For This Time Next Year author Sophie Cousens’ first go at adapting one of her books into a film, the most challenging part was capturing the internal dialogue of her “spiky” protagonist” Minnie Cooper (Sophie Cookson).
The story, set over multiple New Year’s Eves and New Year’s Days, follows Minnie as she meets and confronts her nemesis from birth — Quinn Hamilton (Lucien Laviscount), who she believes stole the name she would have had if she were the first baby born on January 1, 1990 and not him.
“There’s so much comedy in the book that comes from Minnie’s internal monologue, and I think that as a writer, that was one of the hardest things to show — what she’s thinking and her humor,” Cousens told Deadline in an interview following the film’s release on Roku. “When I wrote the book, I always imagined it as a film in my head. It was really exciting was being able to bring some of the set pieces to life. A good rom com, you have the light and the shade, and you have the silly, fun stuff, and you have the romance, but there’s also something a little bit more to say.”
When Minnie meets Quinn, she has just been left locked in a bathroom from the inside at his extravagant birthday party by her dud of a boyfriend Greg (Will Hislop). One of Minnie’s major moves mid-movie is to break up with Greg, which she accomplishes. Her arc with Laviscount’s Quinn combines the popular romantic comedy tropes of fated mates and enemies to lovers — with Roku marketing the film as “a love-fate relationship.”
“This is definitely enemies to lovers. [Minnie] completely takes against Quinn from the beginning because she completely reads him as a spoiled rich kid who’s had the world handed him on a platter. Her first impression of him is she meets him at this very expensive party, and her take on him is, ‘How could you possibly have any problems in the world?’” Cousens said. “And then, as she gradually gets to know him, she realizes she completely misjudged him. He’s actually the sweetest, kindest man, and Lucien just played that balance so perfectly well. I think as a viewer, you instantly get that he’s a good guy, and she’s got a little bit of a chip on her shoulder. For me, enemies to lovers is the most fun trope to write, and I think those actors sparring off each other, but then gradually soften and turn into marshmallow is a really satisfying thing to see on screen.”
DEADLINE: So first question for you, how did you go about the process of adapting your book into the screenplay? What goes into that for you?
SOPHIE COUSENS: Well, this is the first adaptation that I’ve done. So it was quite challenging, because translating a 400-page novel into a100-page script is quite a task. The first thing was just to distill down what the film is about, what the really important aspects of the romantic story are. And in the book, it’s very much an ensemble cast, and you have all the friends at the bakery, and you have all the family. And I think for the film, the focus really needed to be on Minnie and Quinn and their relationship in order to do it justice in the film. So there was that element of what to focus on and what to exclude.
DEADLINE: And you have a cameo in the proposal scene, right? That’s you in the pink dress?
COUSENS: I did. Yeah, I do. I said to the director, I would love to do a Hitchcock and be in there somewhere. So the director, Nick Moore, very kindly, was like, “Fine, we’re gonna put you in the proposal scene.” And I had a little trailer, and I got to wear a princess outfit. And it was really fun to feel like I snuck in there somewhere.
I got to be on set for a couple of weeks and see it all happen. Going from just me in my bedroom writing this book, wondering if anyone was going to read it, to then having this, huge production of all these amazing cast and crew was quite an experience.
DEADLINE: It’s set at New Year’s with that holiday focus. There’s so many themes you can go with for that, but it also came out right before Valentine’s Day on Roku. I’m wondering what that might add to the story for you in the film, and how it contributes to the rom com canon?
COUSENS: I think a lot of my books are all about the question of what is romantic, what is important? This book really focuses on the idea of fate and destiny. One character really believes in fate, the other one doesn’t. I think that so many plastic rom-coms deal with that question of fated love, and I’m a huge fan of all the films in the sort of 2000s and 90s that, fated love and destiny and things like Sleepless in Seattle, where it’s a big part of the question.
So in this film, where they’re born on the same night, or nearly just one minute apart, but then that one minute really affects the course of their [lives]. And they keep on being drawn back together every birthday, unknowingly to them. For me, that was my exploration of this theme of fate and serendipity, and how much, in the words of Taylor Swift, the elements of the invisible strings that are pulling us back to someone. It’s a very rich topic. So I feel like, a lot of rom com aficionados are gonna have an opinion on it.
DEADLINE: I was gonna ask what your inspirations were. I know she says in the movie referring to Sleepless in Seattle, “I’m Meg Ryan!”
COUSENS: I think there’s knowingly, lots of nods to the rom com cannon, and those kind of classic scenes in films that, where you suddenly realize you love someone, and you have to race across town and tell them, and, she’s wearing her pajamas. That was one of the most fun scenes that I enjoyed seeing. And also sharing way too much information with a random bus driver, because, you’ve just decided at that moment you need to tell someone. I think a lot of that kind of thing translated really well onto screen.
