How Every Year After Star Matt Cornett Used the Novel and Fan Edits to Find His Character

Matt Cornett couldn’t wait to bring viewers to Barry’s Bay.

The 27-year-old actor stars as Sam Florek in Prime Video’s latest romance adaptation, Every Year After. The series, based on Carley Fortune’s beloved book Every Summer After, explores first love, all-consuming heartbreak, regret and second chances — all set in a quaint Canadian lake town. Naturally, for Cornett, it was a no-brainer.

“The second I read the book I thought, ‘There’s nothing about this that I could ever possibly say no to,’” Cornett tells The Hollywood Reporter on a recent Zoom.

For the actor, who started in Disney’s High School Musical television series, Every Year After is the chance for his romantic leading man moment. “I look at Ryan Gosling and just love everything that man does,” says Cornett. “This is my Ryan Gosling moment.”

Below, the actor digs into Every Year After, working with Fortune and the show’s writer Amy Harris, and how he used fan edits to help him find Sam.

How are you feeling about everything with the show?

I feel really good and really excited. I’ve seen all eight episodes, and I’m so proud and so happy with them. There’s so many emotions and memories tied up with this show in my brain and my heart. I’m just really excited for the world to see it. This has been our baby, and it’s now time to let our baby go travel the world without us.

One thing you mentioned last year when we spoke was that you were trying to grow out of teen roles and move into a new spot. I think you can certainly do that with this movie. Why did this feel like your next move?

What was so exciting about this role, in this world, is it’s the first time that I’ve played the romantic lead. I look at Ryan Gosling and just love everything that man does, so I [decided] this is my Ryan Gosling moment. This story is just so beautiful and so good. The second I read the book, I thought, “There’s nothing about this that I could ever possibly say no to.” What’s so fun and challenging as an actor is playing multiple ages. I play 15, 16, 17, 18 and 28. I play five different ages in this. That was a challenge, and it made me change the way that I prepped every single thing that I have done for the past however long of my career. I now had to shift that and create a new system for this show.

Overall, the character in the story was just so sweet and beautiful. The book is so incredible. Doing a book adaptation is so fun. There’s so much nervousness and a sense of pressure that comes along with that, but also excitement to have creative liberty with these characters that already are so beloved.

You are the second man starring in a Prime romance show to tell me that you wanted to have a Ryan Gosling moment this week. (Laughs).

Wait, was this … OK, I might be wrong. Was it Belmont?

No, it was actually Stephen [Kalyn].

Oh my gosh, I love that man.

I’m happy to see you guys are all on the same page.

Oh my gosh, that’s so funny. I will be texting Stephen about this.

Something you touched upon is the adaptation part. BookTok has definitely changed the way people consume books. It’s also grown fanbases quite a bit. Were you nervous about getting it right?

Totally. Anytime you have a preexisting IP or a preexisting character that people are so in love with, rightfully so. I mean, Carley’s story is so incredible. Anytime you have that, there’s going to be pressure to create it perfectly. I think what’s so great is me and Michael Bradway, who plays Charlie, and Sadie Soverall, who plays Percy, we all had that conversation along with Amy Harris, our showrunner, about how important it was to be as accurate to the book as possible.

As a fan of books and movies and TV, anytime there’s a project that’s being remade or reimagined, or a live-action version of something that I already loved comes out, I want that new version to be as accurate to the old thing as possible. When things change, it starts to become a different story and sometimes it’s hard for people to wrap their heads around, especially when it’s something that so many people say that this is their favorite book. If it’s your favorite book, you want to see your favorite book come to life. You don’t want to see a different version of your favorite book. It was fun to navigate.

What about the pressure for Sam in particular?

There was a lot of pressure of hoping I get Sam right because I feel like I know Sam really well. I know there are people that know Sam better than me, just because of how well they know this story, and they know these characters. It’s fun, and it’s nerve-wracking and exciting. I just hope that every bit of who Sam and Percy and Charlie are as people is what we captured in the show. It’s important that people know it was very important to us. Obviously, there are certain things in the show that we have to change just to make it expandable for TV, but overall it was really important to be true to the book.

Did you work with Carley at all?

I remember the day I met Carley. Me and Michael had talked about this, and we were so nervous to meet her. One of our producers texted us the night before and was like, “Hey, Carley’s going to be on set tomorrow.” Carley was involved to a pretty good degree behind the scenes — and I know she was working on other things at the time, so she wasn’t able to be on set every single day. But she was definitely around. I remember the first day that we found out she was going to be on set and me and Michael were like, “Oh my God, we’re going to meet Carley.” It was this nerve-wracking moment of really hoping that she feels like I capture Sam and feels the way I’m playing Sam is correct.

What happened when you ended up meeting?

I was so nervous. I walked up, gave her a hug and said, “It’s so lovely to meet you.” She’s like, “I’m so happy to finally meet you. I feel like I know you because I’ve seen your face in all these auditions.” I remember just talking with her and being so excited. I think she even said that she was nervous to meet us because she felt like she was meeting these characters that she created for the first time. I remember her saying that she felt like all of us captured, in her heart, who Sam, Charlie and Percy were. That gave us such a boost of confidence going into shooting because that was so early into the filming process. It gave us such a boost to really feel like we can dive into these characters knowing that we have the stamp of approval from Carley Fortune.

For this book in particular, how familiar were you with it before?

Not at all. I didn’t grow up a big book reader. I wish I did. The idea of sitting down with a good book is the most perfect picture in my mind. I’m just so nonstop that it’s so hard for me to sit down, [to] make my body sit still and read. Going into auditioning, I didn’t even know that this was based on a book. They didn’t tell us until very late in the audition process that it was based on the book. It was under a code name, different characters, different everything. Then in the final audition process, when I did my final chemistry read with Sadie, they were like, “So, this is based on a book called Every Summer After.”

After that, I read the book and I did a little bit of research, not a ton. When I booked the show, that’s when I wanted to read the book. The day after I booked the show, I had a day off of work. I drove to a bookstore about 45 minutes away, and I was like, “OK, let me find this. I wonder if they have it.” I walk in and the first table is summer romance, and it’s like all of Carley Fortune’s books. I realized this is a really big book. That was the first moment where I knew what I was getting myself into. It was really fun, and the second I read the book, I was in love with it.

Hudson Williams told me when he was finding his version of Shane in Heated Rivalry that he’d look through fan conversations or forums online. I’m curious if you ever dug into that side? How tuned in were you with this character online?

Well, I obviously wanted to capture what the fans love so much about Sam because I think there’s so much about Sam that makes him likable and makes him such a fun character. Those were things that were definitely important to me. That’s hilarious about Hudson. I did not go read fan forums, though; I think that’s a great idea just to see how people conceive Sam.

I’ve heard it a few times now.

I did go and watch TikTok edits of Every Summer After [though]. People make these edits of who they feel is good and the vibe of Sam, and all these things. I did go watch a few of those just to get Sam’s vibe from the audience, but I didn’t dive too deep into that. I wanted to use the book as our Bible in a sense for the show. Then talking with Carley and with Amy Harris, our showrunner. So many conversations with so many people. Me and Sadie sat down and talked about Percy and Sam’s relationship a lot and where they’re at. It was a bit of both [for me]. It was a bit of creating this version of Sam that I want to create for myself, but also using the book and using the edits that I had seen fans make of Sam to create a perfect concoction of fan-Sam and Matt-Sam.