When Julia received the movie script she thought that it would have only worked with George Clooney in the main male role. George, on the other hand, felt it only worked with Julia. He hadn’t done a romantic comedy since One Fine Day. 

British Director Ol Parker – who is behind the success of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films – only had Julia and George in mind for the two lead characters in this movie which was actually written for them. 

When asked about the filming, George said: “Ol wrote a beautiful script, and got his group and figured out a way to make us all pay attention. It was nothing but fun, there wasn’t a bad day on set which is a rare thing.”

The movie is set in Bali, but locations were mainly in wild Australia. Julia had a few remarks to make about that: “Everything  looks like paradise in the movie, but in reality everything’s trying to kill you. A seashell. No, that’s actually something that will kill you. So it was more like … Ticket to the Hospital!”.

Carrie Fisher’s daughter Billy Lourd, plays Wren, loved filming in Queensland. She recalled being there with her family: “I made a little book for my child because he won’t remember these moments.” She went through breastfeeding, then quarantining. 

Growning up with her mum, ‘the funniest woman of all time’, she added: “I really enjoyed the comedy moments. I need to be funny to survive”.

Kaitlyn Denver, whose role is the George and Julia’s on-screen daughter Lily, said: “It was a masterclass working with them. I felt like I was a total sponge. I never did a rom-com before so I was looking to do something different, use a different part of my brain!.” 

Charming newcomer Lucas Bravo, who plays Julia’s younger boyfriend, Paul, said: “In every scene with George and Julia they  always tried to put me in this spotlight with so much love. Oli allowed me to improvise and gave me room to try things, and George and Julia helped me navigate, so we created these crazy scenes. The kissing scene with Julia on the plane: we were just laughing….they were telling us to do it again”. 

Then George said: “Julia wanted to do it again!”. 

Julia replied: “It was in my contract!”. Like in the film, these two seem to always joke.

The soundtrack of their dance scenes was chosen by George. Going through the scene where George and Julia embarrass their daughter with a drunken dance, Parker said: “Jump Around is George’s go-to party trick”. Parker also said: “ I needed it to be under a minute long because it was too expensive to use the song but in the end it came at one minute four seconds long which was another million dollars on top! (They all laugh) But it was so good that they didn’t make me cut the four seconds!”. 

Related articles 

My 2018 interview with Julia Roberts