This April, I visited the Atlanta, Georgia production of Regretting You, the latest buzzy adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel. Hoover is one of the H๏τtest authors around right now, a wanted commodity both in publishing and Hollywood. The last adaptation of one of her books, It Ends With Us, was a box-office juggernaut for Sony when it was released last year, scoring $351 million on a trim $25 million budget.
Now, Paramount is hoping to recreate that same success with the next Colleen Hoover adaptation, Regretting You. From what I saw during my time on the set and talking to the actors, it needn’t worry – the studio has a hit on its hands. Those who haven’t read the book will be delighted by the charming, two-pronged romance stories that unfold. Meanwhile, fans of Hoover’s book should be delighted by the pitch-perfect casting.
Regretting You, which just dropped its first trailer, follows the turbulent relationship between mom, Morgan (Allison Williams), and daughter, Clara (Mckenna Grace). Morgan got pregnant with Claire at 18 to her high school sweetheart, now husband, Chris (Scott Eastwood), and her relationship with Clara is rocky. Meanwhile, Morgan’s younger sister, Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald), has just had a baby with her old boyfriend-turned-one-night-stand, Jonah (Dave Franco), who moved back to town to help raise their child.
When tragedy strikes, however, mother and daughter find themselves both reeling with grief and growing further apart than ever right when they need each other most. As Morgan and Jonah try to make sense of life, Clara turns to local “bad boy” Miller Adams (Mason Thames) for comfort, and it soon blossoms into love. Everyone has to navigate the newly complicated dynamics and confront reality in order to heal and grow to embrace all that life has to offer, the grief as much as the joy.
Rather than our visit taking place on a sound stage, we boarded a shuttle and headed to one of Regretting You‘s on-location shoots, this one at Duluth High School, an hour outside Atlanta. The sprawling school, which was on its Spring Break, had been transformed into the local high school, a major setting in the book, as it’s where Clara, Miller, and Lexie go to school, as well as where Jonah teaches.
Production had been delayed and forced to switch things earlier in the week, as the day before had brought heavy rains. With only a week to shoot at the school, timing was тιԍнт. Luckily, director Josh Boone is an incredibly efficient filmmaker, and he quickly adjusted. When we arrived the next day, it was luckily clear and sunny, the kind of perfect, early April day that is a cast and crew’s dream.
Upon our arrival, we were ushered into a makeshift video village tent, where we watched them film an outdoor scene involving Mckenna Grace and Sam Morelos sitting in a car and talking about the rumor that the mysterious and popular college freshman Shelby had broken up with Miller simply because Clara had given him a ride home. It was a quick scene, but even so, the cast and extras moved with clockwork precision when “Action!” was called and the cameras rolled.
Next, we moved inside to another video village, this one set up in the high school’s Spanish classroom. Cameras, cables, and lighting equipment were everywhere, but strategically positioned in the narrow school hallway for a deceptively complicated scene that involved a walk-and-talk with Clara and Lexie, then a brief pause at their lockers, with Miller joining them, then a walk-and-talk with Miller and Clara.
Director Josh Boone popped in to video village to say hi, and shortly thereafter, we had the chance to sit down with the young actors of the cast for an intimate roundtable discussion. We were lucky enough to see one more hallway scene involving a spat between Clara and Miller being sH๏τ in the late afternoon. Though it was one brief day, our visit revealed just how dedicated the team is to getting it right.
The Perfect Director To Adapt Colleen Hoover
Regretting You could not have landed a better director to translate Colleen Hoover’s poignant romantic adult drama and coming-of-age story from the page to the screen than Josh Boone. His bona fides in adapting books are deep, and there’s no better example of what he can do in the genre than his 2014 adaptation of John Green’s bestselling book The Fault In Our Stars. That movie is what really put Boone on the map, and he’s carried what he’s learned to the set of Regretting You.
Morelos praised Boone for how efficiently he runs his set, with no wasted time, and they all mentioned how comfortable he made them feel while on set. Morelos was encouraged to improv throughout filming, which we saw during the locker room scene where she changed up the nickname she called Thames’ Miller with each take.
Grace and Thames confirmed that Boone makes it really fun to be on set. As Grace explained it, working with a director of Boone’s caliber and with scene partners like Thames and Morelos makes it really easy to get up and go to set. “Even whenever I’m getting up at four in the morning, I’m just like, you know what? I’m so happy to be working with Josh Boone,” she explained.
Casting Mckenna Grace & Mason Thames As Clara & Miller
While the Regretting You book starts with Morgan, it truly becomes Clara’s story, and so it was important to nail the casting, not just of the adults, but also of the teenagers. Regretting You is a romance, but there’s a layered story of grief, loss, acceptance, and the secrets between parent and child that is just as important. Without the heartbreak of the story, there would be no healing.
As such, the casting required actors who could capture the full spectrum of the human experience and make it feel grounded and real rather than turning into melodrama. To that end, the cast ᴀssembled for Regretting You is perfect casting all the way down:
- Allison Williams – Morgan Grant
- Dave Franco – Jonah Sullivan
- Mckenna Grace – Clara Grant
- Mason Thames – Miller Adams
- Clancy Brown – Hank “Gramps” Adams
- Sam Morelos – Lexie
- Scott Eastwood – Chris Grant
- Willa Fitzgerald – Jenny Davidson
The relationship between Clara and Miller is secretly the heart of the story, and Mckenna Grace and Mason Thames are magic together. Their chemistry is undeniable, to the point that their social media posts and public hand-holding have sent fans into a tizzy of speculation that they’re dating for real. Their young, first-time love story is the most delightful part of the book, transporting anyone back to their first love, or resonating with a younger generation who are currently in theirs.
