Life As We Know It pairs Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel as polar opposites forced to put their differences aside so they can raise their best friends' orphaned child. While the situation sounds primed for a sitcom, the movie hits honest notes when it comes to parenthood, dating, and the difficulty of making sacrifices so that someone else can live a better life. When we sat down with these two gifted comedians, we discussed bad dates, good adoptions, and getting in tune with one's inner child.

Q: The movie begins with the two of you suffering through a nightmarish blind date. Were you drawing on personal experiences to make that scene believable?

Katherine Heigl: [Laughs] I've actually never been fixed up.

Josh Duhamel: Me neither. I've had plenty of awkward moments.

KH: Oh, yes, lots of those.

JD: But I was always in relationships. Dating always scared the crap out of me, for this reason. This is a good example of why I didn't date.

KH: But then how did you wind up in the relationships?

JD: Well, I had to make very sure that I wanted to date this person.

KH: So you would just stalk them for a while.

JD: Yes. I would do a complete recon.

KH: [Laughs] Dig into their background.

JD: Yes, and I'd make sure that I wanted to be with them before we started dating.

KH: That's so interesting and weird.

JD: No. Do you know when you really feel like you don't just want to say, "Oh, I might like her. I guess I'll go on a date"?

KH: So you never met anybody in a bar and just went out on a dinner date the next night and had a terrible time? That never happened to you?

JD: I'm sure it did. I was just so drunk from the night before that I don't remember. [Laughs]

KH: I have only one bad one. No, I've had a couple, but the worst was a trainer. I was eighteen or twenty pounds heavier and was trying really hard to work it off at the gym. My trainer asked me out. But he took me to Sizzler and he gave me his head shot and asked if I could get him into my agency. I knew it wasn't the extra twenty pounds that turned him on.

Q: The baby in the film is played by a set of triplets. What were they like as co-stars?

JD: Before we started shooting, [director Greg Berlanti] had me go to Atlanta to acclimate myself with the kids and have them get comfortable with me. And that was huge for us in the movie because they really responded to me. Katherine was in the middle of adopting her own child at the time, so she couldn't come early. But I went out there and got to know these kids really well. It was helpful then because we didn't have to take them off the set all of the time. They could stay there and play and live on the set while we were shooting, which helped make them feel comfortable.

Q: And could it also be because all girls like you?

KH: They could be little boys. It doesn't matter. Children like Josh.

JD: I have an affinity for kids, and they seem to like me. I think it's because we can understand each other on the same emotional level. [Laughs]

Q: Katherine, how did you acclimate yourself once you made it to the set.

KH: I took control! It's an alpha thing. They just needed to know who was in charge. No, I'm kidding. Thankfully, I had just gotten familiar with the holding and comforting of a child, so I could do that mothering instinct a little bit, though it was still so new to me. But [Josh] was fantastic, working hard to get to know those babies, and I had to kind of do it cold, so they did not like me as much.

JD: That's not true.

KH: But at least I had one in my trailer who did.

Q: Speaking of that, because you were a new mother, did you sense parallels between your personal and professional life while filming?

KH: Yeah, it was all parallels. I was living on camera what I was living in my life, down to the tiniest little things. The outfits that they'd put the triplets in for a scene my daughter might have come to work in that day. I watched the movie recently and thought it was kind of a living journal because it reminds me of those first few months with this 9-month-old baby who was so new to me -- and I was so new to her -- and all of the little things that go along with that. What kind of diapers you use, what kind of wipes. We had the exact same pack and play as the one we used in the movie. It will forever remind me of that time. It was really intense and really glorious and certainly overwhelming. But my character, Holly, was me, and I was her. I didn't have to act.

