Exclusive Interview

‘Red, White & Royal Wedding’: Casey McQuiston Shares New Details About the Sequel Movie

In 2023, Red, White & Royal Blue‘s Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez) and Prince Henry’s (Nicholas Galitzine) romance made us swoon, just like the 2019 novel of the same name did. Though the adaptation differs in some ways from author Casey McQuiston’s book, the heart of FirstPrince’s story remained the same. It received such a positive response from fans that Prime Video greenlit a sequel movie, even though McQuiston hasn’t published a follow-up book.

However, the streamer did get McQuiston to sign on as a screenwriter for Red, White & Royal Wedding, which wrapped production in March. Like its release date, plot details remain under wraps, though we do know it picks up after the Prince of England and First Son of the United States went public with their relationship. Still, McQuiston was able to answer some of Swooon‘s burning questions when we sat down with them at BookCon on April 19.

What would a potential book sequel look like in the wake of the second movie? Is there as big a time jump as the one in Red, White & Royal Blue’s bonus chapter? Who’s actually getting married? Keep reading for everything McQuiston could tell us.

Swooon: First, can you settle if it is Bea [Henry’s sister] who’s getting the wedding because some people…

Casey: McQuiston: They think it’s like a red herring.

Swooon: Exactly.

McQuiston: It’s definitely Bea’s wedding. I have literally seen Ellie Bamber in the wedding dress. It’s definitely Bea’s wedding.

Swooon: And will we love her fiancé, do you think?

McQuiston: Yeah, I think so. I think… I’m choosing my words carefully. I think people are really gonna like him. I think the actor who is playing him has done such an amazing job with that character, and I am very happy to see him join the family.

Swooon: But of course, they’re not the main focus.

McQuiston: No, absolutely not.

Swooon: What made you want to sign on as a screenwriter this time around? Was there any hesitation, crossing that boundary between author and screenwriter?

McQuiston: I mean, yes and no, I knew it was gonna be hard. I knew it was gonna be a whole new skill set to learn. But it was actually Amazon that came to me first, after the first movie came out, to be like, “Hey, we really would like to do this again. And we know there’s not a second book, but would you be open to coming back to write a story that would be a second movie?” And then, we brought Matthew [Lopez] in to cowrite it with me because he had the screenwriting experience that I didn’t, and I had the characters in my head, you know? And so once I knew that I had the support of the team, and I knew I had the cowriter who could help me, then I was a lot less intimidated by the idea of doing it. It was a huge learning experience, but I’m really, really thankful for everything I learned from it.

Prime Video

Swooon: What were those initial conversations like, deciding to move beyond your book? Do you view them as separate entities at this point?

McQuiston: Yeah, they’re very much, like, the Red, White, & Royal Blue-niverse. To me, they’re each of their own universe. I consider them equally canon. And it’s just like, which canon are you playing with today? Because writing the characters in the script for the sequel… In the first movie, they’re in different parts of their lives than they are in the book. Like, Alex is already in law school, so he’s already figured out that he wants to do that. And Henry is the middle child instead of the youngest child, so he’s got different expectations on him in the birth order and everything like that. So I really have to keep them separate in my mind, especially if I’m ever revisiting the characters from the book, I need to be able to totally leave everything else out of it and just focus on that. And I do view the book canon as its own canon, you know?

Swooon: Speaking of book canon, you posted that Instagram Story with Alex and Henry’s future.

McQuiston: Is this the one where I was like…

Swooon: They’re girl dads [and married, living in Texas, and “practicing law and writing and smashing”].

McQuiston: I specifically said that was book canon. That is not me… I will never spoil anything in the movie canon because Amazon will snipe me.

Swooon: So, do you think their movie future could be different than that?

McQuiston: Totally. Yeah, I think the movie future is to be determined, and I have a stronger idea of what the book future is because I’ve thought of that for so much longer.

Swooon: They’ve been living in your brain [longer]. Alex and Henry fight so hard to be together in the first movie. Can you speak to whether or not the sequel is about them fighting together as a united front?

McQuiston: I can’t give any plot details like that away. I think Matthew has already spoken on this, so I can say that a lot of what we talked about when we were developing the story for it was like, what does real partnership look like after the rom-com is over? And so I think that’s a lot of what it is. These are two really important people with really important lives and big dreams and a lot of pressure externally on them. And so being in a partnership is complicated. And like, it’s not always going to be like confetti and fireworks. And it’s about navigating all of that stuff together.

Prime Video

Swooon: It sounds a little more serious, though the first has its serious moments, too. But would you say it still has a rom-com tone?

McQuiston: Yeah, absolutely still a rom-com. I spent some time on set, and I was laughing so much on set. Our actors are such good dramatic actors, but they’re also so funny. So there’s a lot of humor.

Swooon: And you got Chloe Fineman from Saturday Night Live.

McQuiston: Yeah, and we’ve got… Thomas Flynn, I will sing his praises every day of the week. He’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever, ever, ever, ever met, and he’s so funny in this movie.

Swooon: I feel like people might not expect that.

McQuiston: Yeah, he’s so good. He’s so good. It’s fun.

Swooon: Would you say that the direction the sequel movie took surprised you?

McQuiston: I mean, yes and no. I feel like it ultimately… I don’t know. I think that there were things that came through in different rounds of the scripts that were unexpected for me, but I don’t think I was super surprised by anything.

Swooon: Yeah, and you’re more in charge at this point.

McQuiston: To me, at this point, I feel like it ends up becoming a really collaborative process, because I worked with Matthew, and then we have producers. We have Gemma Burgess, who came in as a writer in later drafts because we really needed a British voice in the script. So I very much don’t take full credit for the script. I think that it was very much a village together working on that script by the end.

Swooon: Also, I have to ask about seeing Taylor and Nicholas go back into character. Did it feel different than the last time? 

McQuiston: It feels different in the sense of like, I can tell that they are both just more confident, more seasoned, and they slip back into these characters really easily, you know? It was really fun getting to see them back in character. It was like seeing some old friends you haven’t seen in a long time. And they’re both so good, and I feel like they’ve both even grown as actors in the last four years, since that last time I got to watch them work. It’s just as fun to watch them goofing off when the cameras aren’t rolling. Their dynamic really makes me laugh.

Swooon: We need a blooper reel.

McQuiston: I’m begging them. There were so many things that happened. I turned to someone and was like, “Did we get that? Clip that, clip that!”

Swooon: And can you say if the sequel is as far into the future as the bonus chapter? Can we expect a time jump of some sort?

McQuiston: I’m trying to think. There’s definitely a small time jump, but it’s not a huge one, I don’t think.

Swooon: So not five years.

Related

Casey McQuiston Confirms New 'Red, White & Royal Blue' Book Project

I don’t think so, but I don’t know. Honestly, I’ll be so real with you, I don’t know. It’s a little fuzzy in my mind, right? Because I’ve been working on so much other stuff that I’m like, the details, the timelines, they’re all mixed up now.

Swooon: Totally. If you did write a book sequel, you wouldn’t want to follow the plot of the movie, right?

You can’t. It’s like, legally important for them. They’re separate. And also, to me it’s important because I want to let the movie stand on its own. The film universe, to me, is its own thing now. To me, whatever happens in the books is, it’s just me and the characters. And that is something that I want to keep on this side of the road.

Red, White & Royal Wedding, TBA, Prime Video