Picture This stars Simone Ashley and Hero Fiennes Tiffin are no stranger to epic romances. Ashley, of course, rose to global fame as the lead of Bridgerton season 2, while Fiennes Tiffin made a name for himself in not one, not two, but five After movies. In their new film together, directed by Prarthana Mohan and written by Nikita Lalwani, the two play a couple who have broken up but find themselves thrust back together when a family member and close mutual friend get married.
The Prime Video movie, which premiered March 6, also marks the first time Ashley has taken on the role of executive producer, giving her even more influence over the character of Pia, a young, financially struggling photographer in modern-day London who is dealing with family pressures and the trials and tribulations of running your own studio. She’s not necessarily looking for love, but her sister doesn’t want her showing up solo to her wedding, so she’s forced to endure some hilariously bad dates. Crucially, those dates are chosen by her family — a fun, refreshing take on standard rom-com tropes, inspired by the Australian film Five Blind Dates.
Teen Vogue spoke to Ashley and Tiffin just a few days before the premiere about their on-screen chemistry, some improvised dance scenes, and the joys of working with Phil Dunster (best known as Jamie Tartt from Ted Lasso). Spoilers ahead.
Simone Ashley: We were playing on that there was definitely unfinished business between Charlie and Pia. Even their first interactions that they have after a long time of seeing each other, there’s still that tit for tat. Such is life. I feel like Charlie was the mature one that kind of stayed grounded and really found himself, and Pia was the one that was kind of up in flames a bit. It was her journey of self-discovery and once she found that and found her feet on the ground, it kind of led her back to Charlie.
Tiffin: Phil was just hilarious and he’s such a lovely guy. I think we probably shot that over a few days and sometimes the schedules don't allow as much room to just relax and enjoy it and take your time with it. Sometimes you might be on one location and you have so much to do in a day, but it felt like that was scheduled quite generously, and we'd just be laughing our heads off between takes about what was happening in the takes and just having a laugh throughout the whole day. Phil was at the heart of that. He is comedy.
Ashley: Yeah, and he had the guitar off set and we'd be singing songs and making up songs. He's great.
Ashley: It is, yeah, [it feels] very cool. It's cool to say that. No, look, seriously, I am really grateful that Ben and Erica from 42 MP allowed me to collaborate with them on this, and I learned a lot. I think each project requires different focus and different attention in different areas and you learn from them. Hopefully for my next thing, I can take everything I've learned from this into that.
Ashley: Even if you think you've covered all ground of everything you've wanted to do, even when the movie is finished, you watch it and you think, oh, I wish I had maybe tweaked this a bit more. I wish we extended this a bit more. So nothing is ever a final piece. Do you know what I mean? And sometimes you've just got to let it be and be like, okay, I think we've got it. We don't need to over egg it.
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Ashley: It was actually less about the cultural aspects of it, and it was just more, I think there's a deeper layer. There's one layer that this is such an amazing thing for brown people to be represented in this film and to see that there's a space where they belong in the world of romcoms, especially brown women. But deeper than that, I just wanted it to be humanized and I wanted to make sure Pia's character was just like the other leading ladies we see in other romcoms. And not to just play on specific tropes, to make sure that she was well-rounded enough and the world around her was like that as well.
Tiffin: Ten Things I Hate About You is up there for me. I felt like as much as [Picture This] ticks the boxes that you want a romcom to tick, there's an originality to it that I just felt like leaning into what the script had to serve. So I don't think I needed to pull on much inspiration from anything else. I thought the script had it all there and the cast was all there and didn't need to draw on much inspiration.
Tiffin: Yeah, it was great. It felt really immersive and a very, as far as I know, very accurate and all encompassing kind of experience for me. There's a scene that was quite last minute that they wanted us to do of joining in the dance that was never in the script. And I was a little bit like, okay, you haven't had the time to think it through yet. And it was a bit like, “Cameras are on Hero! Why don't you jump in there?” And yeah, it was great fun — the costumes and the music and I think all of the extras that we had in on the day just made it feel very real.
Ashley: Yeah, me too.
Tiffin: I haven't, I haven’t. I feel bad that —
Ashley: No, don’t feel bad.
Tiffin: I feel bad when everyone’s raving about it. So yes, it's on my list. No, ask me again. Ask me again next time. I'm not the most well versed on, I know it's not strictly rom-com, but the romance genre, despite my involvement. But yes, I’ll look into it.
Tiffin: Well, thank you for saying that. It was a dream. Simone's just so good at creating an atmosphere on set where everyone is not just enjoying themselves, but also paying a lot of attention to the work and making sure the work is done. Getting that balance right is not easy. And I speak for everyone when I say we all felt super comfortable, not just leaning into what was there, but exploring and trying to have ideas about how to make it better if we could. So yeah, it was thoroughly enjoyable. I don't think there was anything particularly that special that we did other than just enjoy ourselves and bring out to life the great words that were already on the page.
Ashley: Thank you. It was a very calm energy, which I think is different from a lot of the things I've played before when it came to a romance story being told. Before, the energy was more volatility and chaos and drama. And with this, because of the world we're in as well and the characters we play — especially your character, [Hero], like I said before, Charlie is incredibly grounded, as you are as a person. I think Pia was just more chaotic and crazy, and that for me was a different temperature in that sense.
Tiffin: When the characters are well written like that, and it feels like there's a reason that they are attracted to each other, but also you can kind of understand why it didn't work at the start, but why after nurturing their relationship and talking things through and spending more time together, you can see how it would work. I think that's a complex but realistic kind of portrayal of probably a quite common relationship set-up, if you know what I mean.
Tiffin: Well, they're pretty timeless. They're pretty relatable to pretty much everyone, and I think there's always going to be a place for them. What was most enjoyable for me about doing this off the back of After was it feels like the other side to the romance coin in the sense that After is very dramatic. This has a strong romantic element and it's very comedic. So it just felt like the perfect other side of the coin to the stuff that I've done before.
Ashley: It was so important for Pia’s journey. She clearly is so devoted to her grandma, even though she's passed away, and wants to honor her legacy of the photography studio, and she's not; it's failing. So that affects the way that she feels about herself and the way she's looking at the world. And actually, I think it was so unpredictable for her because she realized, I've got to just live in the now and look at how I can build my own self confidence. She has the most amazing friends around her, the most amazing family. And even though at the beginning she was close with her family, I don't think she was her authentic self and really opened up to them. She was very defensive and had her guard up, and I really liked how she softened by the end of it. I think that's what’s so amazing when a story focuses around family. There's just so much to work with there.
Ashley: Yeah. But having said that, we did put modern twists on a lot of the things I think that aren't really showcased much when we're portraying these kind of characters, of second generation immigrants and all of that, which I really loved, which I'd never really seen before. I think Sindhu [Vee, who plays Pia’s mom] nailed it.
Ashley: Yeah. Well, that was another thing. I thought it was really nice to put that plot twist on one of our brown leads to be desirable in the most unexpected way. I think people might judge, thinking it's like, oh, he's maybe somewhat predictable, but then he completely flips it by the end of it. I was gunning for Pia and Akshay in that date. Even when we were filming, I was like, this is great. But he completely switches it. If that happened to me in real life, I’d be like, what?!
Tiffin: Sadly, not nearly as entertaining as this one for me, but I'll circle back if anything interesting [happens]....
Ashley: I only have positive ones. Most of my dates have just been so memorable and lovely.
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity. Watch Picture This on Amazon Prime, streaming now.
