Isabelle Fuhrman is breaking into the romantic drama genre and is joined by genre alums Mena Mᴀssoud and Gabby Kono-Abdy for Wish You Were Here. Fuhrman first broke out as a child actor with her starring turn in the psychological horror movie Orphan, going on to star both in and outside the genre, including playing Clove in 2012’s The Hunger Games to the Stephen King adaptation Cell and Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga. She also would reprise her role from Orphan in the 2022 prequel First Kill, whose critical success has spawned development on an Orphan 3.

After his recurring role in Prime Video’s Jack Ryan, Mᴀssoud would become a household name thanks to his leading turn in Disney’s live-action Aladdin remake, which he’s since followed up with everything from the Hulu thriller Reprisal to the Netflix rom-com The Royal Treatment and Freevee rom-com H๏τel for the Holidays. Kono-Abdy has been on a steady climb both in front of and behind the camera in recent years, serving as both a producer and star on Wish You Were Here, as well as previously starring in the Dermot Mulroney-led Agent Game and Tubi rom-com Magic Carpet Rides.

Fuhrman and Mᴀssoud lead the Wish You Were Here cast as Charlotte and Adam, a young woman who finds herself struggling to determine what to do with her life, and a man who has a fateful, romance-filled night with her. Come the morning, though, the mood quickly turns tense as Adam displays a much colder personality than what drew the two of them together the night before. After initially thinking he ghosted her, Charlotte learns the truth about Adam’s absence, sending them both down an emotional road.

Ahead of the movie’s release, ScreenRant interviewed Isabelle Fuhrman, Mena Mᴀssoud and Gabby Kono-Abdy to discuss Wish You Were Here, why the producer/star sent the book to Julia Stiles in the hopes of having her make her directorial debut, how working with author Renée Carlino proved to be a rewarding experience for the group, as well as a hopeful update on Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2‘s release.

Kono-Abdy Has Been A Fan Of Stiles’ Since She Was A Teenager

“…there’s just no one better to tell a female heroine story…”

ScreenRant: Isabelle, it’s great to see you again, Mena and Gabby, it’s great to meet you both and to talk about this film. It is so powerful, it is so moving. I watched it yesterday before speaking with Julia, and you are all incredible in it. Gabby, I’d actually like to start with you first, because one thing Julia mentioned was that you were the one who sent her this book with the hope of her directing it. You’re obviously also a producer and star on this film, but what about the book spoke to you that Julia would be the perfect person to helm this?

Gabby Kono-Abdy: Well, I’ve been a big fan of Julia’s since I was a young girl. I remember when I was moving high schools from Long Island to Manhattan, my mother was like, “Well, Julia Stiles went to the Professional Children’s School,” and I was like, “I want to go there. That’s where you are sending me, please.” [Laughs] So, I think that there’s just no one better to tell a female heroine story, a strong woman who takes risks and does what her heart wants.

And we see that with Charlotte, especially by the end of the film, she’s resilient in saying to her family, to her best friend, to her brother, “This is what I’m doing. This is the decision I want to make.” I just felt like you needed someone strong to really be the lens for us as an audience to see this come to life. And I just thought Julia was perfect in every way, shape and form, and to be able to selfishly work with her as an actor, as a producer, have one of my favorite actors in the world teach me how to do this. It was a dream come true.

Watching Stiles Go From Actor To Director Was “Such A Gift” For Fuhrman

“…we bonded so much making Orphan…”

I love that, and so, Isabelle, I’ll turn to you next, because on the note of Julia as well, obviously, you’re just coming off of having worked with her on Orphan: First Kill together, and I know that she mentioned she was sort of developing the script while working on that. What was it like for you making that flip from work, sharing the screen with her to then experiencing her as a director?

Isabelle Fuhrman: Well, we bonded so much making Orphan, because the whole world was shut down, and we were sitting in these tents in the middle of the sound stage, and Julia was the only person I was really able to talk to. We really bonded about so many different things, and she was working on the script at the time. I was so grateful when she sent it to me and was like, “I’d love you to read it and maybe be Charlotte.”

I had never actually been offered a role like this. This is my first time playing a lead in a romance film, and I was really honored that she wanted people to see me in the way that she got to know me, not just in the way that people have seen me on screen. She said that to me, and I was like Gabby. I grew up watching Julia, I’m one of her biggest fans, she’s such an icon. What’s crazy is, when you meet her, she’s so normal. I don’t think she realizes how many people look up to her, have grown up watching her, and just literally adore her.

Mena Mᴀssoud: She’s so extremely humble.

Isabelle Fuhrman: So extremely humble, and getting to work with her in this capacity was such a gift. Every single day. She really thrives behind the camera, too. She’s an incredible actress, but what I loved was the way that she would find ways to play with lines. She would come and give us notes like, “Oh, I have an idea. Oh, I have this.” Seeing how excited that she got about every single aspect of making this movie, from the lines in the script to where the camera was positioned, to things that we could add to make it more fun, like when Gabby and I were working in that restaurant.

There were so many things we were messing with, like those flags, that slow-motion sH๏τ. I remember I filmed that on my phone, and she was like, “We gotta film something like that!” It felt like a really collaborative, playful experience. And I know throughout all of post-production, she’s really just loved every single moment of it. So, I know that this is her first, but this is definitely not going to be her last directorial film. She really is a fantastic director, one of my favorites I’ve ever worked with. I feel very lucky that she chose me to be the lead of her first film.

