One of this week’s non-tentpole releases is “Love Again,” a new romantic comedy in which singer Celine Dion plays a key supporting role (her film acting debut) and crafted a bunch of music for.
The film sees a woman named Mira (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), grieving the death of her fiance, who continues to send texts to his old cell number. She doesn’t realise the number has been reassigned to a journalist Rob (Sam Heughan) as his new work line.
Rob is fascinated by Mira’s texts and begins to fall in love with her from afar. When he’s assigned to profile Celine Dion, she convinces him to figure out a way to meet Mira in person and win her heart.
Speaking with EW, “Outlander” star Heughan revealed that despite sharing many scenes with Dion in the film, neither he or his co-star Chopra Jonas ever actually filmed with Dion in person.
Dion shot all her scenes separately, which were then added in post-production – resulting in a rom-com with more than your average visual effects and photography trickery for the genre:
“We shot during the pandemic, and it was obviously very difficult for people to travel at the time, so we did shoot a lot of it on sound stages and on green screen. That was one of the challenges of working during the pandemic.
We were in our own bubble in the U.K., and Celine was in Canada. It was difficult, but I think they did some great magic in the movie, and I think those scenes really worked out.
Jim [Strouse], who directed it, he’s such an amazing person and it was just working with him very closely. We got extras and people to read [Dion’s] lines. And honestly, Celine is such a professional herself, that’s [why] it really worked out.”
Filming conditions on the film were tricky, Chopra Jonas saying whilst they were filming during the early days of the pandemic the actors couldn’t be around each other for more than 20 minutes.
“Love Again” is now playing in cinemas.
