Simone Ashley and Hero Fiennes Tiffin are single and maybe ready to mingle in the new film Picture This. The two play exes that have a complicated past in the new rom-com. Directed by Prarthana Mohan, the film hits Prime Video on March 6, 2025.
“In this heartfelt rom-com, struggling photographer Pia (Simone Ashley) receives a prediction: true love and career success await her in the next five dates she goes on. With her sister’s wedding looming and family playing matchmaker, her ex (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) reappears, throwing both her love and professional life into chaos,” says the synopsis.
Simone, the family dynamic for Pia is just so fun in this movie. Sindhu Vee is just a total delight. Could you speak to that aspect of family in the film? It’s a real highlight.
Simone Ashley: Yeah. It was such a highlight. I think the fact that family is such a focus in this movie, there was so much for us to play with, and I think it is chaotic and it is complicated. We added those modern twists to it as well. Actors like Sindhu Vee really helped carry a lot of that. She’s so talented. She was so funny. Whenever we had “cut,” she would get an applause from the crew.
Hero, this is based on an Australian film called Five Blind Dates. I was curious how you approach that as an actor. Do you reference that source material or do you stay away from it so it doesn’t affect you?
Hero Fiennes Tiffin: I feel like, unless I’m instructed specifically to, I think it’s always safer to not. I feel like it’s such a process, turning anything into a script, whether it is from a true story or an adaptation of a different story. That’s such a process. I think you’ve just gotta trust the people whose job it is to do that process, and our process starts with the script. As I say, it depends on the project. Sometimes that might be more necessary than others, but on this I just work directly from the script.
Simone, congrats on being an executive producer on this. I believe this is your first time producing, so how is it having that added creative input on this film?
Ashley: It was great. I, I learned so much. I’m so grateful to Ben and Erica at 42 MP for allowing me to collaborate on this. I just kind of feel like I had a wider perspective on the whole thing, and so grateful that we had an amazing cast and crew around us, and all of the actors. Everyone was just so thoughtful with their characters, and we could kind of just leave them to it for what they wanted to bring. So, yeah,I think it was kind of the perfect setting to be able to walk in for the first time collaborating with the producers.
Hero, you and Simone just feel so natural on screen together. How was it developing that chemistry? Was it an instant connection? Because from the very first moment you’re really rooting for these two to get back together as a viewer.
Fiennes Tiffin: I appreciate that. I was thinking to make a joke and say it was really hard work. Well, no. Obviously, honestly, genuinely, it was really quite the opposite.
We didn’t have too much time. We did a read through and we had like a couple of rehearsals, but it felt like I knew quite soon that it was just gonna be a fun, enjoyable experience and we never felt rushed. We felt like we had the time to just enjoy ourselves, explore the scene, discuss ideas for the scene that aren’t directly on the page. I just think when you are enjoying what you’re doing, that is naturally hopefully gonna translate. It’s just a pleasure. I enjoyed every minute of it.
Thanks to Simone Ashley and Hero Fiennes Tiffin for taking the time to talk about Prime Video‘s Picture This.
