Netflix's "The Half of It" Star Daniel Diemer Talks Paul Munsky, Taco Sausage, and Self-Discovery
Much like his character Paul Munsky in Netflix’s new young adult drama The Half of It, Daniel Diemer has a personalized recipe for taco sausage.
The key ingredient: Chipotle pepper. Mix that into mayonnaise by itself. Add the sausages, slipping in cracked black pepper and sea salt. Guacamole, greens, and tomatoes to garnish, with a little bit of sour cream to tie it all together. “It's absolutely delicious,” Daniel tells Teen Vogue.
In the movie, Daniel plays Paul, an earnest teenage jock who works for his family’s sausage business and needs some help winning over his crush: the literary-minded, mysterious Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire). He finds that help in protagonist Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis), who he pays to write love letters and text messages that Aster thinks are from him. He doesn’t realize that Ellie herself has a crush on Aster — and that his friendship with Ellie might soon be the most important relationship in his life.
The film is Daniel’s biggest role to date, following small parts in The Man in the High Castle and Sacred Lies. He was drawn to the film, which is written and directed by Alice Wu, because of how “heartfelt” the story seemed. The Half of It is a love story, but that love isn’t just romantic; it’s felt in deep friendships, in parental connections, and in discovering and embracing one’s identity. As Ellie comes to understand her queerness and build a stronger relationship with her dad, she also helps Paul embrace his passions and become a better communicator. He, in turn, is a confidant for Ellie and her first real friend, someone who challenges her to step outside her comfort zone.
“Alice wrote this intricate, nuanced project,” Daniel says. “I transformed very similarly [to Paul] in a lot of ways. I [was] an athlete. I might not have been as dopey, but I definitely struggled with my fair share of girls and communication when I was in high school. Through the filming process, [I found] confidence in these parts of myself that I had never really fallen in love with before.”
Daniel grew up off the west coast of Canada, in a town called Brentwood Bay on Vancouver Island. He started playing soccer at age five; as a kid, his dream was to be a professional athlete. But after back injuries ended that career goal, he accidentally ended up on an entertainment track when he modeled for an art class to get out of English.
“The first time I ever stepped foot on set, it was like I fell in love with the people that I got to work with and [finding] different emotional outlets for what I was feeling,” Daniel says. “Because, at 17, 18 [it was] a very confusing time. To be able to actually put those emotions out in a safe place, was just really therapeutic for me.”
The Half of It takes places in a small, religious town, and Paul is a product of that environment. When he finds out Ellie is attracted to women, his response is hurtful and damaging. He thinks she’s going to hell. Filming those scenes with Leah and Alice, Daniel says, was “difficult” to navigate. “It was something that I took very seriously,” he says. “Alice communicated very clearly about her experiences and what she dealt with, and I also have other friends that I've talked to about issues like this. As somebody who's never had to deal with that, a lot of it was just listening.”
As they work through each other’s experiences and insecurities, there’s a lot to enjoy about Ellie and Paul’s slow-building friendship, which even features him taking some cooking tips from her father. Though they keep secrets from each other about their romantic lives, Paul and Ellie don’t lie to each other about how they’re feeling; they talk about their dreams and aspirations, and whether they want to leave their small town. This sincerity, Daniel says, is his favorite part. “That's the kind of friendship I look for in my own life,” he says.
Each opens up to the world and what it can offer them, which is a direct result of the way they push each other. For Paul, that means not trying to pretend to be somebody he isn’t — and standing up to his parents when he wants to change their decades-old sausage recipe.
Now that The Half of It is out on Netflix, Daniel is thinking about his next move. He’d love to take on more indie features, and to explore action and fantasy genres. But, ultimately, the genre isn’t as important as the story itself.
“I've always wanted to work with people that want to tell heartfelt stories that really show and demonstrate love in different ways,” he says. “I hope people connect to [The Half of It] and feel that they’re not alone. There's so much pressure on social media to grow up fast and to be somebody or be like somebody. To really find your own identity is such an important thing.”
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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
