“It feels to me like the classic romcoms that you just don’t see anymore,” said producer Esther Hornstein of Love Again, a new love story opening exclusively in SM Cinemas on 10 May. “Two heartbroken people in New York City — with different reasons for their heartbreak — find their way to each other, one knowingly, the other unknowingly. It has a lot of heart and very real characters.”
One of those characters is Rob Burns, a music journalist who falls in love with the unknown woman who has been sending romantic messages to his work cellphone number — without knowing that the number, which used to belong to her late fiance — is currently being used by another person.
Playing the romantic male lead is Sam Heughan, who rose to international fame thanks to his starring role in the popular drama Outlander. Priyanka Chopra Jonas stars opposite Heughan as Mira Ray. Celine Dion is also in the movie, playing herself and the subject of Rob’s writing assignment.
For Heughan, preparing to play the lead in a romantic comedy wasn’t just getting ready for a role, it was opening up a whole world of film.
“I started watching lots of romantic comedies, which I’d avoided over the years because I thought they weren’t for me. But as soon as I started to watch them, I fell in love with them,” he said. “They’re brilliant, they’re adult, they’re funny, they’re dark — it was a revelation to me. And I think this movie is a homage or nod to that tradition.”
Preparation also was a chance for the actor to walk in the shoes of a music snob who gets his comeuppance in the form of the Queen of Power Ballads. “It was a fun movie to prep for,” he said. “Jim sent me a playlist of very contemporary music — and it was pretty challenging music because Rob is a bit of an academic. He’s a cynic, a critical music snob who falls for the music of Celine Dion. At first, he only hears these songs on the surface — he thinks they’re overly embellished, overly romantic. But it turns out there’s truth to them. These songs really move him when he opens himself up to them. That’s a really nice journey to go on with the character.”
Love Again is distributed in the Philippines by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.