Sometimes the wrong place is right where you need to be.
Halle Bailey (The Little Mermaid, The Color Purple) stars as Anna, a young woman who has abandoned her dreams of becoming a chef and is now drifting through her twenties with a series of bad choices. When Anna loses her house-sitting job (and housing) in one fell swoop, a chance encounter with Matteo—a handsome Italian who happens to have a villa sitting empty in Tuscany—will inspire her to jet off for Italy, against the advice of
her always-honest bestie, Claire (Home Before Dark’s Aziza Scott).
But Anna’s plan to crash at Matteo’s villa, without permission, just for one night, falls apart when Matteo’s mother, Gabriella (Italian film icon Isabella Ferrari) shows up at the house unexpectedly. In a panic, Anna allows Gabriella to believe that she is Matteo’s fiancée.
That little lie becomes a big problem, though, when Matteo’s cousin, Michael (Regé-Jean Page; Bridgerton, Black Bag) shows up, and Anna discovers that the heat between them may ignite a fire that will transform her life.
To celebrate the launch of You, Me & Tuscany‘s new trailer, Nick L’Barrow was invited to an international press conference to hear stars Halle Bailey and Rege-Jean Page, along with director Kat Coiro and producer Will Packer chat romance, food, and filming in Italy!
On the casting of Halle Bailey and Rege-Jean Page…
Kat Coiro: There was literally nobody else. This script came to us and we talked about Halle and then we said, “If Rege says no, we can’t make it. We need them,” and they delivered on every front. It’s so fun to work on something that is so romantic and beautiful and non-cynical and funny.
Halle Bailey: I truly wanted to be a part of this project, because when I read the script, I was like, “This is a movie I want to watch with my sister, this is the movie I want to be with my girls like, ‘Oh, my gosh, do you see him?'” This is a movie that makes me feel good, it’s joyful, and then also, I was really inspired to play Anna’s character. I was really inspired by her journey that she goes on, with her passions and finding herself and what she wants for herself again, and that self-doubt that creeps in and how she gets her power back, as well as how inspired she is by Rege’s character. There’s so many layers to this film that’s so beautiful, and I was just very grateful to be a part of it, to be honest.
On the desire for more romantic comedy films…
Rege-Jean Page: It’s everything. I think people give rom-coms a short rap sometimes, but what happens when you stop telling love stories? First of all, one of the reasons you do this is because it’s incredibly easy to fall in love with Halle Bailey. There’s something about the energy that this woman brings to set. It’s so light, so full of love and so lacking in cynicism.
The whole “They don’t make them like this anymore,” what they don’t make is movies where people talk and figure out who they are, and fall in love with because of who they are and overcome the obstacles because of who they are, as opposed to just who punches hardest with the most CGI. See what I’m saying?
Will Packer: I’ve done some things in this space, nothing like this before. Nothing like this, with the backdrop, with the wish fulfillment like this… As you know, I made Girls Trip, right? And the whole point of that was like, “What is the most fun trip that you can have?” That one was in New Orleans. We took it to a different level with Tuscany. When you see the way… First of all, we were having so much fun in real life on this set, and I always feel like, with a movie, you can tell when the energy is organic and when the energy is real. We were there and, in between a whole lot of wine and pasta and beautiful vineyards, we managed to shoot a really fun movie.
On finding romance through cooking and food…
Halle Bailey: I was so excited to be able to play someone who loves making food, a chef. She’s very passionate about it. I have things that I’m really passionate about, singing and music is one of them, and it was really beautiful to pull from where your inspiration and passion comes from and how that fire that you may have in doing music or singing in a recording studio. That person who’s making the food, they have that same fire, that same want, that same greed and need for this hunger that lives inside of them. Discovering that within Anna was a really fun thing for me to try and do, and it was fun to take cooking classes.
Rege-Jean Page: If there was a universal love language, it’s food.
Kat Coiro: Can I just say, we had a chef, an Italian chef, on set, and he would stand next to me at the monitor when she was cooking and go, “Bellissima.” He just thought she was amazing.
Will Packer: You know you’re killing it when you get the Italians to be impressed. Come on now.
On finding the tone of the film…
Kat Coiro: Well, my job really is easy when I have great actors. I have these two, our whole Italian supporting cast, also real actors. The woman who plays the mom is an Italian film icon. We just have such a great grounded cast, where we’re never pushing for comedy. The comedy arises out of the situation and out of the realism, I would say. My job is really easy with these guys. One thing I will say, tonally, that was interesting, and part of why Halle is literally the only person on the planet who could play this role, is her character does absolutely crazy things. Things that, most actresses, you would start to say, “I don’t know about her, she’s a little crazy.” With Halle, you’re like, “Yeah, that’s what you do. Well, it’s fine. I accept it.” Then the counterpart to that chaos comes with Rege’s natural groundedness. I always say, in a rom-com, it’s so important that it’s not just one person gaining love, it’s the two people gaining the missing parts of themselves, so the energy between them was just… I didn’t have to do much.
Rege-Jean Page: You are stepping into another world and you’re curious about other people, and you learn about other people and you find those missing pieces of yourself, because without getting too cheesy about it, the world is incomplete without love. You cannot understand each other unless you are willing to take yourself out of your comfort zone and fall in love with another who is not you, who has the pieces of you that might be missing or that might be broken or that might be cracked that you would never find if you didn’t just pay attention to people outside of where you live. I get a little bit cheesy with that.
On finding the connection between the characters…
Halle Bailey: I think that’s one of the things that makes Anna draw so closely to Michael’s character, it’s because he sees her and he sees this light and this passion within her. Even though she’s trying so hard to hide it and push it down and, “No, no, I can’t do that. It’s gone away, no, I’m not doing that with my life,” because of how he’s so focused and determined on his passions and what he has going for himself, he pulls that out of her and makes her feel like, “You know what? I could do this on my own. This does make me strong.” It is really beautiful, that they pull it out of each other. I feel like, with Rege, it was very easy to do that with. I felt very safe with him on set and he’s very… When he comes on set, he’s very prepared.
Thank you so much to Universal Pictures for organising the press conference. You, Me & Tuscany is in Australian cinemas April 9.
