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SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the People We Meet On Vacation film now streaming on Netflix.
Romantic comedy aficionados may point out similarities between Emily Henry’s People We Meet On Vacation and When Harry Met Sally, which the author and film adaptation director Brett Haley confirm, and star Tom Blyth, who plays Alex Nilsen in the movie felt that the Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan starrer was a good guide.
People We Meet on Vacation stars Emily Bader as the Poppy Wright to Blyth’s Alex, a pair of friends who travel somewhere every summer, until they have a falling out. A Barcelona-set wedding gives them a chance to reconnect and trace what went wrong, which of course lies in their almost crossing the friends-to-lovers boundary.
“At first I saw the similarities, and it’s one of my favorite films. I was nervous to even tread into that territory. But actually, our characters are so different because it’s not like Alex is Billy Crystal, and [Poppy’s] Meg Ryan,” Blyth told Deadline in December. “They both have qualities of [Harry and Sally] and other qualities. It didn’t feel like we were stepping in the same shoes. [We paid] homage, but it didn’t feel like we had big shoes to fill. We do our own version of it. But also, there’s nothing wrong with having a north star that is one of the best films of all time.”
Bader agreed that a goal would be to “get anywhere near the feeling of” the Rob Reiner-directed film.
Below, Bader and Blyth talk key scenes from the first roadtrip moment to the Bamboula’s dance scene as well as their feelings of bringing the first Emily Henry book adaptation to life.
Editor’s Note: This interview took place before the deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner.
DEADLINE: Could you talk about filming the road trip scene where your characters can’t stand each other, and then transitioning to them falling in love?
TOM BLYTH: I mean, that first major scene between us. It’s the When Harry Met Sally homage. That scene lives rent-free in my head with the two of them. It’s the yin and yang of it, one of them’s grumpy, one of them’s not at any given time. I feel like we really leaned into that. It’s in the book. It’s very clearly Emily Henry paying homage to possibly the greatest rom-com of all time. And then we got to go in and, instead of shy away from that, we got to lean into it and also pay homage to a film that we love.
EMILY BADER: I always imagined the journey being, from the very beginning, Poppy is very fascinated by him, and wants to break him down a little bit and see if she can charm him. She’s sees it as a challenge in some way. And then in that first scene in the diner, [where it] breaks down and they start bantering—
BLYTH: That was one of our last scenes as well, wasn’t it?
BADER: Yeah. I think that’s the moment where she’s like, there’s so much more to this guy than just the other Linfield Ohio person.
BLYTH: What makes the relationship so fun from the beginning is when [Emily] get[s] to start poking cracks in my outer shell, and then see [Alex] breaking down. You see him becoming this ‘Vacation Alex,’ which is just him actually being free.
DEADLINE: Another scene I really felt that in is the dance scene. Did you add anything? Did you improvise when choreographing it? How was that?
BLYTH: It was a joint effort, wasn’t it?
BADER: It was a joint effort. [The choreographer, Maya Taylor] knew that I was nervous. This was not originally in the script. So when I signed on, there was not a dance scene. And I would have been very scared if there was. It wouldn’t have changed anything, but I think she handled my nerves very well, and we just came up with ideas and strung ‘em together. [Tom] came up with a lot of stuff.
DEADLINE: That’s evident.
BLYTH: I probably got more into it. Yeah, I don’t consider myself a dancer, but I do enjoy it. And also, you don’t get a lot of opportunities to do this in film. At first, I think I was a little shy about it and playing it cool. And [director] Brett [Haley] was like, ‘Just go there, man. Lean into it.’ Because Alex is like, this is fully him having his walls broken down completely, and just coming out of his shell, so ‘embrace it.’ So then I did.
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BADER: [There are] lot of references to other movies. There’s the part where [Poppy’s] moving her hips, and that’s like Cameron Diaz [in] Charlie’s Angels, when she’s like, scooting towards the mirror. There’s so many moments in there that [choreographer Maya Taylor] pulled out, which I thought was really fun.
BLYTH: Brett is a massive cinephile. Huge, and so with the dance, he was like, ‘Here’s a reference from this. Here’s a reference from this.’ He loves to pay homage to other films. It was a good way in for us, because we love film. And so, if you can point to a great dance sequence and go, ‘Look, they did it there.’ You go, ‘Okay yeah we’ll do it.’
DEADLINE: Going off of nerves, pressure. This is the first Emily Henry book to be adapted. How did you feel going into that? I’m sure there were nerves, but also, a freedom of not having anything coming before it?
BADER: I feel like I didn’t fully understand the pressure until after we finished filming. The process felt so freeing and fun when we actually made it. And then when it was over, I think what really did it for me is, I was on Goodreads or something, writing a review.
BLYTH: Writing a review? You do that?
BADER: On occasion. And I saw how many reviews the book has, and I was like, ‘This is taking me two minutes.’ [Those reviews] take time, and then I had a minor crash out about it.
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BLYTH: When I did The Hunger Games [The Ballad of Songbirds And Snakes], I was nervous then. But then I realized that people, especially young people who love books, tend to be extremely kind, extremely thoughtful, intelligent and caring, and people always talk about the pressure of a book adaptation, I found it the opposite.
I found it to be the most supportive audience, because they genuinely care, and they also want to see something different, and they want to see the story that is true to the book, but also is a fresh take, because they’re watching it for a reason. They want to have a different experience. So I found it nothing but positive, similar to that, and I would keep doing book adaptations again and again.
BADER: That’s so true. It’s such a positive community.
BLYTH: They were so kind when we went to drop into the fan screening. That’s been my experience overall. It takes the pressure off. I’m blessed to be part of this little community.
DEADLINE: My last question for both of you is about the ending running scene and just what it was like taping that, getting those comedic beats, but then also the emotional moments across?
BADER: The running. It was funny because the day before the running, we shot the cycling class. And when I was doing the thing where I’m yanking my foot out, [I] pulled my quad a little bit, bad actually, and so I was trying not to limp while I was running the entire time, but it kind of worked, because [Poppy]’s not supposed to be good at running. It was basically me just running for like 14 hours, and then we got to portion it out because I think the emotional part needed to be on its own, and they really just gave us time to be with each other. We knew it was important to try to get that.
BLYTH: I am not a runner, but I kind of fell in love with running through this film, and it was my way in for Alex, actually. It was how I started to understand him, was by becoming a runner. Now, I occasionally run, but I felt like was in good shape during this because I was running a lot and doing a lot of cardio, so the running was quite nice. Also I was just jogging a lot. [Emily] had to sprint.
BADER: I was huffin’ and puffin’.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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