Angourie Rice – Finding Angourie
- PopEntertainment
- 13 hours ago
- 10 min read
Angourie Rice
Finding Angourie
by Jay S. Jacobs
Emily Raine is the kind of rom‑com heroine who doesn’t usually get the spotlight – analytical, guarded, and quietly nursing the bruises of a situationship gone wrong. In Finding Emily, Angourie Rice plays her with a mix of sharp intellect and hesitant vulnerability.
The movie tells the story of Owen (Spike Fearn), a sound engineer at a fictional Manchester University who meets a girl he really likes at a loud show. They spend a few hours together in that kind of weird bliss that only happens when you meet someone you’re clicking with. However, she was with friends who dragged her out and when she programmed her phone number in his cell, she missed a digit. So now he doesn’t know her number and doesn’t know her last name, just that her first name is Emily and she is a student at the university. And it turns out that there are a whole lot of Emilys going to that school.
The first one he runs across in his search is Emily Raine, an American exchange student working on her dissertation about the unattainable idea of romantic love and how people will often victimize themselves in the search for the dream. Owen feels like he would be an ideal subject for her paper, so Emily agrees to help him find the other Emily while keeping the information of what happens for her study. And, of course, the closer they become the more she comes to like him and is worried about hurting his feelings when he finds out what she is doing.
It’s a nice light performance for the Australian-born Rice, who’s often found in dramas like Mare of Easttown and The Last Thing He Told Me. But she’s always been game to jump genres, appearing in everything from Mean Girls to The Nice Guys to three Spider-Man films.
I caught up with Angourie on Zoom a couple of weeks before the Finding Emily premiere to discuss the film, her career and what her dream role would be.
It's nice to talk to you again. We did an interview back when you did Honor Society a few years ago.
Oh, amazing! Yes. How are you?
I'm great. How are you?
Good.
What about this script made you want to become involved?
When I read the script for Finding Emily, I had something else on later that day. I gave myself 30 pages to read it. I ended up reading the whole thing. I loved it so much. I thought it was such a funny concept, but I also really loved how the story was rooted in time and place. It was very specifically in Manchester and about music, and I loved how it felt like a rom com and a coming-of-age story all in one.
Emily Raine is a very interior character. She's observing everything, analyzing, processing, trying to figure out her whole idea for her thesis. What was the key for you to finding her intellectual and emotional center?
I think a big part of it for me was just reading books about love, in the way that she would have for her degree. She's a psychology student. She has this very analytical take on love. Understanding that, when does she tell the truth and when does she kind of lie? I think what's really interesting about her first meeting with Owen is that she's trying to convince him to let her help him find Emily, and she's got her ulterior motive. She thinks he could be great, I could write my dissertation on him.
That’s right…
She's trying to convince him. The thing that actually convinces him is when she tells him the truth. She says the truth is I would want somebody to do this for me. I think that is the key to her. Behind all of this cynicism, she's built this up because she's been burnt before. The reason why she likes Owen and she recognizes something in him is that she is like that too. She would want somebody to go on this wild hunt to find her, so I think that's the key to her.
She also recognizes that Owen is in love with Emily almost as a concept more than the actual person. Do you think she genuinely believed she could help him, or was she being a bit cynical and just seeing where things went?
I think she genuinely thinks that she can help Owen. Also part of it is for her, if she can help Owen, she can help herself. It really is an internal conflict for her as well. Do I let go of all of my own inhibitions and allow myself to be vulnerable, or do I continue to intellectualize and therefore protect myself from getting hurt? You're probably going to get hurt anyway. (laughs) I think that's what it is.
Owen goes to some really extreme lengths to find Emily. What is the most charming or most alarming romantic gesture you've ever heard of somebody doing?
(laughs) I’ve ever heard of? Gosh. There are so many nice things. I have a friend. She and her partner celebrate each anniversary. They each get each other a gift that is themed to the year. Like year one is paper and year two is fabric or cotton or something. Each year they get each other a gift that is themed around the anniversary theme. I don't know what else it's called. 25 is like silver. They do that, which I think is really nice.
Another question that's brought up in this film is: at what point does romantic interest turn into something a little bit spookier or more invasive? When do you think somebody is crossing the line?
I think that is personal and specific. We see that in the film. The film explores that. Emily says to Owen, "I would want somebody to do this for me.” But you see the reactions of so many other people, and they think he's weird or he's not doing the right thing. There are some girls who say, “I love this, this is what I want,” and “when will somebody do this for me?” Then other girls are like “I hate this.” It really just depends.
Exactly.
I think that's what the film explores so well. It takes you behind the scenes. You see the outcome and you see how everybody responds to it. Then you also go into Owen's internal world. What does he deal with as a result of that?
Your Emily is writing a thesis on the futility of romantic attachment. How did you balance her intellectual skepticism with the emotional vulnerability that creeps in?
It's all in the script, which I love. There's such a great balance. My favorite thing to play is when a character says one thing and they are clearly feeling the exact opposite. I love how Emily is hiding her true self from so many people in this film, but somebody who really sees her as her best friend Anna. I love their relationship. When Emily is struggling to be truly vulnerable with Owen or with Tristan, this other boy who is circling, she is able to be vulnerable with her best friend Anna. Anna doesn't give her a choice. She reads her exactly. Anna says to Emily, "You can't hide from me. I know exactly who you are and what you're doing.” I really love that friendship. That brings a lot of vulnerability to Emily.
