“What happens when you stop telling love stories?” Actors Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page, who many viewers fell in love with in “Bridgerton,” explored the depths of that question and the importance of romantic comedy movies in a conversation about their latest film, “You, Me & Tuscany.”
“I think people give rom coms a short wrap sometimes,” the Bridgerton star explained in an exclusive conversation ahead of the film’s trailer release. “When you start making rom coms, you start making movies where people resolve their problems, like talking to each other, and I think that is something we’ve lost, and the whole, kind of, they don’t make them like this anymore. What they don’t make is movies where people talk and figure out who they are and fall in love with because of who they are and overcome the obstacles because of who they are, as opposed to just who punches hardest with the most.”
Bailey leads Will Packer’s latest rom-com as Anna, a directionless twenty-something who’s given up on her dream of becoming a chef. After losing both her house-sitting job and her home on the same day, she impulsively heads to Tuscany thanks to a chance encounter with Matteo, a charming Italian stranger with an empty family villa. Planning to secretly stay just one night, despite warnings from her brutally honest best friend, Claire, Anna’s scheme unravels when Matteo’s mother, Gabriella, arrives unexpectedly. Panicked, Anna lets Gabriella believe she’s Matteo’s fiancée, a lie that becomes even messier when Matteo’s magnetic cousin, Michael (played by Regé-Jean Page), appears. As sparks fly, Anna is forced to confront the choices that brought her here, and the possibility of a life-changing love.
“I truly wanted to be a part of this project, because when I read the script, I was like, ‘This is a movie I want to watch with my sister, with my girls on the couch and be like, oh my gosh, do you see him?’” Bailey explained. “This is a movie that makes me feel good. It’s joyful.”
Beyond the feel-good love story, Bailey was equally inspired by her character’s journey to finding herself and reconnecting with her passions. Although she has been making strides in the acting world with roles like “The Little Mermaid” and “The Color Purple,” the star explained how she drew inspiration from her first love—music—when working on the film.
“There are so many layers to this film that’re so beautiful,” she continued. “I was so excited to play someone who loves making food. She’s very passionate about it. I have things that I’m really passionate about, music is one of them. So it was really beautiful to pull from [that place] where your inspiration and passion come from. That fire, that you may have doing music or singing in a recording studio, [someone] who is making food, they have that same fire, that same want, that same hunger that lives inside of them. And so discovering that within Anna was a really fun thing for me.”
Meanwhile, Page, who is no stranger to making viewers swoon with his characters, explained how his character, Michael’s journey into love and letting his guard down, was “fun to play with.”
“This movie isn’t just about the romantic love between the leads. It’s about family. It’s about the people you love in your life, and where responsibility lies with that,” he shared. “What you get in a lot of these classic rom coms and romances is finding the person who unlocks the pieces of you that you are denying yourself, and I think that’s what’s really fun to play with. With my character, it was letting Halle’s natural light and joy in.”
For Packer, the creator behind hit films like “Girls Trip,” this film explores a new territory,
“There are a lot of people out there who said: ‘Rom-coms are dead. People don’t want to see rom-coms anymore. They’re not going to the movies to see rom coms.’ But the reality is that we need them now more than ever. We love to fall in love. We love to laugh,” explaining how younger generations haven’t had a “classic rom-com,” the producer explains the importance of this project. “When you get it right, it stands the test of time. So that’s one thing that I think I’m really hopeful for this film, is that it will be for an audience that maybe hasn’t seen themselves in a rom-com like this.”
“You are stepping into another world. You’re curious about other people. You find those missing pieces of yourself, because the world is incomplete without love,” Page added, admitting he gets a little cheesy when discussing this. “You cannot understand each other unless you are willing to take yourself out of your comfort zone and fall in love with another who is not you, who has the pieces of you that might be missing or that might be broken or that might be cracked that you would never find if you didn’t just pay attention to people outside of where you live.”
Viewers can escape into the romantic Tuscany valley and swoon over Page’s abs on the big screen on April 10, 2026.
