Love, Simon Cast On How The 'Sensitive' Gay Rom-Com Subverts Teen Movie Tropes

Spoiler: In Love, Simon, Simon Spier is a Hufflepuff. Though, if you've read Becky Albertalli's Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, that's probably not much of a surprise. Soon considering that, this is the kid who once disowned his sister for not knowing what a Dementor was, which, arguably, isn't a very Hufflepuff thing to do, nevertheless he's adorably awkward and fiercely loyal nonetheless.


"There were a lot of little easter eggs like that while in the set," star Nick Robinson told MTV News about Simon's overjoyed badger loyalties in the YA novel's feature film adaptation. (In the film, there's a cautiously displayed Hufflepuff crest in his room, near his desk.) "It's sort of funny that Simon had a Hufflepuff sticker once he was having his dreams about Daniel Radcliffe, who is a Gryffindor. Maybe he was attempting to throw people off the scent."


or perhaps he was a Cedric Diggory/Harry Potter shipper all along, to which Robinson replied, "Interesting. I didn't read it like that yet maybe."


That's what makes a fictional character like Simon Spier so special; he's authentic. Watching Simon recount his Potter-induced sexual awakening to his identically closeted pen pal/crush Blue is like eavesdropping on any conversation between companions. However for me, it was Oliver Wood and his Scottish brogue.) He is a pretty average teenager — with his Harry Potter obsession, Panic! At the Disco phase, all-hoodie wardrobe, and passion for Elliott Smith, Oreos, and musical theater — going via familiar pangs and anxieties of adolescence. The only difference, naturally, being that he's gay and he doesn't know how to come out. And yes it certainly doesn't help that a fellow classmate is threatening to out him to the full school.


Robinson as Simon Spier in Love, Simon


As soon as Robinson first read the script, he was moved by the "very sensitive story" that writers, and This Is Us showrunners, Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger had crafted from Albertalli's heartfelt novel. "It was inclusive and aware of everyone's journey," Robinson mentioned.


For his costar Katherine Langford (who plays Simon's best friend Leah), she was initially drawn to its relatability as a coming-of-age story. Whenever I read the script I was so drawn to it as a love story," she mentioned. "It's a story about what it feels like to be young and to be in love and to be going through all the things that you go through."


The story was a personal one for director Greg Berlanti, who, as an once-closeted kid from a tiny town himself, could empathize with Simon's internal struggle.


"He set out to prepare a movie for himself growing up, a movie that he might have identified with," Robinson mentioned. "The importance of that was something we were all aware of [on set]."


However the intimacy and authenticity of Love, Simon goes deeper than Berlanti's own experiences. He also encouraged his young cast to add their own interpretations of their teen characters. "You never generally get that on set," Alexandra Shipp (who plays effervescent new girl Abby) mentioned. "So it's cool whenever you have a director who's like, 'What do you think?'"


Langford (Leah), Robinson (Simon), Logan Miller (Martin), Shipp (Abby), and Jorge Lendeborg (Nick) in Love, Simon


The characters of Love, Simon feel whole and its world totally lived-in. Despite being cut from the same cloth of classic films like Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Pretty in Pink, Love, Simon subverts several of these teen movie tropes, opting for something a little bit more true to life. There's no big makeover — case in point, one character even decries a potential transformation, telling Simon he wants the object of his affections to like him for him — and the big, grand gesture that once got Heath Ledger the girl in 10 Things I Hate About You fails epically (and painfully) in this movie.


"We don't play into those stereotypes, which is what folks are resonating with because it feels authentic and not for show," Langford mentioned.


as soon as a women getting a makeover [in a movie], she goes from being authentic to a sex symbol, and that really messes with a young women mind. I know it messed with mine," Shipp added. "They're putting them in tiny dresses and push-up bras and clicky heels — and I can barely walk in [heels] let alone stilettos."


That was especially essential for Shipp, whose confident character finds herself at the procuring end of a lot of attention — wanted and then some not — from her male peers. Although Abby's routinely the one in control.


"It's really nice that we don't over-sexualize these teenagers because that happens a lot," she mentioned. "I don't need to be able to see someone who's supposed to be in high school in lingerie. That makes me uncomfortable." As a substitute, she mentioned, the film permits Abby and Leah "to be attractive and cute without attempting to create them sexy."


It's the film's earnest portrayals of teen life that young folks are answering to. Yes, the film is about Simon's journey of self-discovery and the highs and lows that come with it as a closeted kid. (In their intimate email correspondence, Blue equates this dizzying feeling with being stuck on a ferris wheel. "One minute I'm on top of the world," he writes, "then the next I'm at rock-bottom.") However it also speaks to anyone who feels stuck — or weird.


Simon and Leah have an intimate conversation in Love, Simon


"It's so key to have representation in media, whether it's about race, sexuality, gender, equality, because you must to be able to see people who look like you and think like you and act like you," Langford mentioned. "You need people to relate to. This is the opening coming-out story from a major studio, yet there really are so several stories to be told."


As for Simon's story, it's already had a monumental impact on the cast. Actors Keiynan Lonsdale and Joey Pollari, who both portray potential love interests for Simon as he searches for the identity of Blue, have publicly come out since filming wrapped on Love, Simon. In a recent interview with The Advocate, Pollari mentioned that Simon's experience mirrored his own. "The only part that was hard was me coming out to myself," he added. "And I think that is the most challenging coming-out." And Robinson's own brother even came out to him while in production.


"We set out to prepare a movie that had broad appeal and was mainstream yet it was about this closeted gay kid in high school," Robinson mentioned. "If that speaks to people all of the better."


For more with the cast of Love, Simon, watch Robinson, Langford, and Shipp answer your questions in the video below.


Love, Simon is in theaters now.