Much like the magnetic pull and the prolonged chemistry that Tessa and Hardin have for one another in the bestselling phenomenon that is the After series, the books cannot be separated from the movie franchise for too long.
The fanbase that initially formed on Wattpad back in 2013 when Anna Todd published her fan fiction story inspired by One Direction’s Harry Styles has exploded into a massive following that and the movie, which had been a super anticipated one helped After having a No. 1 weekend at the box office last year.
Following the immense success of the first movie starring Josephine Langford as Tessa and Hero Fiennes Tiffin as Hardin comes the sequel After We Collided, which has proved to be bulletproof given its international performance that outperformed Tenet with its per-screen average last month. Now there’s already two more sequels on the way. So did the cast read ahead to prepare beforehand?
Here’s how Langford balances the books with the script, “For me I read all the books before I started because I wanted to know the journey and I wanted to know the arc and it’s the same as the script.
It would be nice if everything was shot in order and you didn’t have to read ahead and you could be in the moment. But, just with the realities of filmmaking, it’s not practical or feasible, so I read ahead.”
“When you have 1000, 2000 pages of someone’s internal dialogue, you really get to know their thinking process and how they react in certain situations. It’s just like having a window into someone’s brain. It’s really helpful,” said Langford.
On the other hand, Hero Fiennes Tiffin doesn’t have the same approach when it comes to the books vs. script. On being asked about his approach he said, “Yeah, I have a pretty different process to Jo, especially given the first book being written from Tessa’s perspective.
Unfortunately, because the scripts simply cannot encompass everything that’s in the books, I made a conscious decision not to read them and really make my source material only be the script, but having Anna Todd so close to us all the time, she’s kind of our go-to rule book for making sure we stay in line with the books.”
Well, we wouldn’t complain. Even though their approach to studying for their respective character is different and does not really align with each other, their on-screen chemistry runs cohesively and that is all that matters for the fanbase and that is not disappointing in any shape or form.
