‘The Love Hypothesis’ Stars Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman Want to Make You Believe in Love Again

Romantic comedies live and die by the chemistry and charm of the project’s main pairing. For The Love Hypothesis, Prime Video’s latest foray into the genre, it’s an embarrassment of riches on both fronts. Based on the Ali Hazelwood novel of the same name and directed by romcom veteran Claire Scanlon, the film centers around perky Ph.D. candidate Olive Smith (Lili Reinhart) and the notoriously grouchy, young professor Dr. Adam Carlsen (Tom Bateman). The pair find themselves in one of the romance genre’s staple situations — fake dating. The actors knew pretty early one that their chemistry was going to work for the film. “I could tell that he was a professionally trained theater school theatrical actor in the best way, because you brought a depth to a scene that maybe on the page didn’t fully land,” Reinhart, 30, tells The Hollywood Reporter in a chat alongside her co-star. The actress, also an executive producer on the project, remembers hanging up on the chemistry read and speaking with the other producers about how good he was. “They hung up and started talking about me. I hung up and was left alone in my office with my Jenga Tower of Books with my laptop on it,” Bateman, 37, chimes in. “I remember [the chemistry read] very well. Lili was huge part of the reason I wanted to do [the film].” Reinhart is emphatic that there was a great deal of pressure to find an actor to live up to the book version of Adam. “A tall, dark, brooding, kind of intimidating guy, who had a soft heart inside – and we found him,” she says. “He just so happened to be married to the woman who this book is based off.” Reinhart and Bateman photographed on Sept. 18 at The Langham, New York, Fifth Avenue. Emilio Madrid It’s true. Hazelwood originally published the novel as a piece of fan fiction for the Star Wars characters Kylo Ren and Rey, the latter of whom was played by Bateman’s real-life wife Daisy Ridley. It might seem calculated, but Bateman didn’t even know the film was based on a book when he signed on. “It’s kind of too nuts. It’s one of those things if you wrote it in a book or something, people would say it doesn’t track reality wise,” says Bateman. Reinhart agrees, adding, “We’re lucky it panned out that way because I think it just added a level of excitement and buzz around the movie.” Now, the actors are sitting aside one another in Brazil, where they’re visiting for some pre-release press and a screening. Between TikTok content and Reinhart’s near-generational press look run paying homage to romcoms of the past, the actors have been everywhere in the lead up to the film. The excitement is there — the trip has been filled with screaming fans. “We had the most wonderful, insane premiere in Brazil. Both of us have never experienced anything like that,” says Reinhart. “I said to Lil it was probably the closest we’d get to feeling like rock stars. It was kind of crazy. They don’t hold anything back,” Bateman says. Reinhart adds, cheekily: “Tom opened his mouth, and they just cheered for him because they obviously think he’s very hot.” Fandom surrounding romance IP has taken on a new life, with shows like Heated Rivalry and Off Campus scoring with audiences, and the pair are coming to terms all that comes with that. Bateman finds the idea of such dedicated fandom fascinating. He envies it in a way, as he doesn’t feel that way about anything. Bateman photographed on Sept. 18 at The Langham, New York, Fifth Avenue. Emilio Madrid “It gives their life such beautiful focus that they have something that they can be that passionate about,” says Bateman. Reinhart had been explaining it to her boyfriend, fellow actor Jack Martin, who told her she should understand the idea very well. “That’s how I act around you every day,” she says, mimicking what her beau told her. It elicits an immediate swoon from Bateman. Much of the book’s fandom, and now the film’s fandom, comes from a dedicated legion of social media fans — The Love Hypothesis was a BookTok hit, without a doubt. Bateman stays offline for the most part — his wife, Ridley, has been sharing promotions for the film on her accounts. On the other end of that spectrum, Reinhart’s quite online — she has been since her days in the CW series Riverdale. She doesn’t necessarily want her feed to be filled with only The Love Hypothesis, but the film has a healthy spot in her algorithm. The actress is seeing the fan edits, and she’s loving them. “I’d feel sad if I couldn’t see any of that, so it’s a blessing and a curse in a way. I don’t want to be inundated with my own face and my own voice and hear my own interviews, but I do like and appreciate seeing because ultimately these edits,” she says. Reinhart photographed on Sept. 18 at The Langham, New York, Fifth Avenue. Emilio Madrid *** Early into Love Hypothesis‘ promotional run, Reinhart was heading to a press event, decked out in a pink cardigan and a high ponytail. There were plenty of cameras around to snap pictures, some of which went viral online when one commenter posted that obviously the photos are fake paparazzi and that Reinhart was paying them. She took to the comments herself to discredit that idea. “I was going to a screening and people said it was staged or whatever. Well, yes, because I’m going to an event. Trust me, I don’t look like that when I’m walking to Alfred’s to get my coffee after going to the gym,” she says. The actress chocks up her zen reaction to this chatter to a decade in this industry. When she first broke out on Riverdale, she was quick to defend herself when people were spewing misinformation. If someone was saying something about her she didn’t like, she’d say something right back. “How the hell does anyone react when people are talking about you online? It’s weird. It’s always going to be weird,” Reinhart says. “I don’t know one famous person who’s used to being discussed by millions of people.” Responding to people, she muses, all went back to her internal sense of justice. She wanted people to know she had agency. “I think inherently it’s bizarre to watch people have a conversation about you in front of your eyes and know that they’ve typed something on their keyboards and clicked send,” she says. “They know it’s going out in public and you’re a real person, but they’re not really viewing you that way.” Bateman plays a big part of her positive feelings during the run-up to the movie. “It’s so lovely to do press about a film that’s about love because you end up just having these great conversations about love and why people love love,” Bateman says. Reinhart insists he’s “so good” at those questions. Reinhart and Bateman photographed on Sept. 18 at The Langham, New York, Fifth Avenue. Emilio Madrid Bateman’s of the mindset that, at the end of the day, everyone’s looking for love and connection. “Without talking too much about how dark the world is, we are living in a very sort of separate world. A lot of people are living in their own separate experiences and they’re not looking outside of their own point of view,” he says. “Romance forces you to.” Indeed, the pair have seemingly thought a great deal about the philosophical nature of romcoms, and why they’re important. The genre often shows people working to be better versions of themselves. “People inherently just want to be seen. That is what being loved is, and that’s what these two characters do is they see each other,” says Reinhart. “I hope people walk away from seeing the film and are inspired to live a little bit more openly and with their hearts on their sleeves,” Bateman says. “To not be afraid to take a chance on any form of connecting and changing your thoughts about things.”