The Sun Is Also a Star's Yara Shahidi & Charles Melton Speak To FlickDirect

Automatically transcribed; may contain errors.

hi i'm allison with FlickDirect and I'm here at regal South Beach for the blue carpet premiere of the Sun is also a star and I'm gonna speak to Yarra UCD and Charles Melton so what was the most intriguing part and most interesting part about playing Natasha um what would I like about Natasha and what the challenge was is like she starts off as a very practical pragmatic human so it was a challenge to figure out like how do you convince the audience that she does fall in love and what I love about Nicolas writing is that this isn't a movie where Natasha just becomes Daniel like we see so many times her it's like I don't know like one of the most anti-climactic movies I've ever seen his grease when she just changes her entire self it's very true and comes out and he's like now we're in love I guess like it was beautiful the way Nicola wrote it because it genuinely makes me feel like Natasha didn't change her beliefs but she found room in her beliefs that makes face for Daniel and so being able to portray that on screen was fun but also I think the most challenging part like how do you start with somebody who literally starts by saying like I do not believe in love and then make her hopefully tell me what kind of input you got from Nicola um well honestly it was really what she gave us in the gift of the book that she wrote like recently my Nana we sent her a copy of the book and she was reading and then she's like I think I got Yara is copy because mine has all sorts of annotations in it but you know I think ultimately the guidance was in the script process and like figuring out who she envisioned Natasha to be so using the clues from the book and then in conversation with her as well so I know there's a little bit of politics in here because of the deportation story so how did you how did you take faced that challenge head-on well I think it was really important that we never got rid of the seriousness of what Natasha was going through at any point in this movie of like while you are seeing a love story we didn't want to feel like oh that's just a side thing happening I'm it's this love story because we know what it's like when families are affected by deportation we've seen it not only in the news but I think just in our own communities personally it's something that we experienced and so I think what was beautiful was approaching it from the point of view of how do you make this issue as human as possible and knowing that people hear about it from the political side all the time so how do you make it the point of view of like you see Natasha and how and you understand why this is so important to her in our family um if you could spend one day in your favorite city where would it be and what would you do my favorite city is my home like physically I think it should be its own little Township I would be listening to music like I already know it's a good day ever since I was little if Bob Marley's playing when I wake up I already know it's gonna be a fantastic day so as long as that's happening as long as I'd like my buh buh Kooks in the morning and I get to spend time with like my brothers and my mama and my Bubba like I'm a happy camper so you're a homebody family like yeah I think like I've been pretty blessed to genuinely love my family like I don't only love them I also like them what's one thing that's gonna surprise us about the moment I think it's just it's a quirky setup you know like it's it follows the book in terms of some interesting like kind of tangential moments of explaining culture explaining scientific theories and I think it makes it really unique aesthetically not exactly what you may expect of like a young adult romance interesting alright well we'll just have to wait and see but thank you so much thank you you're welcome thanks for talking with us hi Charles do you believe in love at first sight I do believe that love at first sight I really do it's a hopeful curiosity but you know there's a quote that Bruce Lee has where he says he does believe in love at first he does believe in love at first sight but he does believe in taking a second look what kind of input did you have from author nickel immune about the character well I mean you know her book is fantastic and you know the book itself tells the story of where these characters come from so as an actor I could draw a lot from you know the kinds of books he read the kinds of books Daniel Bay the poet the poets he loved the music he listened to the things he wrote like I really drew from that that really yeah what was the best part about playing so many things like filming in New York City is so beautiful and fantastic and to really dive into a character that's such a hopeless romantic who doesn't fear having his heart broken or being judged by the way he loves is a liberating thing to be a part of absolutely um was there any trepidation about taking on a character that is from a best-selling novel I mean no I mean sorry it's a little hot no there I was very excited to represent and be a part of a story that's so timely in today's time and a story that really installs hope and really focuses around love and humanizes a lot of things that we experience in today's social media and in the media that really bring a sense of just a what's the word I'm looking for I'm just very excited yes it's there's no trepidation I think that's something we need nowadays because I think that we're kind of moving away from all that helpful net hopefulness in life yeah I mean I think it's easy to get jaded you know I mean you know when we're little kids there's this innocence and this feeling of love like you know when you like somebody you tell them you like them right like you're you're not afraid if they're gonna say no right and you're not afraid if you're gonna get your heart broke and so there's something very aspirational about this love story that I think anybody no matter what age can connect to relate to and just love what thanks for talking with us we're really excited to say thank you so much for your time [Music]