There's a prison picture for every mood and inclination, from trashy romps to hard-hitting exposes. Are you craving a little sleazy, teasey WIP (that's "women in prison," newbies) action? Feel the need to get your blood boiling with a fact-based story of justice denied? How about a lavish musical set behind bars? There's something on this list for everyone,

10. Caged Heat (1974)
The quintessential "chicks in the slammer" movie, whose poster really did say it all, promising: "Women's Prison U.S.A. - Rape, Riot & Revenge!" 1970s exploitation starlets Erica Gavin, Roberta Collins, Rainbeaux Smith and Desiree Cousteau play mad, bad and under-clad inmates (the only way to better this line-up would be to add Pam Grier), and cult icon Barbara Steele is the wicked, wicked warden who eventually gets what's coming to her. 

9. Turkey Shoot/Escape 2000/Blood Camp Thatcher (1981)
This quintessential slice of shameless Ozploitation unfolds in a dystopian future where "social deviants" are shipped off to prison camps for attitude adjustment. And if they're really lucky, they get sent to Warden Thatcher's hellhole, where a select few are given the opportunity to win their freedom by volunteering for a Most Dangerous Game-style hunt. All they have to do is elude a bunch of wealthy, heavily armed sadists, thrill seekers and nut jobs.

8. Brubaker (1980)
Robert Redford plays progressive warden Henry Brubaker, who pisses off the establishment by cleaning up Wakefield Prison Farm, an Arkansas hellhole so contemptuous of its inmates that it doesn't even have guards -- who needs 'em when you can just arm the trusties? Though technically not a '70s movie, this is such a '70s message movie. But the cast is great and Redford's at his prime.

7. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Frank Darabont's adaptation of Stephen King's short story chronicles the unlikely friendship between a rich boy (Tim Robbins) who continues to swear he didn't kill his wife even after he's been convicted of double murder, and the sage lifer (Morgan Freeman, back in the slammer once again) who teaches him to navigate the brutal rules of prison engagement while holding on to his humanity.

6. Jailhouse Rock (1957)
Ex-con Elvis Presley gets thrown back into jail (unfairly, as it happens) and finds a life-changing mentor in a guy who teaches him to play guitar. It's a lavish, old-school musical that features the young, hunky Presley and a bunch of dancers gyrating around a cellblock set to lyrics like these: "You're the cutest jailbird I ever did see/I sure would be delighted you're your company."

5. Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
Clint Eastwood does his whispery, sinewy, coiled-bundle-of-potential-violence thing as Frank Morris, the real-life prisoner who in 1962 masterminded an elaborate escape from the "The Rock." He and his two partners might -- just might -- have been the only escapees to survive both the breakout and the treacherous waters of San Francisco Bay.

4. The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)
Inspired by the story of Robert Stroud, a hardened lifer with an unlikely love of birds, John Frankenheimer's movie is bad history and great drama. The real-life Stroud may have been a thug, but Burt Lancaster's portrayal of an angry man who discovers a humanity he never imagined he possessed is mesmerizing. Watch it back to back with Brute Force (No.1) and marvel at Lancaster's versatility.

3. Midnight Express (1978)
Yet another fact-based movie that plays fast and loose with those pesky facts, Midnight Express is also an uber-cautionary tale. American tourist Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) is caught smuggling hashish out of Turkey and winds up in a prison that makes Alcatraz look like a luxury spa. It was written by Oliver Stone and directed by Alan Parker, so don't expect subtly -- but it sure is intense.

2. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Stuart Rosenberg directed Paul Newman in the role of knee-jerk authority hater Luk, whose antics just don't fly in the deep south, circa 1948. He ends up in a prison campe, where, between alpha inmate George Kennedy and sadistic guard Strother ("What we've got here is failure to communicate") Martin, he gets beat to hell more times than a junkyard dog. And he's still so sexy it hurts.

1. Brute Force (1947)
Hell is called Westgate Penitentiary in Jules Dassin's bleak, nihilistic story. Burt Lancaster plays Joe Collins, a career criminal  who's locked in a war of wills with the sadistic Captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn). Much of the movie's reputation rests on the no-holds-barred riot sequence -- it may be 60-plus years old, but that retribution by blowtorch/industrial press scene is still a shocker, especially since it's the good guys dishing out the pain.