‘Midnight Sun’ stars Bella Thorne and Patrick Schwarzenegger talk on-screen chemistry
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) The first requirement of any film with romantic intentions is that the potential lovers exude a believable amount of attraction for each other. If the audience doesn’t buy into the relationship, then your film just isn’t going to work.
“Midnight Sun” doesn’t set out to rewrite the rules of teenage coming-of-age dramas as it tells the story of Katie, a 17-year-old girl with a rare skin disease that makes sunlight deadly, who has obsessed over her neighbor Charlie for as long as she can remember. Unable to go outside, Katie watches from her bedroom window as life passes her by.
At night Katie often walks to a nearby train station and plays her guitar. Wasting away the hours by strumming out chords and singing to the emptiness that surrounds her.
On one of these lonely nights, Charlie stumbles upon one of Katie’s impromptu performances. Completely unaware that of Katie’s existence, Charlie is instantly intrigued by Katie’s mysterious persona.
The chemistry between the film’s stars, Bella Thorne and Patrick Schwarzenegger, works rather well and when I sat down to talk to Thorne and Schwarzenegger they offered their opinion as to why they played so well off each other.
Thorne reveals that the duo knew each other before either were cast in “Midnight Sun.” They even met up before they read together for director Scott Speer.
Thorne remembers the audition well, “Literally I knew as Patrick walked in that it was Patrick and as soon as he walked out it was still Patrick.”
Filming took place in Vancouver and the duo spent most of the days together on and off camera.
“We definitely became closer over the course of the film,” Schwarzenegger recalls.
Thorne adds, “When you’re shooting with someone at such odd hours of the night, like 4:00 or 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. and you’ve been working for 19 hours a day with them for two months, it’s like, ‘If you guys aren’t best friends or completely hate each other,’ then something’s wrong.”