Olivia Holt Says Filming ‘Heart Eyes’ Included an Incredibly Awkward Icebreaker
Olivia Holt’s debut atop a major studio call sheet is going exceptionally well.
The multitalented star of Heart Eyes couldn’t be prouder of director Josh Ruben’s slasher romcom, as it’s one of the most well-reviewed films of the young year. Holt’s lead role is a logical next step given her recent scene-stealing performance in Nahnatchka Khan’s time-travel slasher comedy, Totally Killer (2023). In fact, Heart Eyes producer Greg Gilreath also produced the former, so he recommended Holt to Ruben during the casting process. Similarly, Radio Silence, the filmmaking collective behind Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2023), put in a good word for their former Scream actor Mason Gooding, and the strength of both endorsements sent Holt and Gooding straight to Heart Eyes’ New Zealand-based set, bypassing a chemistry read between the two romantic leads.
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Holt and Gooding play two advertising professionals who are paired together to revamp an ad campaign for a jewelry company. And during the course of a business dinner on Valentine’s Day, Holt’s Ally and Gooding’s Jay are wrongfully targeted by a traveling serial killer who goes after seemingly happy couples. The showdown with the Heart Eyes Killer (HEK) begins inside Ally’s bedroom after Jay helped his locked-out colleague break into her apartment building. Thinking on her feet, Ally throws an intimate bedside object at HEK, and based on their lack of a chem read during casting, this uncomfortably hilarious moment turned out to be an ideal chemistry builder for Holt and Gooding.
“It was very early days of shooting, and everyone was still getting acquainted with each other. So it was a nice icebreaker for me, Mason and the crew, even if it was definitely awkward,” Holt tells The Hollywood Reporter.
With the success of the film largely dependent on how well Holt and Gooding clicked with one another, the latter made a point to bond with his leading lady by any means necessary.
“He showed up to set in a tank top that said, ‘Olivia Holt’s #1 fan.’ I don’t know where he got the idea, but he then decided to put on my costume,” Holt recalls mid-laugh of filming a Letterboxd segment promoting the movie. “I had a pair of shorts that were a couple sizes bigger for the harness that I had to wear in some of the stunt sequences, so he was like, ‘I’m going to wear those.’ And he did! He wore them all day long with my belt. It was insane.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Holt also discusses her brutally honest audition scene, before sharing co-star Jordana Brewster’s reaction to the film’s memorable Fast & Furious joke.
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Have you parted ways with the heart eyes emoji after the trauma your character experienced in Heart Eyes?
(Laughs.) Simply no! It’s the best one, and I’m going to continue using it.
It could be quite confusing for the people in your life. They might wonder if you’re referencing your movie or the true meaning of the emoji.
You know what? You’re not wrong. I need to be careful how I use it.
Heart Eyes is your first top billing in a major studio movie. How many hoops did you have to jump through until Ally was yours?
It was a really fun audition process. When I first got the script, I fell in love with it, and I was obsessed with the filmmaker, Josh Ruben. He is so brilliant and so talented, and I was really excited to talk to him before I went into my audition. Initially, that was the whole reason that sold me on this movie. Then, after speaking with him, I just fell more in love with his ideas and his vision for not only the movie, but the character of Ally. So I went in for the audition, and I flew to New Zealand to film pretty shortly after that. We didn’t do a chemistry read with Mason [Gooding]. I met Mason down in New Zealand, and it all just unfolded from there.
I pride myself on guessing audition scenes. Was it the champagne dinner scene?
It was, yeah. You did good!
Maybe Ally is a bit cynical, but I don’t think her champagne rant is necessarily wrong. We are sold this idealized version of romance, and it creates lofty expectations for people. That’s why that couple at the beginning of the movie scripted and produced their engagement. Do you also think Ally has a valid point?
One-thousand percent. One of the reasons that I relate to Ally so much is in that particular scene. She’s incredibly strong in her opinions, and she also doesn’t mind sharing them with a stranger. A lot of the points that she made are actually smart, and she’s putting up boundaries for herself. There are different forms and styles of love, and what Jay does is offer her a different perspective, a new way of love and what a romantic night out with somebody can be. So it takes her a beat [to come around], but I actually like that it does. I respect that she wants to hold her own and hold her own in her opinion.
Jay (Gooding) is a hopeless romantic, and Ally is a bit of a disillusioned romantic. So, in general, would you say that it’s best to be a balance of both?
Yeah, probably. I’m no love or life guru in any way, shape or form, but I would like to think that there’s a happy medium in there somewhere.
Ally and Jay’s meet-cute happens by way of the same fussy coffee order. Do you have your own obnoxious beverage order that few people would have?
I wish I did, but I don’t. I’m super lame, and I don’t even drink coffee, really. I’m more of a tea person. I like tea.
That scene also introduces Ally’s trusty stainless steel straw. Were you all given stainless steel straws as wrap gifts?
That was going to be my wrap gift for everyone, but I didn’t have enough time, unfortunately. It would’ve been the most epic wrap gift ever, especially given the situations in the movie.
Did you accurately guess the Heart Eyes Killer’s (HEK) identity as you were reading the script for the first time?
No, on the first read, I tried to put the clues together, but my guess was inaccurate. I still loved reading it because I felt immersed in the adventure and the characters. I actually went back and forth a hundred times on whether it was [Gigi Zumbado’s best friend character] Monica, but no, I did not accurately guess it at all. Not even close.
Which scene was more awkward for you: the one where you have to throw a certain object at HEK in Ally’s bedroom? Or the one where Ally and Jay have a heart-to-heart conversation inside a van with lots of “background noise” from the owners of said van?
