I used to think that my first experience at a press conference would be a way to get my feet wet in my prospective profession. Instead, I was thrown directly into the Pacific Ocean.

On March 31, I attended a press junket at the Four Seasons Hotel, Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, following an advanced screening of A Knight's Tale at Sony Pictures Studios the night before.

The format of the interviews at the junket was such that the actors, producer and director rotated from room to room of print journalists, so we had the opportunity to interview each person for a set amount of time.

With the soundtrack from the movie still spinning around in my head, I entered the first "Print" suite, confident about tackling this new story. Press kit tucked under my arm, I was eager to do some serious reporting.

Each chair held a journalist, most sipping Evian bottled water or Diet Coke, their prepped tape recorders sitting on the table and pointed toward the door. Two chairs remained empty, one across from the door, propped up against the table, and one on the other side of the table. I opted for proximity, not wanting to make a scene.

But, of course, I ended up doing just that. I pulled the chair down from its prop to reveal a microphone. Perhaps that's why all the tape recorders were pointed in that direction. "Hmmm, not my seat!" I joked. None of the reporters laughed. So much for cool, I thought, and squeezed around the table to the other open chair.

Nearly all mental cool was lost when the first actors came in our room as I sat stifling a stupid grin. My internal state might be described as an avid reader of Seventeen magazine trapped in an aspiring reporter's body. Just 12 hours prior, I was looking up at these very movie stars on a gigantic screen in Culver City, Calif., and now . . . they were just across the table.

William Thatcher took on the role of a knight in his tale. I played the grown-up reporter in mine.

As it turns out, the fun and celebratory attitude of the movie is not just the result of Hollywood charm but of the friendships and chemistry developed in production.

Producer Todd Black said the production was "definitely, by far the most fun movie I've ever worked on."

Writer and director Brian Helgeland said of the actors we saw in the movie, "when it looked like they liked each other so much it's really because they really did." As I would soon find out, Helgeland was instrumental in the camaraderie development.

Paul Bettany, who plays Geoff Chaucer, described the filming, all of which took place in the Czech Republic, as "five months of just . . . delight. I had the best time." This powerful screen presence was just as captivating in person. He greeted the reporters and proceeded directly to the coffeepots behind our table. "Is this decaf?" he inquired to no one in particular, closely examining the pot, "I need supercaf." He asked us if we had already interviewed Helgeland, (whose arm was in a sling.) We said that we did.

"You know that arm he's got?" the small-framed British actor quipped. "I did that to him. I saw the film, and. . ." he trailed off menacingly, as if hating the final product that, in actuality, he loved.

Though difficult to believe, playing Chaucer in A Knight's Tale was Bettany's first comedic role. Some of Bettany's scenes involve introducing his knight to the thousands of spectators, a difficulty in and of itself, because every one of the extras spoke only Czech.

A system was devised wherein a flag would be raised to cue laughter from the 3,000 extras whenever Bettany delivered a humorous line. The person unaware of this practice, however, was Bettany himself. The new comedian thrived on their laughter.

"I'm so shallow, I thought, 'I'm killing these people!' "

The chemistry and fun the audience sees on screen, Bettany revealed, began in the director's plan to encourage the actors to go out together at night before the filming began. "Brian's conceit and sort of genius to lie to us all, and to all our agents and management and say 'we need them all out here for two weeks rehearsal.' We got out there and . . . he forced alcoholism on all of us! We all bonded very quickly," Bettany said.

Leading man Heath Ledger's (William Thatcher) contribution was his playful personality, according to co-star Bettany, who described Ledger as "the most charming, fun, playful bloke to work with."

"I'm a kid," Ledger told us, "I'm a total kid." That quality in his profession, he said, "is important, and that's what you have to hold on to. I think maturity is immaturity these days."

Still, Ledger showed plenty of evidence in the 15-minutes we had to speak to him that the carefree, fun-loving attitude is just one side of his personality.

Just 21 years old, Ledger addressed his decision to act instead of going to college. "I feel like every job I do is college," he said. "You never stop learning."

"Especially with acting, I didn't really want to go spend years clouding my instincts, you know, because instincts are everything to me," he said.

Following his fame from The Patriot and 10 Things I Hate About You, the self-described "home body" is learning how to deal with being famous. Gesturing to the cover of the press kit, which is also the movie poster — which is also a close-up of his own face — he chuckled "that. . .would be a little intimidating!"

"I don't know how you prepare for stardom," he said almost bashfully, and with a little smile, "they should have a book."

Ledger was chosen for the role of William Thatcher after meeting a special criterion of Helgeland's for the role. "I thought the character had to have a very self-possessed quality," Helgeland said, something difficult to find not only in an actor, "but difficult to find in a young person, really." He called Ledger "not your average 21-year-old."

"Twenty-one," Bettany spoke the number slowly, as in disbelief, "of your Earth years!"

The actors in A Knight's Tale are from all over the world, and the actual stunt jousters in the film work in a medieval show at a hotel in Las Vegas. "Jousting was a big logistic challenge," Black emphasized. They had to invent a flying steady-cam operator to film the joust scenes, Black said, and "rig a wire from one side of the stadium to the other side that he would literally fly on, tracking the horses and the jousters."

A logistic challenge for the actors was working with the horses. "I loathe them for the simple reason that they're alive and make their own decisions," Bettany joked of his animal co-stars. Laura Fraser (Kate) remembered the rule about horses on the set. "Keep your eye on the horse's butt, wasn't it?" she said.

While they didn't perform the actual jousting, both Ledger and Rufus Sewell (Count Adhemar, William's nemesis) wore real armor for much of the filming.

"Bad guys tend to absorb more heat, 'cause they dress in black," Sewell kidded, "You could cook an egg on it." The first time he fell off a horse during filming, Sewell remembered everyone saying, "thank God you landed on grass." Sewell paused in a pensive expression.

"I just don't understand," he remembered thinking, "If you're wearing metal, wherever you land, you land on metal!"

The friendships formed among the cast were apparent at the start of Sewell's interview, which immediately followed Bettany's. Sewell sat in the talent chair (wearing black, of course) and examined the ashtray in front of him.

"Paul Bettany was here, wasn't he?" Sewell asked us with a nod to the Marlboro Light butt in the ashtray. He grinned, and said with an air of reminiscing, "he leaves little clues for me."

While the talent certainly provided the energy and fun in interviews that they brought to the film, many paid respect to Helgeland's work as well.

Black explained, "You know, what Brian wrote was really what he shot."

"He's a hell of a writer, I mean, the script's a great read. His storytelling ability is so strong."

And this is just what Helgeland set out to do: tell a story. It's one of "youth and identity and trying to figure out how you fit into the world," the writer/director said.

"He knew he wanted a spin on it, but not such a spin that it would so remove you from the movie," Black said of the film's creator.

The actors said that it's those modern elements, especially the music, that makes A Knight's Tale accessible to a young audience. The film "makes no excuses for itself," Sewell said.

Overall, the interviews yielded a general consensus that it's the light, exuberant qualities that make A Knight's Tale a joy to watch. The film is "funny, yet bright," Bettany said, "I think you'll see a bunch of people you'd like to have a drink with."

I agree.