Exclusive Interview
‘How to Lose a Popularity Contest’ Stars Sara Waisglass & Chase Hudson Talk Sequel Hopes (VIDEO)
What To Know
- How to Lose a Popularity Contest stars Sara Waisglass and Chase Hudson (Huddy) as unlikely allies who team up to win back their exes by winning the student council election.
- In an exclusive interview with Swooon, the actors discuss their personal connections to their roles.
- Waisglass and Hudson reveal their hopes for a second movie.
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for How to Lose a Popularity Contest.]
Sometimes, winning back your boyfriend means proving that he’s not popular enough to win the election for student body president. Or at least, that’s Ellie’s mantra at the start of Tubi’s new movie, How to Lose a Popularity Contest.
The YA rom-com, which hit the free streamer on January 16, stars Ginny & Georgia‘s Sara Waisglass and social media sensation Chase Hudson, better known as Huddy (or even Lil Huddy). Ahead of the movie’s release, Waisglass and Hudson sat down with Swooon to discuss what it means to be the villain of your own story, how their starkly different characters, Ellie and Nate, fell in love, and, of course, why they’re already desperate to make a sequel.
How to Lose a Popularity Contest follows Ellie Pearse, an organized perfectionist whose boyfriend, Rowan (Graham Verchere), breaks up with her in the middle of a Dungeons & Dragons game, after he announces that he wants to run for student body president and she (romantically?) tells him that he has no shot at winning the contest. At the same time, rebellious Nate Reed (Hudson) loses his girlfriend Quinn (Lillian Doucet-Roche), the current president, who breaks up with him because, much like Elle Woods, he’s not serious enough for her.
“I didn’t like Ellie at all,” Waisglass admitted to Swooon when asked what drew her to the character. “I thought she was so mean. I thought she was so selfish. I had said to my partner that I was taping with that I don’t know how to get into this because I just really don’t like this girl.” That being said, if Ellie and Nate taught us anything, it’s that first impressions can — and should — be given room to change. “When I read the full script, obviously, I saw that there was a lot of grief there and that it was just a coping mechanism and a defense mechanism.”
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It’s clear to see why Waisglass didn’t love Ellie from the get-go. After Rowan breaks up with her, Ellie decides she’s going to do everything in her power to make him lose the election, so that he’ll see that she was right, and get back together with her. Seems like a simple apology would have sufficed instead?
When it comes to Hudson’s character, Nate Reed, a baseball-playing bad boy with a secret artistic side, the connection came more naturally. “I feel like the whole trajectory of my life was kind of slowly coming out of my shell,” the TikTok star told Swooon. He revealed that in his hometown, it was seen as almost embarrassing to be into the arts. “I kept that to myself in the same way he did.”
Knowing that she and Nate have the same goal of winning back their exes, Ellie signs Nate up for the election, expecting him to decimate her ex in the polls with his vast popularity. Of course, as viewers were quick to learn, that convoluted alliance doesn’t make her the hero of the story. In fact, as the newfound manager of Nate’s campaign, she becomes just like Lady Macbeth, the unexpected villain of Macbeth, which is currently being staged and restaged by Ellie’s friend Aja (Kyra Leroux). “I really liked that [Ellie] kept running through the movie like ‘I’m Lady Macbeth, I’m Lady Macbeth,’ like really not knowing what that meant in the slightest,” Waisglass told Swooon.
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To make matters worse, Ellie has an extra layer to her plan. While she proves that she is leadership material for a letter of recommendation and that Rowan isn’t popular enough to win president, Ellie plans on finding dirt on Nate that proves he’s violated the school code of conduct. Once turned in, he’ll have to step down, and Rowan will have the position after all.
There’s only one problem. By the time they actually get to the election, Ellie and Nate are far more than unlikely friends. While their walls start to melt during the scene in Ellie’s living room, where Nate reveals how hard his dad is on him, and Ellie lets Nate in on her relationship with her late mother, Waisglass explained, “The real kicker is the party.” Of course, their almost-kiss is interrupted by Ellie “yacking,” but from then on, there’s no going back to their exes.
Towards the end of the movie, Ellie has a complete “Wait, am I the villain?” moment, which she absolutely wouldn’t have had if she hadn’t spent this time with Nate. “I think she’s blinded by her own ambition,” Waisglass said, discussing how Ellie was before the election. Spending time with Nate and finally seeing more than the popular jock on the surface taught Ellie, “You don’t have to always push yourself to get to the end goal. You can enjoy your life.”
At the same time, Ellie proved to Nate that being serious doesn’t come at the cost of your values or your self-expression. While Nate eventually wins the election and forgives Ellie, who decides not to bust him on school conduct after all, he decides to step down and pass the title to Rowan anyway.
“We talk about a sequel all the time,” the stars revealed to Swooon. “We want Quinn and Rowan to get together.” The duo laughed as they told us their joke title for the next movie, “How 2 Lose a Popularity Contest.” As Waisglass put it, “Let’s get going, Tubi!” We need Nate and Ellie back on our screens ASAP!
How to Lose a Popularity Contest, Streaming Now, Tubi
