‘Every Year After’ stars Sadie Soverall and Matt Cornett discuss becoming Percy and Sam

Sadie Soverall and Matt Cornett have the task of bringing to life Percy and Sam in “Every Year After,” who fans of Carley Fortune’s novels know all too well.

As the leads of the adaptation of Fortune’s debut novel, Percy and Sam are the childhood-friends-to-lovers duo of dreams, and have captured the hearts of over one million readers.

“Every Summer After” is a BookTok favorite, and so the stakes were high for Soverall and Cornett when they signed on to star as the leads in the adaptation, and they sat down with Newsweek to discuss the pressure a built in fanbase adds, how a gorgeous location like Barry’s Bay helps their performance, and their go to horror movie recommendations.

Sadie Soverall as Percy Fraser and Matt Cornett as Sam Florek in “Every Year After.”

READ: ‘Every Year After’ Season 1 – Release Date, Schedule, How to Watch

Sadie Soverall and Matt Cornett Discuss ‘Every Year After’

“Every Year After” is based on a beloved book with such a huge fan base. Were you both aware of this before filming began?

Sadie Soverall: I feel like we were both kind of aware. I hadn’t read any of Carley’s books before, but I was very aware of a very gorgeous, dedicated and huge fan base.

Matt Cornett: Yeah, once I found out like what the books were – I wasn’t too familiar with Carley’s work before finding out I got the show – I was like, ‘Oh, these are very dedicated fans, and they’re so wonderful and so beautiful and I love to see it. I can’t wait to be a part of that fan group.’ I’m a fan of the book with them, so it’s so fun to see.

I’m part of that dedicated, and you’ve both done a brilliant job. Does it add any additional pressure for you when preparing for a role, or does it just make it more exciting?

MC: I think it’s a pressure that breeds excitement. While there is a pressure to get it right, per se, we want to make sure we are doing the book justice and doing Carley’s work justice, but it also is an exciting chapter because we do get to have our own version of Sam and Percy. While we get to create these characters that we know everything about from the books, we get to throw our own little spin on it. That’s really exciting, and really fun to tap into and explore.

This adaptation expands so far beyond what’s on the page. We get so much more of characters who have smaller roles, like Jordie, Chantal, and Delilah. How much of the book played a factor into your preparation? Particularly for you, Sadie, because it’s written from Percy’s point of view. Did you take from that, or was this about approaching this as its own fresh piece of text?

SS: Absolutely, I worked really closely with the book. I’d never worked on a book to screen adaptation like this before and I found it really joyous, because a lot of the work that you do as an actor in constructing a backstory and secrets and character thoughts was all there for me every day in a book. So, it was quite brilliant to get to be on a scene and then get to flip to a page in the book and figure out what’s going on in their head. Also, it expands on certain things that you might have just guessed at in the show, and I think all the expansions in the show were really exciting because it was new territory. I think especially with the relationship between Percy and Sue, I found that really exciting as a fan of the book to get to explore those scenes.

Michael Bradway as Charlie Florek, Robyn Ross as Diane Fraser, Sadie Soverall as Percy Fraser, Matt Cornett as Sam Florek, Elisha Cuthbert as Sue Florek, and Fred Ewanuick as Arthur Fraser in “Every Year After.”

I wanted to ask you about the location. It’s so stunning, and so well written on the page in the book. When I saw it for the first time on screen, I was like ‘This is exactly what I imagined.’ How does having that location for you as actors help your performances?

MC: Oh, so much. I think the locations, they are so stunning on every single level, even our sets. Even the times we weren’t like on location, the sets themselves are stunning. I think it felt like we were actually bringing this book to life and living this story that we had read. It was just really fun, and I think it created an environment that made us really excited to want to continue to play in.

One more question, and it’s more of a fun one. Percy forces Sam to watch so many different horror movies throughout “Every Year After.” What’s your go to horror recommendation?

SS: Good question.

MC: It’s a great question. We watched “Evil Dead” together.

SS: We did, we watched the…

MC: No, we watched the original one.

SS: Oh we did! We watched the original one.

MC: Then we watched “Halloween.” We tried to watch the whole “Halloween” series.

That’s like a million movies.

MC: Yeah, we got 1 and half in and we were like… this is too much.

SS: I feel like I’m quite into psychological horror. I love the “Babadook.” Terrifying. I mean, I’m not a horror person because I get really scared. I get nightmares. It’s happening already.

MC: I’ve always been a fan of the “Annabelle” movies, but I will say now seeing “Obsession,” that might be my favourite horror movie. Potentially of all time. I know that’s a big thing, but I really loved that movie and it actually terrified me. So, good work to that team.