‘Choose Love’ Director Talks Making Netflix’s First Interactive Romcom
Stuart McDonald deeply admires Netflix’s first interactive movie Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. He describes the film as a dark journey wherein a viewer’s decisions in a gamer nerd’s life could lead to acid trips, existential torment, suicide, stuffed bunnies, and decapitated heads. But McDonald knows audiences will have a different reaction to the streaming behemoth’s first interactive romantic comedy, which he directed. In Choose Love, audiences wander into the pages of a fan fiction to decide which suitor is best for the film’s career-driven protagonist, Cami (played by Laura Marano): the rock star, the ready-to-wed lawyer or her first love turned activist.
“I love a dark movie but once I’ve seen it, I’ve had my fill,” McDonald tells Rolling Stone. “But the hope is with a romcom that because it’s upbeat and feels good that you could go back and revisit it again and again.”
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There are at least 15 unique endings amongst the three eligible bachelors in Choose Love, which could be dependent on whether you choose to have lunch with an ex or say yes to a phone-call proposal.
Despite watching the film(s) hundreds of times over, McDonald says picking a favorite ending is like picking a favorite child. When it came to constructing the 77-minute choose-your-own-adventure, he worked alongside writer Josann McGibbon (Runaway Bride), who composed the intricate script and presented the idea to Netflix with producer Robin Snyder. The two later worked on a digital maze (McGibbon was nicknamed the maze master) that outlined each outcome.
“It takes a little while to see the simplicity within the complexity,” McDonald says.
Although new to the realm of interactives, McDonald has always had a soft spot for romantic comedies, notably Bridget Jones’s Diary, When Harry Met Sally…, and Netflix’s When We First Met. He’s directed episodes of CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Netflix’s A Perfect Pairing, where Victoria Justice (Victorious) stars as an L.A. wine company executive who heads to the Australian countryside to land a new client. In Choose Love, Avan Jogia, another Victorious offspring, stars as a flirtatious, frosty-tipped vocalist and Marano, recognizable from Disney’s Austin & Ally, plays the lead, Cami. Corporate lawyer Paul (Scott Michael Foster) and schoolteacher Jack (Jordi Webber) are also vying for her attention. McDonald, though, says he’s gravitated toward ex-childhood actors. Those that age out of childhood stardom either come out “sunny side up,” he says, or fried hard.
“The ones who have come out sunny side up, they are amazing to work with because their level of skill and their level of just being at home on a set is incredible,” he says. “In some ways, I feel like part of an actor’s job is to get out of the way of acting. It’s to be so at ease being there that you’re not really putting [forth] a lot of effort on acting.”
With SAG-AFTRA actors and WGA members marching on picket lines across the country for fairer contracts, McDonald says he’s mostly concerned about backstage crew and the financial support they’ll receive. “I just hope you’re OK,” he says.
Along with any romcom, the film has its fair share of kitschy catchphrases, awkward pauses and squirming romance, but McDonald isn’t worried about critics of his newly-released film, especially with heightened guardrails around what creatives can and cannot say.
“There’s a bit of a gotcha culture going on, people are trying to catch people,” he says. “And I’m not convinced that it’s going to become more interesting if we treat artists like they’re fugitives.”
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