Priyanka Chopra Jonas Says ‘Love Again’ Reminded Her of Working in Bollywood: ‘Hopefully I Get to Do More of These’
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For Priyanka Chopra Jonas, the opportunity to star in “Love Again,” the new Sony Pictures romance co-starring Sam Heughan and Celine Dion, echoed her film experience working in Bollywood.
“I was so excited about this movie because I read the script in one go. It was so sweet. It moved me tremendously, and I love that about cinema. I love the ability to be able to touch people,” Chopra Jonas told TheWrap. “And in my Bollywood work, I’ve done a lot of romantic movies, a lot of romantic comedies. I just never got the opportunity to do it here in my work in America. But with ‘Love Again,’ I hope to be able to do a lot more and showcase the variety of genres that I can work in and I’ll enjoy working in. So hopefully I get to do more of these.”
She stars as Mira Ray (Chopra Jonas), a children’s books illustrator still reeling from the loss of her boyfriend in a car accident two years prior. To get herself through her grief and get back on the dating scene, Mira starts texting her dead lover’s phone number. On the receiving end of those texts is Rob Burns (Heughan), a music critic at the New York Chronicle who is given a work phone from his boss — incidentally one with the same phone number as Mira’s late ex. Rob connects emotionally to the messages from Mira, and he eventually uses context clues to find her and meet her “organically.”
Chopra Jonas said that building that stranger-than-fiction story naturally onscreen all came down to being in the moment.
“With Mira’s character, she is stuck in the past, so it’s hard for her to even be present, forget thinking about the future,” she said. “To be able to pull yourself out of something when you’ve burdened yourself with feelings and emotions, that was a really tough journey for my character, and I really enjoyed unpacking that with her. But it was really important to think about what she’s feeling right now and not know what’s going to happen in her life.”
Rob relates to Mira’s texts because he himself experienced the loss of love in a different way when his fiancée called off their engagement shortly before their wedding.
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“I totally agree with Pri. It’s about the emotion and you gotta dig into that. Rob is cynical, he’s bitter, he’s been hurt. He’s shielding himself,” Heughan said. “He’s sort of turned into a crab; he’s guarded, and it’s all about that journey of opening up and allowing himself to feel again and to love again.”
So where does Dion fit in? Heughan’s character is assigned to write a profile on the Canadian superstar for the Chronicle, despite not being much of a fan. In an unexpected twist, Dion ends up playing a matchmaker of sorts for Mira and Rob. She turns the tables and gets to asking him questions. He opens up about his love life and Dion encourages him to pursue Mira.
To get into character himself, Heughan said he made a playlist to fit Rob’s eclectic music tastes and had it playing on loop.
“I literally had it on loop and there was some really cool weird stuff, very avant-garde. We tried to find some stuff that was kind of out there,” he revealed. “I started listening to it all the time. There’s some really chill stuff as well as some reggaeton. He’s quite an eclectic guy, but I think that’s what’s so interesting. So then for him, Celine [Dion], who would have been very mainstream for him, he would have rebelled against it. But by the end, he’s her biggest fan.”
“Love Again” is in theaters now.
