ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Maybe I Do stars Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey about the upcoming comedy movie, which will be in theaters nationwide on January 27. The duo discussed balancing comedy with moving moments.
“Michelle and Allen have reached the point in their relationship to take the next steps toward marriage. Thinking it is a good idea to invite their parents to finally meet, they set a dinner and make it a family affair,” says the synopsis. “To everyone’s surprise, the affair takes on a whole new meaning as the parents already know each other all too well – they’ve been cheating on their spouses for months…with each other. Trapped in this precarious predicament, they try to hide their dalliances from the kids while confronting their spouse’s lovers head-on. Let the games begin!”
Tyler Treese: Emma, Maybe I Do has such an incredible cast. Richard Gere plays your father in the movie and he famously worked with your aunt. What was most rewarding about getting to work with so many legends as scene partners?
Emma Roberts: I mean, it’s one of those movies that is truly a once-in-a-lifetime, as an actor, to get to be in the same room as all these people. I mean, I’ve seen every Diane Keaton movie, every Susan Sarandon movie, obviously Richard Gere, love him, William H. Macy, and to get to team up with Luke again after we did Holidate together … every day, I was like, “I’m very lucky. I have to enjoy this!”
Luke, your character introduction is so funny, you catching the bridal bouquet. The film has like a lot of good laughs, but there’s a lot of heart within the drama that’s at play. What did you like about opening up with that more comedic scene?
Luke Bracey: Yeah, that’s such a funny way of starting a film and I think, in a great way, you’re kind of expecting the film to then go maybe in that more slapstick direction. Then suddenly, you’re just hit with so much meaning and pathos in between all these hilarious moments. So that’s a real credit to Michael Jacobs, the writer [and] director who crafted this story so brilliantly to have all these different puzzle pieces and all these different relationships and ideas on life and, and people’s experience of life and love, and to have them fit together so beautifully and create this really amazing piece of storytelling. That’s a credit to Michael. To start off with one of the boldest moves a boyfriend has ever tried, which is catching the bridal bouquet.
Then to go through the movie and to find that it’s a real poignant and funny movie about love and what it is and what we search for in it and what we hope to find and what we hope not to find. Yeah, it’s a really unique film in the way that it ties all those bits together … all those perfect bits of a rom-com that you need. It has them in a perfect amount. It’s perfectly seasoned and I think it’s baked to perfection too.
Emma Roberts: I love that we’ve gone into cooking metaphors at this hour of the day.
Luke Bracey: Now we are!
Emma, you mentioned working with Luke before. How great is it that you don’t have to build chemistry from the ground up here and you could go straight into the film, knowing that you work well with him?
Emma Roberts: Yeah, it’s so nice. It was so comforting to be able to do this with him. And we got to have a lot of fun with it. It’s nice to be on set with someone that you’re friends with, especially when … there was definitely first day of school nerves, coming onto set with all of these big actors. So it was nice to be able to do that with Luke.
Luke, your character’s so interesting because he’s fully in love, but he’s also just scared of marriage. He’s afraid of what aging will do to the relationship based on what he’s seen with his own parents. What did you find most interesting about that theme of aging and changing with someone because sometimes maybe love isn’t enough?
Luke Bracey: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s my character’s big fear, that love is predetermined in that way and that the way that marriage and love goes is what his parents had. I think it’s really beautiful, his journey to try and discover that it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s nothing set in life that means something has to go in a certain direction and it is up to you and your partner to forge your life forward and to keep making it the beautiful thing that it is.
Nothing is set in stone. If you do leave something and let it just sit, then it’s not going to evolve with you as people. That’s just a beautiful lesson for life and something I found really beautiful about this story and about Allen’s journey in it. He got away from the fact that just because your parents had it like that doesn’t mean that you’ve got to have it like that.