‘Love, Theoretically’ Dream Cast: Damian Hardung & More Picks for Ali Hazelwood Adaptation
We’ve eaten up every single Ali Hazelwood book since 2021’s The Love Hypothesis, so we’ve long wanted to see them turned into movies. Lucky for us, they’re well on their way to being made. The Love Hypothesis will hit screens this year, and the author has revealed that (barring one) all of her books have been optioned for adaptations. That includes 2023’s Love, Theoretically, which isn’t quite as far along in the process as The Love Hypothesis but does have some movement behind it.
“The person who was supposed to write the script [for Love, Theoretically] is still attached,” Hazelwood told Harper’s Bazaar in May 2026. “I’m still a huge, super, mega fan of this person. I don’t know that anything is going to happen. The road from something being optioned to something actually being made is just so long and so winding that sometimes announcing it is not even worth it.”
Still, we aren’t letting that stop us from picking out who should play Elsie, Jack, and the rest of the crew in Love, Theoretically. Like most of Hazelwood’s works, Love, Theoretically is a STEM-centric romance. Elsie Hannaway is a theoretical physicist. She’s desperate to leave adjunct professor gigs behind for a tenure-track position. To make ends meet, Elsie works as a fake girlfriend, and she morphs her personality into whatever her clients need.
Enter: Jack Smith, the suspicious older brother of her favorite client. When she interviews for a job at MIT, Elsie finds out that Jack is on the hiring committee. Making matters worse, he’s also the famous experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputations of theorists like her. Elsie gears up for a fight, but Jack surprises her. He makes her feel like she can be her true self.
Elsie and Jack’s dynamic is perfect rom-com material, and we’ve picked the actors that we think could do them justice. Let us know your thoughts in the comments at the end of the page!
Kaitlyn Dever as Elsie Hannaway
Kaitlyn Dever proved she’s got the rom-com chops in movies like Rosaline and Ticket to Paradise, and we just know she could capture the essence of Hazelwood’s people-pleasing, Twilight-loving theoretical physicist. Beyond the energy, she totally has Elsie’s look!
Damian Hardung as Jack Turner-Smith
We saw this one somewhere on social media first, but we can’t think of anyone more perfect for Jack than Damian Hardung. Jack may have the most generic name on the planet, but readers know he’s far from it. After watching Maxton Hall, we know Hardung is familiar with playing a stern, prickly love interest that becomes charming over time. Plus, Hardung himself is going to medical school while he acts. It’s not the same as physics, we know, but he’s definitely familiar with the academia vibe. He’s got Jack’s build and sandy blond hair to boot!
Halle Bailey as CeCe
After leading You, Me & Tuscany, Halle Bailey may be too famous to take on a supporting rom-com role. But Hazelwood has said she hopes to write a spinoff about CeCe, so we’ll shoot for the stars with this one! We totally think Bailey fits as Elsie’s gorgeous, effervescent roommate. Like Elsie, CeCe is a fake-girlfriending on the side, and she’s getting her doctorate in linguistics from Harvard. Bailey was so charming and bubbly in You, Me & Tuscany that there’s no way she couldn’t pull off CeCe in Love, Theoretically.
Dean-Charles Chapman as Gregory Turner-Smith
Dean-Charles Chapman has already broached the rom-com genre with Netflix’s Too Much, and we’d love to see him take on the role of Greg, Jack’s brother, in Love, Theoretically. His character in that show, like Greg, is a likable human disaster. Elsie feels protective of Greg, who’s also a loving half-brother to Jack. He’s not supposed to look too much like his brother, since the Smith family is entirely brunette aside from Jack. Still, we could believe he’s related to Hardung!
Sandra Oh as Monica Salt
Vincent Cassel as Christophe Laurendau
For Elsie’s mentor, we’re picturing Vincent Cassel. According to Elsie, Dr. L has the energy of an old-school French actor in his 60s. Cassel may play villains for the most part, but we could believe that he’s the physics advisor whom Elsie is fiercely loyal to. (And, as readers know, Dr. L isn’t a saint, anyway.) Put him in a turtleneck, and he’s good to go!
Blythe Danner as Millicent Smith
Anyone who’s seen Blythe Danner in Meet the Parents (and read Hazelwood’s novel) would likely agree that she could play Jack’s honest, loving, and seriously perceptive grandmother.
Lena Headey as Caroline Smith
Maybe we’re just itching for a Game of Thrones reunion, but we think Lena Headey would fit as Jack and Greg’s rich, nosy mom. Well, in Jack’s case, we find out that she’s actually his step-mom, and she was never fond of him during his childhood. Especially after playing Cersei Lannister, Headey’s familiar with playing characters who aren’t exactly mother-of-the-year.
Molly Shannon as Elsie's mom
Speaking of mothers who aren’t going to earn any awards. Elsie’s mom is burnt out taking care of her chaotic teenage twin sons, and she takes total advantage of her people-pleasing daughter. We think Molly Shannon, who we’d totally believe is related to Dever, could capture the high-strung energy of Elsie’s mom.
Cierra Ramirez as George Sepulveda
The Fosters star Mariana Adams Foster went to MIT for engineering, so we know without a doubt that Cierra Ramirez could play Jack’s friend and physicist, Georgina. Though George gets the MIT job over Elsie, she’s impossible not to like. She immediately befriends Elsie, and Ramirez could play that role perfectly.
