http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa682U0CLQw

This Tuesday, March 4, screaming fans lined the indoor red carpet at Ronnies 20 Cine movie theater for a chance to see an advanced screening of “Divergent,” a guaranteed blockbuster based on a young adult fantasy series by Veronica Roth. Preteen girls held signs like, “I would jump off the Arch for tickets!” and “I’d go Dauntless for you!” Two of the stars of the film, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, who plays Will, and Christian Madsen, who plays Al, greeted their fans and the press with Sharpies in hand. In the film, both of their characters choose the Dauntless, or brave, faction of citizens in Roth’s fantasy government where (almost) every young adult can find his/her niche in society. The story, however, focuses on those that can’t seem to fit in: the Divergent.

Though both young men have been in film for years, “Divergent” is by far their biggest hit. Wash. U. students might know Lloyd-Hughes from his brief role on the British television show “Skins” while Madsen is the son of Michael Madsen, who has been in films like “Reservoir Dogs” and “Kill Bill.”

Hughes donned brown Oxfords and a pair of skinny pinstripe trousers that made it pretty clear that he is a boxers, not a briefs, man, and Madsen wore a suit jacket and perfectly coiffed hair that he constantly played with during pictures and interviews.

“It was exciting and daunting,” Hughes said of his experience with his first big-budget film. Madsen agreed: “It’s incredible…the happier the fans are with [the film], the happier I am for Veronica [Roth] and this kind of story that she’s made.”

As for the cast, “they were all pretty and fun. It was exciting to meet them all. I’d seen some of them before, like Shailene [Woodley, who plays Tris in the film]…and then the older actors like Kate Winslet [who plays Jeanine Matthews], who is just, you know, phenomenal,” Hughes said.

Though Hughes added that the cast got up to some “cool antics,” he wasn’t willing to share details. Madsen, on the other hand, said, “The Rolling Stones were in Chicago twice. You just divvy up what we did to prepare for that.”

Hughes doesn’t know if any inside jokes made it into the film because “You want to know a little secret? I haven’t seen the film yet.”

The two actors then moved onto Miami for their next press gig—and they still haven’t seen the film.

“Divergent” premieres March 21. Advanced tickets are on sale now.