Alessandra Mastronardi is beaming like a kid on Christmas morning, and can’t stop laughing. But then again, why not? The 26-year-old actress has a lot to be happy about, after all, having snagged a plum role in filmmaker Woody Allen’s latest movie, To Rome With Love. She’s presently in Los Angeles, accompanying the movie for its premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival (above). In it, she plays Milly, a small town girl who, during a trip to Rome, leaves her husband Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) for a hair appointment, gets lost in the city, and ends up getting romanced by a famous movie star (Antonio Albanese). I had a chance to speak to the pleasantly accented Mastronardi one-on-one recently, about working with Allen, celebrity and tabloid culture in her homeland, and why her English has an Italian-Irish tinge to it. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the chat.

She’s only 26 years old, but Alison Pill has already twice done something most actors or actresses her age would punch their mothers to get a chance to do: work with Woody Allen. In the writer-director’s latest film, the unfortunately re-titled To Rome With Love, she plays Haley, an American student who takes an Italian fiancé, Michelangelo (Flavio Parenti), and hosts her parents (Allen and Judy Davis) for a visit to meet him. I had a chance to talk to Pill one-on-one recently, about the movie, her continued love of theater, and her new Aaron Sorkin-scripted HBO series, The Newsroom. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the lively read.