Warning: spoilers for The Road Trip ahead. This interview also discusses sexual assault and harassment.
Model and actor Emma Appleton is arguably the face of the plight and chaos of millennial women on screen. After portraying a beautiful story of female friendship and debaucherous dating in your 20s in memoir-turned-TV-series Everything I Know About Love, she's now taking on dealing with wedding season in your 30s – with an ex in tow.
Her latest project The Road Trip – adapted from another bestseller, this time from “chick-lit” author Beth O'Leary, who also brought us the gorgeous TV adaptation of her novel The Flatshare – sees her character Addie and sister Deb (Isabella Laughland) quite literally crash into her ex Dylan (Laurie Davidson) and his antagonistic friend Marcus (played to perfection by Rye Lane star David Jonsson). They end up travelling to a wedding in Spain all together in Addie's camper van, along with Facebook random Rodney (Angus Imrie). Over the journey, all kinds of secrets come to light, performing something of a post-mortem on Addie and Dylan's relationship.
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So far, so rom-com, right? But what The Road Trip does so well is prove the multitude of issues the rom-com genre can tackle. It looks at the impact of wealth gaps on relationships, toxic masculinity, codependency in male friendships and the messiness of sisterhood (Emma and Izzy bonded so much on set they now have matching horseshoe tattoos). Without giving too much away, it also depicts a nuanced story of sexual assault, adding to the importance of nuanced conversation and definitions when it comes to violence against women and girls (VAWG).
GLAMOUR visited Emma and the rest of the cast on set in Gran Canaria back in March 2024, when they were filming a big climactic scene for the road trippers, leading to all kinds of secrets being divulged about Addie and Dylan's relationship and break up – among other things. We asked Emma what she enjoyed about embodying these tumultuous storylines: “Romance is chaotic, whatever age you are in any kind of relationship,” she said. "It's mad, it's wonderful, then it's joyful. And it can be painful and sad, and you don't know whether you're coming or going.
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“So I think it can throw so much at you and change so quickly,” she says of portraying this kind of romance on screen. “And you discover so much about yourself as well as you do it.”
We caught up with her nine months later, just before the show's release, to talk rom-com snobbery, the show's stories of sisterhood and male friendship, and tackling a nuanced sexual harassment storyline.
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Rom-coms have been so big this year – with the success of Nobody Wants This, One Day – why do you think that is?
I think we love rom-coms because it I think it gives us something to believe in. It's a very universal subject, the love and relationships and how joyous, amazing, ecstatic that can be, but also a lot of the pain that comes with it, and also sometimes the mundane aspects of relationships. We have to be reminded that it's not all fireworks all the time. There is a beauty in familiarity and feeling comfortable and safe with someone. And I think you get to see that in rom-coms. You get to see your own circumstances reflected back to you.
The show is adapted from Beth O’Leary’s novel of the same name – there’s definitely some snobbery around chick lit and rom-coms, why do you think that is?
I've always said this, I think people hear the word rom-com and think it's just going to be light and fluffy and cute, and The Road Trip does have a bit of that. But relationships and all the emotions that come with that are really intense, I think unfortunately, it's a cliché that's just always been around. It's always looked down upon. Even the term ‘chick’ – no, it's a book. It's been labeled in an unfair way to make it seem less than.
The show explores privilege and wealth gaps in relationships and how these dynamics affect relationships – what was that like to play, was it an important story for you to tell?
I feel like it's something that exists but isn't really talked about. Because, especially as a society, we don't love talking about money, but now we are having more discussions about it. It's something that's always been there, but only is now being addressed. I've experienced it, I've seen other people experience it, so I could draw on my own personal experience.
We also see the show explore toxic masculinity and a real zoom in on male friendship between Marcus [David Jonsson] and Dylan [Laurie Davidson] as well…
I just adore them, for a start – as human beings, as artists. They're incredible and clever and generous. You see the theme of codependency there, which I don't think has been explored that much in general relationships, actually, on screen – but especially in in male relationships. When I read the script, the words ‘toxic masculinity’ didn't really come into my mind. I think because it was written with such nuance.
With every light element of the show there is some dark – how did you find filming your sexual assault and harassment scenes, how did you prepare?
When I first read it [in the script] it was a bit different, but then it was an incredibly collaborative process. Because whenever you're filming a scene like that, it comes with a lot of uncomfortablity. It was very sensitive, and it was so important to me for it to be done right, and it was important to everyone else as well. I was able to have quite a lot of input… it was between me and our intimacy co-ordinators, our director and Mikey [who plays the perpetrator]. We just really sat down and talked about it so it wasn't a rushed thing, it was really considered. I felt that what I hadn't seen as much on screen were instances that I know have happened to a lot of people that I think people will be able to look at and go, 'That's happened to me, and I didn't know what to call it'.
Yes, the scenes you filmed certainly sat somewhere on the sexual assault and harassment spectrum, how important was it to show that nuance and the difficulty in defining it sometimes?
It's kind of been a ‘grey area’ that is broad and sweeping and… something's not right, you know? I thought it was really important to delve into that because it comes down to relatability. If we can present something on screen where someone thinks ‘that happened to me’ or 'I've been in a similar situation', it can give validation – knowing it was wrong. And that's the power of TV and cinema. I always think about [2023 film] How To Have Sex, which obviously does it in a different way. It's really important, I think, educationally, for men and women. I was happy with how it came out in the end.
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How was it working with intimacy co-ordinators, did you have the assault scene choreographed?
We did choreograph… we knew the beats of the story. And then we figured out in between. We worked with an intimacy coordinator that I've worked with before as well a couple of times, so we've got a shorthand already… Having intimacy co-ordinators is an absolute game changer. I can't believe we never had them.
How did you look after your mental wellbeing while filming those scenes, it can’t have been easy…
I knew I was in a really safe environment. I trusted everyone that I was working with, which was great. We only did that scene like three times because it was not something we [wanted to] keep shooting over and over again. But obviously your nervous system kind of goes into overdrive because you're acting, but your body doesn't know that. We finished the day, and I went to a breath work class. I was like, 'I know I'm not gonna be able to go home and just sit in my phone'. The class literally reset my nervous system. I felt like I'd exorcised it out.
After starring in Everything I Know About Love you’ve now fronted two rom-coms about millennial women – what drew you to telling these stories and why do you think they’re particularly important, for women’s love and life stories to be spotlighted in this way?
I think sometimes I've read female characters that are say 'let's make them palatable'. 'Let's make them nice and not too argumentative or unlikable'. But that's women! I get a bit annoyed when people talk about ‘complex female characters’ – they're just women. I think these characters were written with honesty and understanding and consideration – and I just liked them. I was like, ‘I like these women, I want to hang out with them’.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
The Road Trip is available to watch on Paramount+ from 26 December.
