We caught up with the leads of The Kissing Booth 2 for a quick chat about their favourite rom-coms, character inspirations, and their take on why the franchise is as popular as it is.
Umapagan Ampikaipakan: So let’s kick things off with something easy. What is your favorite rom-com of all time and why is it Sleepless in Seattle?
Joey King: Oh my gosh. Can I be honest? I love rom-coms. But I’m not like a huge rom-com watcher. I will say that one of my favorite rom-coms of all time is 50 First Dates. That is a great movie.
Joel Courtney: That is an amazing movie. I know it’s not like a classic rom-com, but The Proposal is one of my favourite movies of all time. Like, I could sit down and watch The Proposal at just about any time. If someone shouts it out randomly, like I’m down.
UA: Joey, I wanted to know what, if anything, were some of the things that you based your performance off? I was getting some really strong Rory Gilmore vibes, and I was wondering what your points of inspiration were?
JK: I didn’t really have any. When I tackled this character, I felt like she’s just a girl I would want to be really close friends with, and somebody that I would want to introduce my friends to as well. And so, I just kind of took pieces of people in my personal life that mean the most to me to just create this, fun, rambunctious girl who has a big personality and a really big heart. But also her sense of humor is very similar to mine. So I feel like Elle and I are pretty similar in a lot of ways.
UA: Can you explain the insane popularity of your movie? I mean, I have my theories, but I really wanted to know what your take on it was.
JC: I think our movie just really connected with the hearts of young people and millennials…
JK: … it’s not cynical and just good fun. I think what happened is that people were given such amazing, incredible content. But also, with how accessible streaming is, it really pushed the drama side a lot. And even in their funny movies, there is like a lot of drama. I think people crave those classic 80s rom-coms that we just weren’t getting anymore. And so this movie is kind of just paying homage to, like tipping our hat off to, all those wonderful 80s rom-coms. And we have the lovely Molly Ringwald to prove it. And I just think that it’s pure fun and that no one can really be in a bad mood when watching these movies.
JC: Yes. What she said. That that was so much better than what I had to say. I love it.
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