Mᴀssoud & Fuhrman Didn’t Get A Lot Of Time With Carlino (But Relished Their Talks)

“…it did feel like we were working with her closely.”

For this next question, Mena, if you’d like to start, and then Isabelle, I love that you also have Renée having co-written this film. It’s not often that we get an author being such a big part of an adaptation of their work. How much did you find you each were able to pick her brain about your characters and the romance and the way their lives play out?

Mena Mᴀssoud: I spoke to her very briefly, but I had read the book not too long before we started, and so I understood the story well. I felt like I understood Renée because of reading the book so close to shooting the film. But I got to ask her a little bit, and Julia had talked to her about Adam and gave me those notes and that info. So, yeah, it did feel like we were working with her closely. She came to set a couple of times, I met her once, and got to talk to her a little bit. I think we did the characters justice. I hope we did, and I think Renée is very happy with it.

It’s always hard taking a novel and making it into a movie, because a novel, you’ve got the freedom to just tell the story with such intimate details. In a film, you’re limited by time, by a lot of different aspects of it. But what was important to us, or was important to me, was to take the heart of it, like, “Who is this guy at his heart? What are the scenes that we’re shooting, and how can we tell the story in a streamlined way?” So, I hope we did that. And Renee, I don’t want to say, is an underrated writer, but she doesn’t get as much credit sometimes, because some of her books — like, this is a USA Today bestseller, this novel, and she has some other incredible books as well.

Isabelle Fuhrman: I really loved reading the book in preparation for this, because I felt like it gave me such a jumping off point into Charlotte. I’ve known what I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid, which is a very rare experience. Being able to sit with the book really allowed me to kind of marinate in this place I feel like so many people find themselves in, where you’re not really sure what you want to do and where you want to go.

You have one parent who’s telling you that you need to have direction in life, and you have another parent being like, “Well, she doesn’t need direction if she can find someone to take care of her, and it’s not us.” [Laughs] I think a lot of people can relate to that, and her kind of being sure that she wants to figure it out, but unsure of how to do so. I think I mined a lot of information from the book. Like Mena said, I met Renée when she came on set, and I was just really grateful that she was as excited that Julia had cast me in it as Julia had been, which was really great, because I had never met her. So, it made me feel much more secure about what I was doing.

And I think she was there for some of our scenes that were more, you know, emotional and things like that. I felt like she was really grateful to see that, and like Mena said, you’re taking a book, a couple-hundred-page book, and you’re putting it down into a script, and you’re trying to fit everything in. So, it’s really finding the core of who these people are, and just finding a way to translate it through the story. And I feel like the messages of the film are the same as the book, and that’s because Julia and Renée collaborated on that.

Gabby Kono-Abdy: I remember when Renée finally agreed to meet with me back in, I want to say, 2018 or 2019, and I could tell her every single page of the book, and she was like, “You know this book more than I do. I haven’t looked at it since I sent it to the publisher.” I’m not an author, but I ᴀssume that once they close that chapter, they’re on to their next bestseller. I think also, by reinvigorating her, got her excited to collaborate with Julia. They would have Zooms and calls, and the producers would be on, and it was just such a fun experience to take exactly, like, a 350-page book into a 90-page screenplay. It takes effort, and they did an incredible job.

Fuhrman Doesn’t Have Any Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 2 Release Updates For Now

“I think they’re kind of mᴀssaging what’s going on with it…”

I see I’m coming close to time, so I did want to also ask you, Isabelle, really quickly. Last we spoke was for Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1, and I’m still anxiously waiting for Chapter 2‘s release. Have you heard any updates on when that might be coming?

Isabelle Fuhrman: I believe it’s coming pretty soon. I think they’re kind of mᴀssaging what’s going on with it, but I actually, as of now, haven’t heard anything. Actors are usually the last to know in these sorts of things. But I was really fortunate that we got to premiere it at Venice, and got to see it with an audience. And that was the first time I had seen the movie, and it was great. I’m really excited for people to see it, but this movie, to me, is so exciting that Wish You Were Here is coming out, because it is a film that I feel like we all put so much heart and pᴀssion into.

We worked so hard on it together, and we really fell in love as a cast and a crew. I really hope that people take away this message of hope from this movie. This message of really loving the people that you have in your life and holding them close for as long as you have with them. I think this is a movie that you can go to the theater and — Mena said this earlier — just let it all out and cry. I think that we need something like that right now.

Mena Mᴀssoud: Yeah, those are rare. Those kinds of films are rare.

About Wish You Were Here

Julia Stiles makes her directorial debut in a brilliantly warm and romantic film based on the bestselling novel, Wish You Were Here. Isabelle Fuhrman, Mena Mᴀssoud, Jennifer Grey and Kelsey Grammer star in a fascinating movie about leaving the everyday world behind to take a chance on true romance. When the perfect night with a perfect stranger ends suddenly the next morning, Charlotte searches for answers and meaning in her disappointing life until she uncovers a secret that changes everything.

Stay tuned for our other Wish You Were Here interview with Julia Stiles!

Source: ScreenRant Plus