ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with One True Loves stars Phillipa Soo and Luke Bracey about the upcoming romantic comedy movie. The duo discussed the movie’s unique angle and their respective characters. The movie debuts in theaters today and then will release digitally on April 14 and through video-on-demand on April 28.
“Emma and Jesse are living the perfect life together, until Jesse disappears in a tragic helicopter crash on their first wedding anniversary,” reads the film’s synopsis. “Four years later, Emma finds happiness again as she’s about to marry her best friend. However, when Jesse miraculously resurfaces, Emma soon finds herself torn between two great loves.”
Tyler Treese: Phillipa, as your character states in the movie, she’s engaged, but she’s also married. There’s no real protocol there, and the movie only really works if you have great chemistry with both leading men. How was finding that level of onscreen love with both Luke and Simu?
Phillipa Soo: Oh, it was so easy. You have two incredibly talented professional people who show up ready on day one and super game to sort of go with the flow and be extremely collaborative. So it was a very easy thing.
Luke, your character has the perfect life, and a crash happens. You go on this big survival journey, you finally make your way home, and your wife has moved on with her life, and you can tell that getting back to her was the only reason he survived. Can you speak to where he finds himself at the beginning? It was such a one-track mind, and then he finds himself totally shocked.
Luke Bracey: Yeah, I think that’s the big struggle for him, right? This one thing helped him survive for a number of years in this quite extreme situation. To come home and find that that that’s not the reality and it’s not the reality he’s faced … it is a huge shock to a person. I think one of the really admirable parts of Jesse as a character is that he’s got a lust for life and, coming up against that barrier … I think he’s not a guy that gives up.
So I think that coming to that, it was certainly a shock and something that he had to navigate himself, but a credit to him as a character, he loves life too much to give up again, and he never would. I think that’s the really great bit about him as a person, is that he’s not selfish. He just wants people to be happy. He wants to be happy. He wants people to laugh, and he wants people to love. So yeah, it’s a pretty admirable character, I find.
Yeah, everybody has great arcs. Phillipa, your character goes through grief. She picks herself up, then she finds out her husband is still alive. What did you admire and like most about Emma’s resilience? I thought that character was so intriguing.
Phillipa Soo: Yeah, I admired her ability to really force herself to open her eyes and move forward with her life. That’s a really hard thing to do. Accepting change is a really hard thing for people to do, and I think she’s a great example of how you can do it with grace, but you don’t necessarily need to do it perfectly, which I personally try to do every day. She’s just, I think, a really lovable person, but ultimately, she knows that she couldn’t get through all of this without her family and without her friends and without the people who love her, who are giving her space, and giving her the energy to make that decision for herself.
Luke, you’re coming off of Maybe I Do, which I also really enjoyed. You keep finding such fun spins on these romance movies. What do you like most about these roles that break convention and break the mold of what one expects from a romance film?
Luke Bracey: Yeah, I think I’ve been fortunate. I’ve made a couple of them now. I got to do Holidate, got to do Maybe I Do, and now this, and and as you say, they’re all a little bit of a twist on your classic genre film like this. So that’s kind of what I’ve been drawn to with them — they’ve all been a little bit off-center when it comes to what you’d expect from these films. Exploring that’s been really fun. If I’m going to be honest, it’s really fun days at work, you know?
We’re working with great people, having a laugh, exploring great things like love and stuff like that. I mean, they’re really fun days at work and I really enjoy the people I work with and the stories we get to tell. So yeah, I’ve been fortunate with these type of movies, the movies I’ve made that are in this kind of wheelhouse. I have to say it helps when I’ve got great co-stars and great collaborators, and fun things to work on.
