Exclusive Interview
‘The Last Sunrise’ Director Carlson Young on That First Kiss Scene & More
With The Last Sunrise, director Carlson Young brings the world author Anna Todd created to the screen. Based on Todd’s book of the same name, Prime Video’s latest entry into the rom-dram space follows Ry (Maia Reficco), a 22-year-old with severe epilepsy, as she travels to Mallorca, Spain, with her protective mother (Eva Longoria). There, Ry meets and falls for local Julián (Fernando Lindez).
As they explore the city together, Julián helps Ry embrace living in the moment, but her secrets threaten to unravel everything. Young, who’s no stranger to the romance genre with Prime Video rom-coms Upgraded and Clashing Through the Snow (which recently wrapped filming) under her belt, found a way into the story from her first read of the script.
Noting the reality of Ry’s condition and the mother-daughter relationship running alongside the romance, Young told Swooon, “I think parts of the story felt just really grounded to me, and I wanted to understand and bring to life the assignment of this sexy escapist love story.”
Swooon: Were you familiar with the Anna Todd book universe and adaptations going into this?
Carlson Young: Admittedly, I knew a little bit about it, but not much. I definitely did a little deep dive. I became fascinated with Anna as a person. She has such an interesting story. I did a little research and got really into it. The fanfiction, Wattpad, I didn’t know about any of it, really.
Swooon: The Harry Styles of it all.
Young: I didn’t know. And I learned about it and I was like, “Wow, I’m fascinated.”
Swooon: It’s so cool. I’ve been locked in since the early days, so I was very excited about [The Last Sunrise]. I was curious, because the adaptation was announced before the book had come out, if you could tell me about the beginnings of your involvement.
Young: I read the script first. The book had not come out yet, so it was a very interesting process. It was reverse-engineered, where Anna sold it as a feature and then wrote the book. And so I read the script, and I loved it. I totally saw a way in and had this unique situation of having the book after, which I feel like provided a really good foundation of understanding the characters’ inner monologue more than anything. Because from the page to the screen, there’s so many changes and so many things that we did slightly differently, but our priority was maintaining the essence of the characters. That’s all. So, it was really cool.
Swooon: I’m sure it helped because she was also an executive producer, so what was that relationship like?
Young: It was a great relationship. We clicked immediately. She’s the easiest person to work with. I feel like our chemistry together is really natural, and we have the same priorities and the same ideas for having to achieve that. It was a really creative and cool relationship. I love her.
Swooon: I love that. And speaking of another collaborative element, I know your husband [Foster the People musician Isom Innis] works with you on the scores [of your movies], and he worked with you on this one as well. What was the collaboration process like on this one?
Young: It was a really cool collaboration. My husband has a mechanical heart valve, so he had his own unique way into Ry’s illness and the way that her psychology is shaped from growing up with something like that. So he brought something kind of personal and cool to the table, and when he would play me the score that he had written for it, I was like, “Wow, this is breathtaking.” It was very cool. We haven’t done a sexy YA romance together before, and it was very cool.
Swooon: What qualities were you looking for in Ry and Julián that Maia and Fernando immediately understood or captured?
Young: When I met Maia, she’s such a confident and strong… like just a beautiful human being. And I feel like more than anything, I sensed like this… She was completely fearless. And so together, I feel like what we worked on together was finding the fragility and gentleness of Ry, of somebody whose psychology has been shaped by this condition, and how that would look. We were both curious about the same things. It was very easy for us to have a language together. She was our face of Ry right from the jump, and then when we saw her and Fernando in a room together, the chemistry is so palpable. You can cut it with a knife.
Swooon: What was that chemistry read scene?
Young: The chemistry read scene was the beach. It was their walk-and-talk after they run into each other for a second time. And then the third one was them after he cooks her the fish and they’re on the boat.
Swooon: All good scenes, especially the kiss scene, with the light coming in from behind. Obviously, it’s such an important moment. It’s the first kiss. Tell me about filming that.
Young: I remember vaguely; we were almost shut down. The Spanish police were… We weren’t allowed to have a certain light there. I think it was our moonlight. Anyway, the light you’re talking about, we almost got shut down for. But no, that was like a highly anticipated moment. We were very excited about that.
Prime Video
Swooon: Was there any romantic scene between the two of them where they improvised or they did something that surprised you that wasn’t in the script?
Young: I think the scene that you just brought up, when they’re splashing around in the water, they were crazy playful with each other, which I think was a little bit on the page, but they certainly made that their own. For a second, it was like two kids kind of playing. They brought so much to the table individually. And as a director, I love to let the actors improv and play, and I can figure it out in the edit.
Swooon: Was there any scene that maybe underwent the most changes or was totally different from start to finish?
Young: We had a few endings. I don’t want to say alternate endings, but yeah, alternate endings and different bookends and not necessarily… No scene change, but the monologue was shifting. So what we landed on was…
Swooon: I thought the ending was so interesting because it’s like she doesn’t fully remember him yet. Or that’s up for debate, and you want to leave that on a question mark?
Young: That’s up for the debate.
Swooon: OK, something to explore in the potential sequel, which we know is being written. Would you want to return to direct?
Young: I would love to. I love this world. I love Ry and Isolde [Eva Longoria]. The mother-daughter relationship is so rich and exciting to me, and I had not done romance before. I really hadn’t directed a sex scene or anything like this before, and I really enjoyed it. I think that it’s such a beautiful story, and I love the characters, and there’s a lot of places to go from the ending. […]
Courtesy of Carlson Young
Swooon: Based on where they are at the end, is there anything you want to explore with them next? I don’t know if you know where they’re going with it.
Young: I have some… I have an idea. I think we have an idea… There’s a lot to mine in remembering. Remembering someone that is so completely primally natural to you, but that your brain doesn’t quite remember. I think having a romantic chemistry with someone where you’re almost like mirroring each other and figuring out what once was is very… Hot, hot, hot.
Swooon: There’s also the fact that he did go against her wishes. She didn’t want the surgery.
Young: Yeah, she did not.
Swooon: He pushed her mom to make that choice for her… There’s tension there.
Young: Maia and I have talked about that. At the end of the shoot, we were like, “It wasn’t her choice.” And she’s like, “It wasn’t my choice.” Spiritually, we have a problem with that, and we’ll be wrestling with that from here on out.
The Last Sunrise, Streaming Now, Prime Video