DEADLINE: I just want to clarify, is Quinn the one that believes in fate, or is that Minnie in the story?
COUSENS: It’s not necessarily fate as much, but she has always grown up feeling that she was unlucky. And her mother had always been telling her, it’s fate. Your luck in life is predestined in a way. Because the name Quinn was supposed to be a lucky name, and in the hospital, their mothers were giving birth together and got chatting, and Quinn’s mother ended up sort of stealing the name Quinn, and [he] ended up going on to have a sort of charmed life, from the outside. Whereas Minnie feels like her whole life was slightly blighted by missing out on that name and that she has been cursed by bad luck. And whenever she has a birthday, bad thing seem to happen to her.
From reconnecting with Quinn, later in life, she discovered that, his attitude, where you make your own luck, rubs off on her a little bit. And also, even though his life seems great on the outside, as soon as you kind of delve beneath the surface, maybe it’s not everything that it’s cracked up to be. I think that together, they re-align each other’s views on fate and destiny and whether whether your luck in life is is pre-decided?
DEADLINE: Quinn’s relationship with his mother is another big part of the story. What was it like having Golda Rosheuvel play his mom?
COUSENS: Well, when we were doing the casting, your focus is very much on the main characters. And so when Sophie Cookson and Lucien Laviscount were cast, I was so thrilled. They just looked like the characters to me. I knew they were going to do a great job. But then when the casting director started telling me who was in line to be some of the more minor characters, I was just blown away. I mean, John Hannah is one of my all-time heroes. Four Weddings And a Funeral, I think I’ve seen it 37 times, and he’s my all-time favorite actor. So to have him playing Minnie’s dad, and then Monica Dolan, who’s a BAFTA Award-winning actress, and Golda, who is incredible in Bridgerton — and actually seeing her on screen with Lucien, I cried.
Golda Rosheuvel in ‘This Time Next Year’
Courtesy of The Roku Channel
What Golda brought to that role — her and Monica together actually — added a depth and a nuance and an emotion that I wasn’t necessarily expecting to see, but that’s where you have a script elevated by those kind of performances.
DEADLINE: I absolutely loved the scene where they’re gardening, and Connie gets Tara outside, and then Tara goes, “Do you think maybe you’re nurturing your grudge a little bit more than your love for Minnie?” I thought the whole concept of motherhood and parenting playing in was interesting, too.
COUSENS: What I wanted to say with the story, really, was that how we grow up, our views on romantic love and relationships is very much affected by our friends and our family and how they view love. I think that Minnie as a character, is quite a spiky protagonist, and she thinks the world’s against her, and then you meet her mom and you realize why. That’s really the story I was trying to tell with This Time Next Year, was how much of an influence these mothers and the events of their birth have impacted on their view of the world and their view of relationships.
DEADLINE: And Quinn is so closed off. I’m wondering if you could unpack his mother’s anxiety and agoraphobia influences that?
COUSENS: She’s agoraphobic, but I think in the book, in the film, it’s never specifically diagnosed. There’s this sense of her having extreme anxiety and not liking to leave the house. A lot of that is left quite vague. There’s a lot of interpretation in the book and in the film, but I think you get this impression that something, she admits in the film that she had a miscarriage, and she had a very traumatic experience with that, and her partner left her when she was younger. So you get the sense that she’s had a very difficult life, despite having all this wealth and privilege. And then she really, really came to rely on Quinn as someone who helped her when she had anxiety.
She relied on him to go and fetch her things when she couldn’t leave the house. So I think that for him, seeing his mother struggle with the loss of love has, made him slightly as scared of it, but also seeing that his mother needs him, feeling like he can’t be needed by anyone else. It’s this feeling of, “Is love something you give freely, or is it a burden to feel like you suddenly need someone?” And that is something that he learns over the course of the film that love isn’t just being needed, it’s also wanting to be needed. And needing someone else.
DEADLINE: Are you hoping to get more of your books adapted? Are any in the works?
COUSENS: I am, yes. My second book, Just Haven’t Met You Yet, is in development at the moment, so I have all fingers crossed that that may happen because I think it would be a delightful thing to see on screen. But to be honest, having seen the process of how much it takes to get something from book to screen, to get the talent, get the funding. I actually think it’s a wonder that anything ever gets made. So I will be thrilled if more of my books get made, because I’ve absolutely loved it.
DEADLINE: Are you working on a new book right now?
COUSENS: I am working on my sixth book at the moment, which I have abandoned and restarted four times now, which is the first for me. I’ve never done that before. It’s going to be rather a different process, but I’m excited about it. It’s quite out there. That’s all I’m going to say. It’s out there.
This Time Next Year is available to stream for free via the Roku Channel, a Roku device (TV), the app and TheRokuChannel.com.