The Scotsman

‘My advice for people who are going through something is keep talking’

Lili Reinhart and Austin Abrams star in Chemical Hearts. They tell Laura Harding about the teen romance

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Lili Reinhart is using her down time to chew on a bagel. It’s still breakfast time in Los Angeles and she’s getting her food in while she can.

The actress, best known for her role as Betty Cooper in Riverdale, is used to making the most of quiet moments. It was during a day off from the hit teen drama that she read a book that would launch her first lead role in a movie.

That book was Krystal Sutherland’s 2016 debut novel Our Chemical Hearts, which follows two people grappling their way toward adulthood, while navigating grief, trauma and mental health issues.

In the film version, Chemical Hearts, Reinhart plays elusive transfer student Grace Town, who has suffered a horrific tragedy, leaving her with a disability, and becomes the subject of desire for a hopeless romantic teenage boy, Henry Page.

“The book had such a beautiful message, it was a beautiful story,” Reinhart says. “I really loved seeing this young love story from Henry’s point of view, because I think often teenage love stories are told from the woman’s perspectiv­e, so to see a young boy, a young teen guy, trying to figure this out and navigate his feelings for a girl was such an interestin­g new perspectiv­e.

“I remember reading it in bed on a day off and when I finished it, it sat with me, it sat in my heart and I could feel it.”

Pain and grief weave their way through the film and there is a scene where Grace seems to lay out the whole message at the heart of the movie – the agony of youth.

Standing in the school library, leaning on the crutch she needs to walk after a car accident, she says: “Being young is so painful, it’s almost too much to feel.”

Reinhart, who at 23 seems wise far beyond her years and who has spoken openly about her own experience­s with depression and anxiety, looks thoughtful.

“It’s interestin­g because that monologue is very in line with how I feel and how I go about being in the spotlight.

“I very much talk about mental health all the time and I talk about my feelings and my emotions, especially with my friends, I am always talking about how I feel, which I’m sure can be annoying but it’s so important to talk about it.

“And my one piece of advice for people who are going through something like that is to keep talking about it. The only way you can work through something is to talk about it and to acknowledg­e it and to feel it, so never try to suppress that, and so that was a great message that Grace is talking about to Henry.

“It’s ironic because she doesn’t really share too much with Henry but I think she’s a private girl, she’s trying to not put her own struggles on him, which I understand, because he’s a new person in her life.”

But Reinhart is conscious that she has a platform to raise awareness.

“I want to feel like the future generation coming after me and even the Gen Zs like me feel like it’s an open discussion and it’s not something so taboo.

“I believe we are getting there, I believe there is progress that is being made in that regard, so that is encouragin­g, and I hope that it continues on and that mental health becomes something that is more easily talked about, especially in school.”

The upheaval and strain of being young is made specific in the title of the school

newspaper’s year-end issue, which Henry and Grace produce together: Teenage Limbo.

“That’s the definition of high school, for me,” Reinhart says. “When you’re a teenager, you are in this very strange place. You’re still under the supervisio­n of a bunch of older people, but you’re also expected to be making clear, conscious decisions.

“You can vote but you can’t drink, you can drive, but you can’t rent a hotel room. Limbo represents the contradict­ory circumstan­ces that often surround being a teenager.”

For Euphoria star Austin Abrams, 23, who plays Henry, returning to that experience – and the corridors of a classroom – was strange.

“I was 22 when I did this so there is a fair amount that changes in that time, a lot of things happen, your brain is really changing and your perspectiv­es are changing.

“It’s definitely a strange thing to try and acquire that mental head space again.”

But Abrams was drawn to reuniting with Reinhart, who he first worked with years ago.

“We worked with each other when we were about 15, so we already had a rapport going on and we just clicked.

“Lili was incredibly dedicated to getting this film made. It’s not anything like a typical teenage love story. It’s much more profound. Some things can be even more beautiful when they are ephemeral, and the relationsh­ip between Grace and Henry is one of those things.”

● Chemical Hearts is out now on Amazon Prime

 ??  ?? 0 Austin Abrams and Lili Reinhart in Chemical Hearts
0 Austin Abrams and Lili Reinhart in Chemical Hearts

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