LONDON — For Rose Matafeo, there’s simply one thing a few traditional love story. Notably films from Hollywood’s golden age, that includes heartthrobs with trans-Atlantic accents, witty feminine leads and nil cynicism.
It follows, then, that there’s an air of midcentury romanticism to “Starstruck,” the HBO Max present Matafeo created and stars in. “I completely don’t stay in actuality, I stay in fantasy, so it’s fairly pure for me to make a factor that was not real looking,” Matafeo, 30, stated in a latest video name.
“Starstruck” explores the fraught and joyfully unbelievable love story of Jessie (Matafeo), a New Zealander in her twenties struggling to make a life for herself in London, and Tom (Nikesh Patel), a well-known British actor. The second season — now streaming — picks up the place the primary left off, with Jessie having deserted her plans to maneuver again to New Zealand, and the pair embarking on an official relationship.
Matafeo, who co-wrote episodes with Alice Snedden and Nic Sampson, wished “Starstruck” to be a “mixture of want success, fantasy stuff and in addition real looking dialogue.” In a video name, she mentioned the inspirations behind that medley. These are edited excerpts from that dialog.
When Matafeo watched Bob Fosse’s “Candy Charity” within the lead as much as writing “Starstruck,” she was taken by its central character, Charity (performed by Shirley MacLaine). On the coronary heart of the movie is Charity’s want for love, nevertheless a lot she is spurned in her pursuit of it. Matafeo noticed a few of herself within the character, “this hopelessly romantic one who will nonetheless consider in love for the remainder of her life, even when all of her experiences of affection are all so detrimental,” she stated.
When creating Jessie, Matafeo was additionally impressed by Charity’s pleasure and confidence. There’s a wildness to Jessie: In a single episode we see her dancing by the streets after a one-night stand, and in one other, she wades right into a pond in an ill-considered romantic gesture. Jessie is “unembarrassed to be in love and unembarrassed to be excessive, and placing one hundred pc into issues,” Matafeo stated. “I feel that’s positively an inspiration from ‘Candy Charity.’”
‘Barefoot within the Park’
Neil Simon’s 1963 play “Barefoot within the Park” not solely influenced the dialogue in “Starstruck,” with Matafeo emulating the play’s naturalistic wit, but additionally the dynamic between Tom and Jessie.
The play, which Simon later tailored right into a 1967 movie starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, tells the story of Corie and Paul, a newlywed couple who transfer into their first house in New York Metropolis. The pair have totally different temperaments: Corie is a lovable “nightmare” with “zero chill,” stated Matafeo, whereas Paul is extra strait-laced with dry humor. Jessie and Tom match into this odd couple mildew, with Jessie’s occasional chaos and frequent eccentricity balanced by Tom’s steadiness. The pair “are very totally different and are available from very totally different worlds,” Matafeo stated. “I like seeing characters which might be electrical and maintain one another alive.”
‘When Harry Met Sally’
Earlier than writing “Starstruck,” Matafeo learn the screenplays of a number of romantic movies, amongst them “L.A. Story,” “Earlier than Dawn” and Nora Ephron’s 1989 comedy “When Harry Met Sally.” The latter influenced how Matafeo approached writing her present.
In Ephron’s script, “a lot of the character and the story is revealed in dialogue fairly than the massive print,” Matafeo stated. She preferred that the screenplay wasn’t overly didactic in regards to the feelings the performers had been to painting. In maintaining her personal scripts sparse, Matafeo stated she wished to depart room for the actors to deliver their very own strategy. “Although I’m there in individual being like ‘oh why are you doing it that method’,” she stated, laughing.
‘Wakako Zake’ and ‘The Cravings’
Once we meet Jessie within the first season, she is comfortable with being single. Matafeo was impressed on this regard by two Asian reveals about meals. First, “Wakako-zake,” a Japanese anime, manga and stay motion sequence that follows the gastronomic adventures of Wakako, a 26-year-old workplace employee. Every episode ends along with her consuming alone at a distinct restaurant. And “The Cravings,” a South Korean drama about Jae-young, a newly-single girl in her 30s and the meals she eats and cooks as she works by her breakup.
“It’s actually only a joyous factor seeing ladies residing alone and liking it and liking themselves, having fun with solitude,” Matafeo stated. “That was an essential a part of Jessie’s character.”
South Korean tv additionally influenced Matafeo when it got here to the pacing of “Starstruck.” The stress of a burgeoning romance is commonly on the heart of Okay-dramas, because the reveals are known as, and that is echoed within the gradual unfurling of Tom and Jessie’s romance. “It’s as a lot about what characters aren’t doing in these tense areas in between bouts of romantic gestures that I discover extremely popular,” Matafeo stated.
‘His Woman Friday’
The screwball comedy “His Woman Friday,” starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, had a direct affect on elements of Season Two’s plot. Particularly, the problems posed by an ex-boyfriend who’s a horrible individual, however to whom the feminine character will at all times be a bit of bit attracted.
Within the 1940 traditional, the newspaper editor Walter (Grant) is displeased to study that his ex-wife Hildy (Russell) plans to remarry, so he convinces her to report one final story. In the same vein, Tom and Jessie’s relationship is jeopardized by the re-emergence of Ben, Jessie’s ex-boyfriend. Matafeo included a tribute to the movie within the fifth episode, the place a parallel scene from “His Woman Friday” performs within the background when Ben visits Jessie at her movie show job to supply her part-time work.
“His Woman Friday” can also be one other affect on the dynamic between Tom and Jessie. Each Grant and Russell’s characters “give pretty much as good as they get,” stated Matafeo, however in the end Russell is funnier — as Jessie is in her relationship with Tom. “There’s one thing horny about having a person snort at a lady’s joke, and the way uncommon that feels in rom-coms and in addition in actual life,” Matafeo stated. “I went on a date not too long ago and the man laughed at me and I used to be like, nicely I need to marry you.”