Why was Emily Raine so skeptical about romantic involvement?
It's in there. She has had this previous relationship with Tristan at the university. I guess you might call it a situationship nowadays. She took all these big swings and gave her heart to him, and he just didn't really get it. That's why she was like, “I don't want to do this anymore. This has caused me too much pain, so I'm going to be different.”
Spike's character is so rooted in longing and uncertainty, while your character is trying to remain in control, but has some real inner doubts. What was it like to work with him and explore that dichotomy on screen?
I loved working with Spike so much. He's a fantastic performer, a great person to be around. Just full of energy and life. So many of his little improvised moments are in the film. He has created such a dynamic character. We work in very different ways as well. I am definitely more somebody who writes things down and takes that approach to getting into character. Spike is very much like – he had his music that he was listening to, and he's just got this great like crackling sense of energy. I loved working with him a lot.
The Manchester University nightlife is a big part of the film, like you said. What was it like filming there, and how do you feel that the environment becomes a character in the film?
I love Manchester so much. It's an incredible city. I had the best time. Manchester is a character in the film. It was written that way, and I think you really see it. We all felt it too, being there, spending time there. We would be filming scenes about students on a night out, and then students on a night out would walk past and try and see what we were doing. (laughs) It was so immersive, and I just loved it.
The film is very aware of modern dating culture, how something that would work in a '90s rom-com may now backfire. How did that generational shift inform your approach?
This film is very conscious of how we think about love because of those rom-coms. I love the balance that it strikes. There's a reason why we love those rom-coms, because they give us a language of how to express how we feel about something. They inspire us to be bolder and to take the risk. At the same time, yeah, things have changed in the dating world. But also the feelings are always going to be the same.
That’s true.
I think about that a lot with classic literature as well. The context is different, but the feelings remain the same. We all know how it feels to be rejected, or how it feels to put your heart out there and have someone actually hold it and take care of it. So the context changes, but I think there's a reason why we keep telling love stories. We continually need to be reminded of how to take care of each other, how to say how we feel.
Do you have any special favorite romantic comedies that inspired you when you were making this film?
When Harry Met Sally is a huge inspiration. That's a blueprint of romantic comedy. You see how the two characters grow with each other across the years, and I love that. I know it was an inspiration for Alicia [MacDonald] too, while she was directing. So, that's a big one.
Speaking of Alicia, the film was both written and directed by women. How do you feel that fact changed the energy of the film, both on set and in the finished product?
There's probably something kind of indefinable, and probably some things that are definable. For me, it is kind of a happy accident that there are projects that I'm attracted to because of the material or because of the director, and it just happens to be women. I don't think that's an accident. But it's not like I'm particularly seeking that. It's just I am interested in how women tell stories. I think that is interesting. So with Alicia, it's no different. She's a fantastic filmmaker. I love her work. Beyond the finished product of the film, being with her on set was just incredible. She had such a great demeanor on set. This is her debut feature, and on set it did not feel like that.
Throughout your career, you've jumped through different genres. You've done things like rom-coms, thrillers, musicals, prestigious dramas. Is there a genre that you feel most at home with, or do you prefer the challenge of switching gears with different characters and projects?
I like doing it all, really. I like doing one and one. It is always fun to do something happy and then to do something sad. (laughs) I probably feel most comfortable in drama because that's [what] I've always done. I've mostly done drama, so maybe that. But I love comedy, and I love romance. I love it all. (laughs again)
Like you said, you've done different types of things, like Mare of Easttown or Mean Girls or The Last Thing He Told Me. How do you feel your approach to character has evolved over the years?
When I was a kid, I would just go in and play myself in a way. Every character becomes a version of yourself eventually, but I wasn't particularly conscious of a craft. As children and young people, kids are very unselfconscious, and I think that is what you want to be a good actor – to be completely unselfconscious. The way my process has evolved is adding pieces to my process. To, I guess, find the trust in myself that I had when I was that age. (laughs) I don't know how you lose it, but as you get older, you get exposed to different vulnerabilities. It's just about getting back to that place of feeling totally secure and unselfconscious.
You've worked in both big studio films and intimate character pieces. Does the preparation change depending on the scope of the film?
I think it does. For me the preparation doesn't change, but maybe the preparation changes how much is shared with the team, or how much the team shares with me. On a major movie production, everybody's dealing with all of their preparation. You maybe don't have as much time to share that with the creatives at the top. Then on a smaller movie, you do have that time sometimes. But for me personally, I don't think the preparation changes.
Is there a type of role that you've always wanted to play, but you haven't gotten a chance to do yet?
Yeah, I want to play a rock star. I think that would be fun. (laughs) I would love to do something like that. So that's my dream. That's my next dream.
Hopefully you'll get that real soon. One last question: If you could give Emily Raine one piece of advice. What would you tell her?
(laughs) I would tell her… (long pause)… Just go for it. (laughs again)
Copyright ©2026 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: August 26, 2026.
Photos ©2026 by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images and Matt Squire. Courtesy of Focus Features. All rights reserved.
Comments