Hollywood stars Joey King and Joel Courtney believe that even amid pandemic, their movie "Kissing Booth 2" serves a purpose.
"I think it's the perfect time for this to come out,” said Joey in an interview that included Bulletin Entertainment. “The world is going through a bit of tough time and I think that, you know, where we can find joy and feel good about it, that is a blessing.”
Joel agreed, saying moviegoers will "love" the sequel about “good-fun love.”
"I think a lot of kids today are removed (from each other). I mean, we're all socially distance. So I think there's a longing for connectivity, and I think the 'Kissing Booth' really can and will bring a little bit of that into people's lives."
Asked what makes the sequel different from other high school films, Joey said their show how kids really are these days.
"And how, like, real friends talk to each other -- which I think is really rare to find in high school movies or really any movie in general,” Joey added.
Joel remembered crying the first time he read the script.
“It was just one of those things where I love these characters and they are so relatable, you know. And I think that is why our first movie was such a smash and I think that's exactly why our second movie is gonna do just as good if not better.
"Every reason why you loved the first movie, is why you're gonna love the second movie. But we expanded upon it and just made it, like, 10 times more.”
“Kissing Booth 2” continues with Elle Evans (Joey) who just had the most romantic summer of her life with her reformed bad-boy boyfriend Noah Flynn (Jacob Elordi). But now Noah is off to Harvard, and Elle heads back to high school for her senior year. She'll have to juggle a long-distance relationship, getting into her dream college with her best friend Lee (Joel), and the complications brought on by a close friendship with a handsome, charismatic new classmate named Marco (Taylor Zakhar Perez).
When Noah grows close to a seemingly-perfect college girl (Maisie Richardson-Sellers), Elle will have to decide how much she trusts him and to whom her heart truly belongs.
POV
What is the takeaway of viewer from this movie?
For Joel, it's the importance of always being kind and seeking advice.
"But there's really no better way to learn a lesson than to make your own mistakes,” he pointed out. “Unless you want to do something yourself, no matter what anybody else says, you're gonna have to go through what you have to go through. You have to pave your own way.”
Joey said lessons learned the hard way are "most memorable."
"There's a quote from someone---I can't remember who it is---but it's, like, 'You can learn far more from a wrong answer than a right answer because you don't know what made up the right answer, but you can find what made a wrong answer,'” she added. "It's one of those things where like, if you make a mistake in a relationship, you feel that hurt. You're like, 'I never want to feel that again.'”
When it came to character development, the two noted those they play have "grown up."
"You know, you go through hard times and you mature and those stages of being a young, like in those high school years--- there's a lot of changes, a lot of lessons learned."
‘So much fun’
Joey and Joel shared doing the second movie was a blast.
"It was like hanging out with all of your best friends all the time," was how she put it. "But yeah, there were a lot of new challenges we faced and you know, the added pressure of wanting the fans to love it as much as they love the first one.”
Joel noted how the shoot felt "special" in the same way that the first film did.
"Having, like, all of our friends around us, it was a school kind of vibe, a little bit. It was, I mean, it was the best times."
The "Kissing Booth" sequel, based on the "The Kissing Booth" books by Beth Reekles, is on Netflix.