Of course, it helps that Regretting You isn’t the first time that the pair have worked together. As Grace explained, they already had natural chemistry thanks to having just worked together on the upcoming, Green Day-inspired movie New Year’s Rev, so no screen test was needed for Regretting You:
“It was so funny, though, because Mason and I actually just came off of a different project together. So this is our second film back-to-back, still playing love interests. So whenever we met, neither of us knew [that they were both in Regretting You]. He DMed me, and he was like, ‘Hey, I can’t wait to work together!’ And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, on the Green Day project that you’re doing!’ And he was like, ‘No, I’m talking about Regretting You.’ So we had no clue that we were starting! So, thank goodness we have. I like to thank good chemistry.”
Her explanation prompted Sam Morelos to chime in, “I thought that they knew each other for years when I first met them – genuinely.“
Of course, all that romantic chemistry is great, but no high school romance is complete without a few blow-out fights, the kind that happens between two young people trying to figure out the tangle of their emotions for the first time. ʙuттerflies and heart eyes are all well and good, but the real test of whether puppy love has the foundation to become real, deep love, is whether that new relationship can withstand arguments.
Luckily, Thames and Grace had just as much fun filming the fight scenes as they did filming the romantic ones. In fact, they were some of Grace’s favorite scenes to film, as she revealed with a laugh:
“I really enjoyed whenever we just started [out in the relationship], I thought that it was funny that we got to argue. Yeah, it was kind of fun. It was just fun going back and forth because usually all of our stuff is just like, oh-so lovey dovey. So it was just fun to go back and forth. Finally, we get to fight. Finally!”
Mckenna Grace Embodies The Fictional Clara Grant
Fans of the book will appreciate how delightful it was that the real-life Mckenna Grace naturally shares so many of good girl Clara’s slightly Type A personality traits. After Thames and Morelos confessed they hadn’t originally known it was a book, Grace revealed that she’s not only read the Colleen Hoover book, but she also ran to grab the dog-eared copy she carried with her every day to set, with a bright, “Gosh, I keep my book in my bag!“
Indeed, it was well-loved: every few pages had a sticky tab, and every square inch had highlighter markings or notes scribbled in the margins. Grace explained that while she didn’t do much improv in the movie, as Morelos did, if she added a line that wasn’t in the script, it was from the book. Her diligence in memorizing the book was a thing of beauty, and an effort that would make the straight-A student Clara proud.
Another “that’s so Clara” moment happened when Grace told us her least favorite scene to film: “[The scene] after my dad’s funeral, I did not enjoy having to smoke the fake weed because it was not fun.”
Even Grace herself acknowledges the similarities between her and Clara, saying that she sees a lot of herself in the character. When asked if playing the role made her rethink the way she communicates with her own loved ones, particularly the way we keep things from one another and let those lines of communication atrophy, she had an unsurprisingly thoughtful answer:
“It just makes me laugh because it reminds me of my mom and me. Whenever I read the character in the script and the book, especially, it just reminds me of my relationship. Not exactly like that, but in a way, Clara just reminds me of myself whenever I look at her. I feel like Clara goes through a phase where she’s ʙuттing heads and all of that. And it’s funny because now I feel like I’m on the other side of my little going crazy in my head teenager phase. So it’s just fun to be acting that and playing Clara. But I guess I always try to think about and be very conscious of the things that I say, and I always feel like it’s better to say too much than feel like you didn’t get anything off of your chest.”
Mason Thames Is Also The Perfect Miller Adams
From what we saw on set and of the scenes being filmed, Thames also nails Miller’s balance of confident and caring atтιтude, exuding the quiet self-ᴀssurance with which Miller carries himself – and his cheeky flirtatiousness. While Grace already sees a lot of herself in Clara, Thames strives to be more like his character.
“I just wish I was Miller,” he explained. “He’s exactly what I want to be. He’s just a cool person, and the way he interacts… Well, okay, wait, wait. Hold on a minute. Hold on a minute. Maybe the best parts of Miller. Yeah, I kinda got myself in a hole here, huh?” Thames broke off sheepishly.
“No, I understand what you mean,” reᴀssured Grace. “He’s very open.”
Thames continued: “The one thing I love so much about Miller is that I’ve always been a film person, and so is Miller. I relate to him a lot in that aspect, and I’ve always wanted to be a director and that’s his dream as well. So I relate to him a lot, to that end.“
We also got to see Thames with Miller’s trademark lollipops, which, as book readers know, is a small but significant detail that helps make seeming bad boy Miller Adams, well, Miller Adams.
When I asked Thames how many lollipops he thought he’d gone through on the film set, his eyes widened as he actually did the math: “Let me think. Hold on. Yesterday was 20. Oh my gosh. In one day. In one day!“
“He goes through so many,” interjected Grace. “Well, also, yesterday, I kept on slapping them out of [his] hands. He comes up to me, and goes, ‘You won’t.’ And I’m like, ‘I will!’ and I’ll just smack it.”
Thames nodded in resignation. “Probably over a hundred already. Oh my gosh, that’s insane. Over a hundred.”
At that point, the conversation descended into Grace and Morelos trying to calculate exactly how many lollipops Thames had eaten on set, playfully accusing him of going through them too fast. The team-up prompted the beleaguered Thames to protest that he had to start crunching down on them when they got too small. While not the most important detail of the film, the good-natured banter underscored just how great the cast chemistry is, as well as how even those little details matter to Josh Boone and his team.
After spending a day with the cast and on set, that was my biggest takeaway: Everyone behind this adaptation genuinely cares, and that caring shines through in the elements, both big and small, that the adaptation nails. When Regretting You hits theaters this fall, Clara and Miller are poised to become everyone’s new favorite fictional romance while reminding us that even in the darkest times, love–of all kinds–is the only thing that guides us out again.
Regretting You hits theaters on Friday, October 24.
