New Tubi original Kissing is the Easy Part was released on February 13, and stars of the movie Paris Berelc, who plays Flora, and Asher Angel, who plays Sean, spoke exclusively with Screen Rant about what drew them to their roles, the influence the original Wattpad story had on production, and their hopes for a second (and even a third) movie.
Kissing is the Easy Part centers on characters Flora and Sean, a complex cool girl and a top-of-his-class student, respectively—a sort of reversal of the more stereotypical ‘bad boy falls for nerd girl’ movie trope. However, when Flora’s parents intervene and convince Sean to “woo” Flora, the two find a surprising spark.
For both Angel and Berelc, having each other as co-stars was a major factor when it came to their interest in the movie, although there were specific story elements that drew them in as well.
Asher Angel: What drew me to Kissing is the Easy Part, besides Paris, because she’s a huge part of that, because as soon as she was involved, I obviously was super giddy because I’ve been watching her since I was little, but I think it’s not your typical rom-com. Especially, like, I love how it’s polar opposite between Sean’s coming in, but he’s flustered by Flora, Flora’s not flustered by Sean, and I don’t think you see that in most rom-coms. Obviously, reading the script, it just felt different. It felt different because all the movies that I grew up on, like the 10 Things I Hate About You, the Clueless, the How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. I feel like we have, I don’t know, a refreshing take on all the movies that we grew up on. So, that really piqued my interest for sure, and I’ve got to say it again, Paris. I mean, she was the icing on the cake, you know what I mean?
Paris Berelc: Asher was definitely a factor for me. Yeah, I love Asher. I’ve known him for so long, and I was like, “Oh my god, we finally get to do a movie together, yay.” But I think Flora was just such a fun character to play, and, you know, she’s not just the popular girl or the cool girl or the pretty girl; she actually has so many different layers to her, and she’s a complex character, and she has a voice, and she has so much to say but just doesn’t know how to say it. So, I really loved that, and I loved the dynamic between her and Sean. I thought, “Oh, wow. This is the iconic high school couple. Like, this is so cute; this is what I watched when I was younger.” And Fawzia [Mirza], obviously, I was super excited to work with her. I actually met her because I went to a screening for her movie The Queen of My Dreams, and I met her, and she was awesome, and I was like, “I can’t wait to work with you,” and then I watched the movie, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, I really can’t wait to shoot this movie now because this movie is amazing.” So, yeah, Fawzia’s great; she was so awesome to work with.
Berelc and Angel also elaborated upon the uniqueness of this narrative.
Berelc: We had a lot of the classic things from the older high school movies. We really took those, and we put our own fun, modern spin to it, you know? Like when Sean is the one standing at the stairs for Homecoming, I thought that scene was so cute because I was like, “Oh my god, that’s the moment. This is like what people did in high school. This is so awesome.”
Angel: And we never experienced that.
Berelc: And we didn’t get to experience high school. But yeah, everyone did such a great job with taking the pieces that are timeless and then also adding our own modern uniqueness to it.
Angel: Hell yeah.
The original Wattpad story played a key role in this production as well, the stars explained.
Berelc: I knew that the book is a bit different from the movie, but we actually had the author, Christine [Duann], she came to set, and she was telling us a bit about when she wrote it, and she wrote it over, it was like, ten years ago. She said, “Yeah, this is really cool because I wrote this ten years ago, and now I’m here, on a set for a movie.”
Angel: Bringing it to life. That’s so cool.
Berelc: It’s also cool because Wattpad is a great platform for anybody to be able to upload a story that they wrote. And having a fanbase of 32 million readers is crazy. And that’s just a really cool feeling of, wow, everyone loved this story, and then we actually made a movie about it.
Angel: And I feel like we did it justice.
Berelc: Yes, we wanted to do it justice. So, we worked really hard to make sure that the fans would be happy with the movie.
Angel: And we think they’re going to be. They’re going to be ecstatic. I don’t think they’re ready….They aren’t ready for the tension, the chemistry, the passion that we have.”
Both stars were also fully on board with the possibility of a sequel movie—or more than one—with Angel joking at one point that it should be called College is the Hard Part.
Angel: We’ve been saying it since the first day on set. There was something in the air, and we knew it internally; you could feel it. So, we’re going to keep on manifesting that, for sure.
Regarding possible sequel storylines, the actors had a few ideas.
Berelc: I would love to see them in college and balancing doing their own thing and figuring out their own career and what they really want to be doing in life and their aspirations while also dating and finding time to, one, be together, but then two, [balance it]. I think that would be interesting. It’s like, okay, you’re not in high school anymore, now you’re an adult, and I think that changes a little bit, too. I think high school to college can be a big jump for people, and it can really make you change and discover even more new things. So, I would love to see how they deal with that.
Angel: Hopefully I’m working at NASA by then. I’m visiting you in college. Working on a bunch of rockets….Marriage is the hard part, in space.
Berelc: The third movie is us living in space. The third movie is we’re the first people to live on the moon.
Angel: I’m loving this concept. I’m just saying; I think it works. You in a little, like, pink astronaut suit. Can you imagine it? Because I can picture it.
Angel and Berelc wanted to drive home just how much love went into the movie, too.
Berelc: Every single person worked their butt off, and we all genuinely had such a great time. Everyone says, “Oh, we were a family on set.” We were really a family on set. It was really summer camp, and when I watched it, I could see, one, that we all had a great time, and two, how much love and care went into the film and into all of our characters.
Angel: Blood, sweat, and tears. I can’t wait for us to release all of our wrapping messages where we’re all just bawling our eyes out. We’re all in a circle just crying. It just meant so much to us. I can’t wait to watch it and just bawl again.
Berelc: Our last day of filming, I was crying like someone died. It was so hard, but the good thing about that is, if you’re that sad on the last day, then that means it was really just that good.
Angel: I did not want to leave. We did not want to leave each other, everyone. It was beautiful.
Kissing is the Easy Part is now streaming on Tubi.