'People We Meet on Vacation' Author Dishes on How Much Say She Had in Choosing Movie Cast
- - 'People We Meet on Vacation' Author Dishes on How Much Say She Had in Choosing Movie Cast
Carly SilvaJanuary 15, 2026 at 5:10 AM
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Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Netflix
Emily Henry, the author of People We Meet on Vacation, is spilling the tea on how the new Netflix film adaptation came to be, and how much say she had in the moviemaking process.
While making an appearance on the House of Maher podcast on Tuesday, Jan. 13, the popular rom-com novelist opened up about how much involvement she really had in choosing the cast for the film based on her hit 2021 book.
The movie—which released on Netflix on Friday, Jan. 9—stars Tom Blyth and Emily Bader in the two leading roles, while more actors like Molly Shannon, Sarah Catherine Hook, Lukas Gage, Lucien Laviscount and Miles Heizer also appear in the film.
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While chatting with Ilona Maher and her sisters during the new podcast episode, Henry was asked about her role in choosing the actors to play the characters she created, to which she replied, "I love getting to dish about this stuff."
While Henry said that a lot of the time, authors "have no say at all" in what happens with their movie adaptations, such wasn't the case for Henry while working with People We Meet on Vacation director Brett Haley.
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"[Haley] called me right away and was like, 'Give me the full list of everything that you think the readers want to see in it and your nonnegotiables and all of that," she explained. "I just feel like we got so lucky that he actually wanted to make the same movie that I wanted to be made."
Henry continued of Haley, "He kept me up to date on every little change," and when the team was debating who to cast, Henry said she knew "who they were considering," and that the director "wanted [her] opinion."
"He couldn't always enforce my opinion, but if I felt strongly about something, he always took it back to the larger team and was on my side," she said.
Henry also added that she hopes other teams adapting novels into films will use People We Meet on Vacation as a "good blueprint" for making great adaptations in the future.
The movie People We Meet on Vacation is available to watch now on Netflix.
Related: Reese's Book Club January Pick Announced by Jennifer Garner: 'Reviews Are Out of This World'
This story was originally published by Parade on Jan 15, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
