to mean you won't get to see more of Adam Brody anytime soon. Brody costars with Meg Ryan in this weekend's In the Land of Women, a romantic dramedy written and directed by Jon Kasdan, son of the all-famous Lawrence Kasdan (he of The Big Chill, Body Heat, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Star Wars fame).

In the movie, Brody plays Carter Webb, an LA writer who goes to take care of his ailing grandmother in Michigan after a bad breakup makes him want to get away from it all. There, he meets neighbor Sarah Hardwicke (Meg Ryan) and her daughters Paige and Lucy, and becomes involved in their lives.

"It was nice to do a classic sort of romantic comedy walk-and-talk with Meg Ryan, which is sort of her staple," Brody said of his co-star. "I felt like I was doing sort of a piece of classic cinema...The Meg Ryan walk-and-talk is kind of a big deal for me."

Brody's character is the center of In the Land of Women, and first-time director Jon Kasdan took a long time to find his lead. But when he met Brody, he knew he was right for the part immediately. "It was the easiest job I've ever gotten," explained Brody. "My agent called and said, 'I'm sending you a script, it's really good.'"

But before Brody could read it, the two men ran into each other by coincidence. "I went to the Coffee Bean to go get coffee. And Jon, who I did not know yet, was meeting an actress there, who I knew," he explained. "So I bumped into her, we said 'hello,' and she introduced me to Jon. And he said, 'Hey I think I'm meeting you in a couple of days.' And I'm like, 'Oh I heard about it. I can't wait to read it. We should just meet here in a couple of days.'"

When he went home and read the script, Brody was wowed. "I was in from the first page. I knew I would do it if he would have me." He and Kasdan met up as planned at the Coffee Bean a couple of days later. "He came in and he's like, 'Let's just go to a bar.' I said, 'All right.' So we went and got a drink and he had already sort of gave me the part right away."

The character of Carter is a pretty nice guy, one who can deal with a lot of the troubles swirling in the lives of the women around him. "It was sort of a natural fit and I feel like I got the voice very easily," said Brody.

But if that part of Carter came naturally to him, the character's traditional John Hughes-like high school experience was quite mystyfing to the actor. "I sort of checked out socially around high school," he said. "Everyone had their local beach. And a bunch of kids from, the surfers from different high schools would go there. So as a result a lot of my high school friends are complete different ages, they went to different high schools. And I’m friends with a few random bums."

Kasdan captured the feel of suburban Michigan by shooting on location on Vancouver Island, so Brody took his dog to the set to keep him company. "[She] befriended a boxer [dog] up the street," he told the crowd. "She got to go in this back yard and play all day and then I’d grab her, so it couldn’t have worked out better."

"It was rare on this movie, but all the interiors were shot in the interiors of those houses that we did the exteriors at, which isn’t always the case," he continued. "So we spent a lot of time on that block on that street...It was really cool, it was like a neighborhood thing. At night, everyone would sort of gather around and all the neighbors would be walking their dogs and chat outside the set. It was really fun."

In the Land of Women actually filmed a couple of years ago, so Brody went back for two more seasons on The O.C. once the shoot was over. Now, he is eagerly looking forward to his next project. "I can’t wait to sink my teeth into something again," he said. "I just don’t know what that will be or when. I don’t even have a preference; I just want it to be good."

Okay, that's not entirely true. If Brody had his druthers, he confessed, he'd love to be in a big action movie. "Yeah, you know actually the one thing I would love to do—I mean, I love all sorts of genres and I would love to be a part of any kind of quality movies. But I would love to figure out a way that I could be in a movie that’s kind of big," he enthused.

"When I say 'big,' I mean explosions. And I don’t have to be the guy, I can be the funny guy, I can be whatever... [Just] a big sort of… the ad… the big poster… and big teaser. It feels big."

Well, Adam, we hope to see you running from a fireball sometime soon.

In the meantime, you can get your Adam Brody fix in In the Land of Women, which opens this Friday, April 20.

Check out ReelzChannel.com's In the Land of Women page for clips from the movie and more!