Love is in the air and Lara Jean Covey finally has her first real boyfriend, and she’s going on her first real date. But love is never easy and things get complicated in “To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You” as new characters come into the frame.
Lana Condor, who exploded onto the scene in 2018 after starring in Netflix’s “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” reprises her role as the charmingly adorable high school junior Lara Jean in the sequel “P.S. I Still Love You.”
While Condor had appeared in big Hollywood movies before the “To All the Boys” phenomenon, she played the superhero Jubilee in “X-Men: Apocalypse” and showed up in Peter Berg’s “Patriots Day,” it was “To All the Boys” that turned her into a star. But despite the crazy wave she’s been on the past year and some change, Condor said coming back to film the sequel (and subsequently the third movie in the series, “To All the Boys: Always and Forever, Lara Jean”) felt like coming home.
“I mean, sequels are tricky. As soon as we went back for a sequel slipping back into like the set and being with everyone was very easy because it felt like going home because we all experienced this crazy weird wave,” Condor said during an interview at TheWrap’s studio.
In the new film, which Netflix debuted this week, Lara Jean is conflicted in her new relationship with Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) when her first crush — and a boy who also received a letter from her in the first film — John Ambrose McClaren, played by Jordan Fisher, comes back into her life.
Audiences fell head over heels for Centineo after his portrayal of Peter Kavinsky in the first movie, but if Lara Jean had her druthers in the real world, she might actually pick Fisher, Condor said.
Sadly, Condor’s coming home was capped with having to say goodbye to a character that has helped change her life and as she said, opened new doors for her. While they filmed “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” without the assurance that they’d even get a second film, once the cast and crew came back for the sequel they filmed the third film in the series as well, which is now in post production.
It’s clear in “P.S. I Still Love You,” Condor said, that the scope and scale of the story and production grew from the first film, but the third is on a massive scale by comparison. The third film was shot in Korea, New York and Vancouver, and Condor said that it’s a satisfying end to her character as she finds her own voice.
But who knows, maybe it doesn’t have to be the end?
“I never really thought about after. I’d like to see [Lara Jean] as an adult, maybe like working in a city on her own years later… I think she’s a journalist or a writer in some capacity,” Condor said.
But if these three films (when the third one will be released hasn’t been announced) are all she gets, she’s already said her goodbyes.
“My goodbye to [Lara Jean]was the most depressing thing ever,” Condor said. “I was like balling my eyes and I was in a horrible mood and didn’t want to talk to anyone because I just lover her so much.”