Warning: Major spoilers ahead for the ending of The Map That Leads to You, now streaming on Prime Video.
On paper, Madelyn Cline and KJ Apa share a lot in common. The actors were born within six months of each other in 1997. (As Cline excitedly points out, “He’s a Gemini. I’m a Sagittarius. We’re sister signs!”) They both rose to Gen Z fame on unhinged teen soaps; he breathed new life into the comic-book character of Archie Andrews during the seven-season run of The CW’s Riverdale, while she is in the midst of saying goodbye to Sarah Cameron after five seasons of treacherous treasure-hunting on Netflix’s Outer Banks.
Cline and Apa may have only met in passing before working together, but their palpable, crackling chemistry lies at the heart of The Map That Leads to You, which premiered Wednesday, Aug. 20, on Prime Video.
Based on JP Monninger’s novel and directed by Lasse Hallström, the romantic drama stars Cline as Heather, a strait-laced recent college grad embarking on a trip across Europe with her best friends, Connie (Sofia Wylie) and Amy (Madison Thompson), before moving into a new apartment in New York City and starting a new banking job. During the final leg of her trip, Heather encounters a handsome, nomadic stranger named Jack (Apa), who is retracing an itinerary from a journal passed down to him from his great-grandfather, Russell, a World War II veteran. (Apa named his character’s great-grandfather after his own.)
“Chemistry is a really interesting topic in real life and also in movies, TV, whatever, because it’s kind of this thing that you can’t define. It’s very mercurial. Some people say it doesn’t exist. Some people believe in it. Everyone has their own idea,” Cline tells Teen Vogue on a joint video call with Apa. “I think that’s the whole point of chemistry — you can’t define it. Sometimes, you find or you meet someone that you just have this instant connection to, and you can call it whatever you want. But I think the whole point of the story is [what happens when you’re] meeting that person in your life who is just the different side of the same coin.”
The same could be said of Cline and Apa, who share much of the same flirty, playful banter as their characters in real life. Sitting side-by-side on an early Saturday afternoon in Charleston, South Carolina, the co-stars are enablers of each other’s most chaotic impulses. (PR training be damned.) Talking to them feels less like a formal interview and more like an exercise in trying to stop scatterbrained schoolchildren, who have their own inside jokes and endearing nicknames for each other, from going off the rails. They finish each other’s sentences without a second thought. At one point, they start repeatedly whispering “Heather” in an Australian accent into a boom mic, even though Apa uses his own Kiwi accent in the film.
That deeply silly dynamic has always existed between Cline and Apa, who actually traveled to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam via train with their co-stars to get acquainted before they began filming. “I think they have a very similar attitude to their profession and to acting that is about creating life,” Hallström says. After casting Apa in his first-ever movie, A Dog’s Purpose, the filmmaker chose to cast Apa again after watching a tape of his “charming” chemistry read with Cline, who had helped develop the film. “There was no theatricality here. They knew that they had to enjoy the ride and, as the cameras were rolling hour after hour, just relax and serve up conversations, and trust that the director will get something out of it.”
Cline and Apa both understand the importance of a meet-cute to establish the potency of a sweeping love story. Their characters meet by chance on the overnight train from Paris to Barcelona, where Jack asks Heather to temporarily hold his backpack while he climbs onto the luggage rack above her seat to sleep.
“I think Jack is very himself in any moment. [Heather] is also like that, so I feel like especially that first meeting, it’s a very genuine moment between the two,” Apa says. “Jack kind of just does what he wants. That’s just the way that he’s living his life at this point in time. He’s quirky, and he’s a little offbeat in that way. I think something that we tried to make prominent in that character is in a world where people are so zoned in and conforming to this kind of social life online, Jack is very much determined to break away from that because of his circumstance. That sets him apart from the people around him.”
Between their two characters, who do they think fell first?
“I think Jack fell first, and he was quite persistent about seeing her,” says Apa.
“What do you think made Jack fall?” Cline asks. “I never asked that.”
“You know when you first notice someone, you notice them because of something specific? I don’t think it was happenstance that he just put his bag up there and wanted to lie up there.”
“No, it was never [an accident].”
“I think he noticed that you’re very beautiful in a train, and he wants an experience. I think any guy would love to be around the presence of a beautiful woman or a beautiful man — depends what you’re into. So he laid down on the top of this [luggage rack], and then he was intrigued by just the way you were reading your iPad. I think he was kind of eavesdropping on your conversations with your friends and was interested in the way that you think, which is why he goes into, ‘So you are reading on your iPad…’”
Hallström reveals that Heather and Jack’s first real conversation was originally not scripted to take place with Jack lying down on the rack across her seat. Starting a conversation that way “was kind of charming to her, and I think that’s part of why they connected,” Hallström says, revealing that most of what made the final cut in that scene was improvised by the actors. “They had a lovely little banter.”
As they gallivant across Portugal, Italy and Spain together, Heather and Jack’s physical journey mirrors their own emotional evolution, says Hallström. “I think she learns to be less rigid with her scheduling, and he learns to take responsibility and be serious about his commitments.”
While most modern romances are built around some kind of grand gesture, Cline and Apa both believe the film excels in the quieter moments between Heather and Jack — the longing glances in public, the comfortable silences in bed together.
“I think KJ and I talked about this without explicitly talking about it when we were discussing scenes and what we wanted to do with them,” Cline explains. “We both recognize the importance of falling in love with someone or deepening relationships that aren’t [revealed through] exposition or plot or what’s on the page. A lot of falling in love with anyone lives in the moments where you notice that someone cares about you. They notice things in little moments.”
