Logo text
Matt Cornette couldn’t wait to bring viewers to Barry’s Bay.
The 27-year-old actor stars as Sam Florrick in Prime Video’s latest romantic remake. Every year after. The series is based on Carly’s beloved book Fortune Every summer afterexplores first love, intense heartbreak, regret, and second chances—all set in a quaint Canadian lake town. Of course, for Cornette, it was a no-brainer.
“The second I read the book, I thought, ‘There’s absolutely nothing about this that I can say no to,'” Cornette says. Hollywood Reporter In the last zoom.
For the actor who started at Disney High school musical tv series, Every year after It is an opportunity for a man’s leading romantic moment. “I look up to Ryan Gosling and love everything the guy does,” Cornette says. “This is my Ryan Gosling moment.”
Below, the actor digs Every year afterworking with Fortune and show writers Amy B. Harris and Leila Gerstein, and how he used fan edits to help him find Sam.
How do you feel about everything on the show?
I feel really good and really excited. I’ve watched all eight episodes, and I’m very proud of it and very happy with it. There are so many emotions and memories associated with this show in my mind and heart. I’m really excited for the world to see it. This was our baby, and now it was time to let our baby travel the world without us.
One of the things you mentioned last year when we talked was that you were trying to move beyond your teenage roles and move somewhere new. I think you can definitely do that with this movie. Why did you feel like this was your next step?
What was so exciting about this role, in this world, is that it was my first time playing a romantic role. I look at Ryan Gosling and I love everything that guy does, so I do [decided] This is my Ryan Gosling moment. This story is so beautiful and so good. The moment I read the book, I thought: “There is absolutely nothing about this that I can say no to.” What is very interesting and challenging for an actor is to play roles for multiple ages. I play at 15, 16, 17, 18 and 28 years old. I play this game for five different ages. It was a challenge and made me change the way I prepared for everything I had done in the past no matter how long my career was. I now had to change that and create a new system for this display.
Overall, the character in the story was very nice and beautiful. The book is so incredible. It’s a lot of fun to do a book adaptation. There’s a lot of tension and a sense of pressure that comes with that, but also the excitement of having creative freedom with these already very beloved characters.
The thing you touched on is the adaptation part. BookTok has definitely changed the way people consume books. The fan bases have also grown quite a bit. Were you nervous about doing it right?
completely. Anytime you have a pre-existing IP or a pre-existing character that people love a lot, that’s true. I mean, Carly’s story is so incredible. Anytime you have it, there’s pressure to create it perfectly. I think what’s great is that myself and Michael Bradway, who plays Charlie, and Sadie Soverall, who plays Percy, all had that conversation with Amy Harris, the director of the series, about how important it was to be as accurate to the book as possible.
As a fan of books, movies, and television, any time there’s a project that gets remade or reimagined, or a live-action version of something I already loved is released, I want that new version to be as accurate to the old thing as possible. When things change, the story starts to become different, and sometimes it’s hard for people to wrap their heads around it, especially when a lot of people say this is their favorite book. If it’s your favorite book, you want to see your favorite book come to life. You don’t want to see a different version of your favorite book. It was fun to move around.
What about the pressure Sam is under in particular?
There was a lot of pressure to hope that I could get Sam right because I feel like I know Sam so well. I know there are people who know Sam better than I do, just because of how much they know this story, and know these characters. It’s fun, unnerving and exciting. I just wish that every part of who Sam, Percy, and Charlie were as people was what we captured on the show. It’s important for people to know that he was very important to us. Obviously there were certain things in the show that we had to change just to make it expandable for television, but overall it was really important to be true to the writers.
Have you worked with Carly at all?
I remember the day I met Carly. Michael and I had talked about it, and we were very nervous to meet her. One of our producers texted us the night before and said, “Hey, Carly will be on set tomorrow.” Carly was pretty much involved behind the scenes – and I know she was working on other things at the time, so she wasn’t able to be on set every day. But she was definitely around. I remember the first day we found out she was going to be on set and Michael and I were like, “Oh my God, we’re going to meet Carly.” It was that nerve-racking moment where I was really hoping that it would feel like I was capturing Sam and that the way I was playing Sam would feel right.
What happened when you finished meeting?
I was so nervous. I walked over and hugged her and said, “It’s nice to meet you.” She says, “I’m so happy to finally meet you. I feel like I know you because I’ve seen your face in all these tests.” I remember talking to her and being so excited. I think she said she was nervous to meet us because she felt like she was meeting these characters she created for the first time. I remember her saying that she felt like we had all captured, in her heart, who Sam, Charlie, and Percy were. It gave us a huge boost of confidence going into filming because it was so early in the filming process. It gave us a huge boost to really feel like we could dive into these characters knowing that we got Carley Fortune’s stamp of approval.
For this book in particular, how familiar were you with it already?
never. I didn’t grow up a big book reader. I wish I did. The idea of sitting down with a good book is the perfect image in my mind. I don’t stop, so much so that it’s hard for me to sit down, [to] I make my body sit still and read. Going into the audition, I didn’t even know this was based on a book. They didn’t tell us until very late in the testing process that it was based on the book. It was under a code name, different characters, different everything. Then in the final audition process, when I did the final chemistry read with Sadie, they said, “So, this is based on a book called Every summer after“.
After that, I read the book and did a little research, but not much. When I booked the show, that’s when I wanted to read the book. The day after I booked the show, I took the day off work. I drove to a bookstore about 45 minutes away, and said to myself, “Okay, let me find this. I wonder if they have it.” I walked in and the first table was Summer Romance, which is like all of Carly’s Fortune books. I realized that this is a really big book. That was the first moment I knew what I was getting myself into. It was really fun, and the moment I read the book, I loved it.
Hudson Williams told me when he found his version of Shane Hot competition He will look at fan chats or online forums. I’m curious if you dug into this aspect? How well do you fit in with this online persona?
Well, obviously I wanted to capture what fans love so much about Sam because I think there’s a lot about Sam that makes him likable and makes him an interesting character. Those were things that were definitely important to me. That’s funny about Hudson. However, I didn’t go reading the fan forums; I think this is a great idea Just to see how people perceive Sam.
I’ve heard that many times now.
I went and watched TikTok edits Every summer after [though]. People make these adjustments to who they feel is good and to Sam’s vitality and all that stuff. I went to watch a few of them just to get a toxic impression from the audience, but I didn’t delve into it. I wanted to use the book as our Bible in the exposition sense. Then talk to Carly and Amy Harris, our show director. Lots of conversations with lots of people. Sadie and I sat down and talked a lot about Percy and Sam’s relationship and where they were. It was a little bit of both [for me]. It was more or less about creating this version of Sam that I want to create for myself, but also using the book and using the edits I’ve seen fans do for Sam to create the perfect combination of fan-Sam and mat-Sam.