(Laughs.) The scene in the bedroom was way more uncomfortable. It was very early days of shooting, and everyone was still getting acquainted with each other. So it was a nice icebreaker for me, Mason and the crew, even if it was definitely the more awkward one. When we shot the heartfelt conversation in the van, Mason and I shot our version up front on a stage, and they shot the part in the back of the van on a separate day. But Josh Ruben sat in the back of the van [during our part of the scene] and made those noises the whole time. So that scene was way more fun and comical in that space. That was also towards the end of shooting, so we all felt incredibly comfortable and safe with each other at that point. But both scenes are really hilarious moments.
Thank you for giving me that tidbit before my interview with Josh.
Oh, he’ll love telling that story.
There’s an incredible Hobbs & Shaw joke in Heart Eyes, and Jordana Brewster obviously has deep ties to the Fast & Furious franchise. Did she have fun with that gag on the day?
Oh, she loved it. She thinks it’s a brilliant part of the story, and in that particular scene where I reference Hobbs & Shaw, I love her reaction.
“Haven’t heard of it.”
It’s so good, and I am very excited to sit in an audience full of people when she says it.
Ally left medical school for an advertising job that she doesn’t really love. You, on the other hand, have two professions that you probably love equally. So has it been difficult to juggle acting and music in the way that you’d like?
I have moments where it feels a little bit more challenging. When I was younger, I took it very, very seriously, and I had a harder time having a good perspective about it. But I’ve shifted my perspective about it the last couple years, and I like the challenge. I like how exciting my life can be when it’s busy, and I try to not make it super serious and stressful. There’s already so many [stressful] elements in what we do, so I just try to enjoy it and remember all of it. Sometimes, it moves so fast that it feels like I blacked out. Heart Eyes is actually a perfect example. I was across the world and away from friends and family, and sometimes, it can be really isolating to be alone in a foreign country. You don’t know anybody, and you’re hoping that you get along with your cast and your crew. So this was one of my favorite jobs that I’ve ever done, and everyone made it feel like a home away from home for us. Every day was an exciting day to go to work, even if I had to get sprayed with blood pretty much every day.
Actors often tell me that horror movies tend to have a lighter mood on set. Perhaps it’s a psychological response to the material. Was that true in this case?
I think so, yeah. It was very lax. We enjoyed it despite some really hard and challenging days in the middle of winter. It was freezing in New Zealand, and we did mostly night shoots, so it was hard. We also had a lot of background actors. But we had very short days, and we made the most of it. We had such a great time, and our full blooper reel would’ve been way too long to share with the world. They definitely condensed a lot of it, but we had the most fun.
I also appreciated your performance as Teenage Pam in Nahnatchka Khan’s Totally Killer, and there’s a basement scene where your character yells at her mom to go away. That led me to believe that Pam’s mom was the ‘80s killer. The idea was that she blamed Pam’s friends for turning her daughter into a bit of a mean girl. Did you know at the time that people would grab onto that moment?
That’s a really good theory, and it did not cross my mind at all. The conversations that we had on set were always, “How did teenagers interact with their parents back in the ‘80s? What’s the difference between then and now?” Now, teenagers are always on their phones when their parents walk into their room. They’re busy playing something on their phone or doomscrolling. But in the ‘80s, they were just sitting in basements, having conversations that they never wanted their parents to hear. So I just leaned into the teenage angst that a mother and daughter relationship would have in the ‘80s. But that’s a really good theory. I actually would be interested to watch that movie [with the idea] that Pam’s mom is the killer.
Plus, Pam’s mom was estranged from Pam’s own family in the present-day timeline, so that detail only added to the possibility.
Yeah! That’s really brilliant, actually.
Returning to the career-juggling question, people have always jumped between both worlds, but your generation seems to have even more people who act and make music. There’s one theory that it’s because you had Garageband on your devices for as long as you can remember, so it was easier to record music than generations past. But do you have any operating theories?
That’s a really great question. I really love how driven and excited my generation is about life and career paths. You don’t have to pick a lane and stick to it. I love the idea that we get to try different things out. It’s our life. We only get one, so we get to explore different avenues and what makes us happy and what makes us tick and what makes us the most creative, wherever we feel the most needed or wanted. I actually really love that people don’t mind dipping their toes in waters that might be challenging or uncomfortable. It’s about stepping outside the box and trying something new. So I hope that that carries on, and I really do respect that about my generation.
I really liked your cover of The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Today” for Cruel Summer. Was that song choice already scripted, or did you get to pick from a few options?
“Today” was in the script, but the idea of me singing it came way later. So I was very grateful that the producing team allowed me to come in and sing on a couple of songs for the show. I’m very musically driven, and there was so much ‘90s music on that show. I loved all of it. So the idea that I got to cover one of the songs changed everything for me while shooting it. I recorded it during production, so we actually got to listen to it while we were all on set. That was really fun, and it doesn’t really ever happen. [Writer’s Note: Holt’s cover plays over a scene in which her character and Harley Quinn Smith’s character play dress-up and roller skate.]
Lastly, you and Mason shot a Letterboxd segment on the Heart Eyes set. Was he wearing part of your costume during it?
(Laughs.) He sure was. He showed up to set in a tank top that said, “Olivia Holt’s #1 fan,” and he was just wearing his regular getup of sweats and a pair of Converse. I don’t know where he got the idea, but he then decided to put on my costume. I had a pair of shorts that were a couple sizes bigger for the harness that I had to wear in some of the stunt sequences, so he was like, “I’m going to wear those.” And he did! He wore them all day long with my belt. It was insane.
Was there a “who wore it better?” vote amongst the crew?
Yeah, of course, everyone said Mason.
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Heart Eyes opens in theaters Feb. 7.
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