“And remembering those things,” Apa interjects.
“That’s something that’s really hard to capture. That can be done, of course, on the page. But that just ultimately comes down to specificity and [being] in the moment. I think that’s something that we did a really good job of, if I can pat us on the back,” Cline adds. (They then literally pat each other on the back.) “We really wanted to dive into these characters and make the love story feel very real because it’s a big turn [in the third act], and we had to make the turn work. We had to believe so that those watching would believe we fell in love, [and then] the turn is even more heart-wrenching.”
The twist in question forces the audience to see all of Jack’s actions in a new light. After surviving a battle with cancer in his youth, Jack decided that he wanted to travel the world, using his great-grandfather’s journal as a convenient roadmap. But during his extended road trip with Heather, he privately learns over the phone that his cancer has returned.
Although he initially agrees to travel with Heather to New York City, Jack ends up disappearing at the airport, forcing a brokenhearted Heather to board their flight without him. It isn’t until months later, when she attends Connie’s surprise wedding to Jack’s friend Raef (Orlando Norman), that Heather receives a handwritten letter from her former lover explaining his side of the story. Heather ends up tracking down Jack in Santa Pau, a Spanish town where, as Jack once put it, the villagers dance in the face of death.
What do they think happens to Heather and Jack after the screen fades to black?
“I think Jack feels guilty of bringing someone into this uncertain future,” Apa says.
“Yeah, because you need to explain,” Cline chimes in. “You did a bad thing!”
“He’s got a lot of explaining to do,” Apa agrees. “And the justification for that that I had for him was, it all just became too much. He’s developed this really meaningful relationship with someone, and I think at some point he realizes, ‘If I love this person, do I really want to bring them through a future that is uncertain?’ And I think ultimately his answer is, ‘I can’t do that and I can’t live with myself, if I was to die and she has to go through this.”
Heather, on the other hand, doesn’t see Jack’s illness as an impediment to them being together, adds Cline. “I think her whole journey in this movie is, life is too short. She very quickly learns from Jack and also this trip with her girlfriends that life is too short and nothing is guaranteed. And why not fall in love and be in love while you can?”
While Monninger’s novel is a little more definitive in terms of the terminal nature of Jack’s illness, the film, by design, simply alludes to the uncertainty surrounding his prognosis. “I think a fighting chance of overcoming is what we end up suggesting,” Hallström confirms of Jack’s fate. After their emotional reunion, “I think they get together and they live together, for as long as he lives.”
Whether Jack’s potentially reversible fate could mean another chapter of his love story with Heather remains to be seen. But, as they make the inevitable transition from playing teens to fully grown adults, Cline and Apa agree that they want their next collaboration to be a romantic comedy.
A few days before our interview, Apa was officially tapped to play Jimmy Stewart in a new biopic, which will chronicle the legendary actor’s rise in Hollywood before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a combat pilot at the beginning of World War II.
“Obviously, It’s a Wonderful Life has played a big part in how I see Hollywood and the trajectory of Hollywood, but it’s always a big task when you’re playing a real person,” Apa says. “It requires a different kind of process, and I think I’m really lucky that we have Kelly Harcourt, Jimmy’s daughter, who’s on board, and everyone’s really excited.”
Since his casting was announced, some have publicly questioned whether Apa has the requisite range to play Stewart. But, as any viewer would know, Riverdale and Outer Banks required a commitment to making any kind of heightened storytelling work, no matter how downright absurd the plot twists were. After all, if there is someone who can do justice to an American icon, it may be the actor playing a kid who fought a bear, joined the military, went to jail, and was transported back to the 1940s and then given magical powers — all in the same TV series.
How do they think the training they underwent on those shows prepared them to tackle more emotionally mature projects? Do they see themselves differently now after having worked on those shows?
Before they even hear the full question, the co-stars have turned to face each other, seemingly equal parts amused and bemused.
“Do you see yourself differently?” Madelyn Cline asks quietly.
“Yeah, definitely,” KJ Apa responds.
“I see you differently.”
“I changed a lot after that show. That show created the man that you see now,” Apa says, before he and Cline seemingly make fun of that cliché phrase. “No, in all seriousness, that show taught me so much about myself. I grew up on that show. I started on that show when I was 17 and —”
“17’s crazy!”
“It’s almost four years ago when I came off that show. But the thing about Riverdale that people don’t understand is —”
“You don’t understand the ins and the outs and the emotional depths of high-school football. What was that line?”
“Yeah, that was perfect,” he says with a cheeky grin. “The epic highs and lows of high-school football.”
“That’s it! The epic highs!”
“What people don’t understand is, you have to buy into that material.”
“Yeah, you have to. You don’t not believe in the magic.”
“If I’m being [given a] demon exorcism vibe from Cheryl, and I have to say some gnarly Latin thing…” Apa then proceeds to pretend that he was being given an exorcism, while Cline automatically imitates a high-pitched scream. “You have to buy into it. If you don’t buy into it and make it real for yourself, you can look like an idiot.”
“If you don’t believe it, nobody will. That’s the thing, because I remember Season 2 of Outer Banks, [when] some sh*t started happening, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is [a show] about high schoolers. This is like The O.C.!’ And now I realize we were on a big adventure. It was the beginning of a very big adventure,” Cline says. “I remember talking to our director, Jonas [Pate], and I was like, ‘Jonas, I’m so confused.’ And he was like, ‘Look, I don’t care. Just don’t not believe in the magic. And I was like, ‘Okay, period.’ And actually, that is probably the best lesson actually ever.”
