The Summer of Matt Cornett Has Arrived

Amazon Prime Video is on a hot streak both literally and figuratively. For four years running, the streaming giant has dominated the "YA BookTok series adaptation" genre with successful shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty, We Were Liars, My Fault, and its recent juggernaut Off Campus and their ensemble casts of attractive breakout talent. It stands to do it again with its latest series Every Year After, the adaptation of Carley Fortune's best-selling beach-read romance Every Summer After. Sun-soaked, feel-good, second-chance love set to Lana Del Rey and Dolly Parton? Consider us seated.

Every Year After follows the tender friends-to-lovers story of Persephone "Percy" Fraser (Sadie Soverall) and Sam Florek (Matt Cornett) across six summers in the idyllic lakeside town of Barry's Bay. A decade after a devastating mistake tears the young couple apart, a tragedy brings the two back together for another chance at love.

Cornett, with his gentle demeanor and charismatic charm, is next in line to carry the internet boyfriend torch thanks to his spot-on portrayal of kindhearted boy-next-door protagonist Sam. Having graduated from the Disney Channel pipeline with past roles in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and Zombies 3, Cornett emerges in his leading-man era this month ready to sweep you off your feet. Trust us—he will.

Latest Videos From

Take me back to when you got the audition for Every Year After.

I got the original audition when I was filming a movie in North Carolina. It was under a fake title for a romance show for Amazon and to play the leading guy, and I was so excited. He was this sweet, kindhearted, gentle boy, and it was such an interesting thing that I was going to be playing him at 16 and also 28. I was like, "This is strange. Super cool but how weird." I sent the audition in and didn't hear anything for a few months, and then about three months later, I got a call from my team saying, "Hey, they want you to come back in and meet with the producers for the show." I had completely forgotten about it. As actors, we audition for things, and then we let it go. So I had gotten that call to meet with Amy Harris, the showrunner, and one of the directors. And then I got brought back again with Amy another time, and that is when Amy told me that it was based on the book Every Summer After.

At the time, I didn't know what Every Summer After was. I wasn't really into the whole romance genre. After I got off the session, I was like, "Let me research and figure out what this little book is." Little did I know, it wasn't so little. It was a very large book, and when I went to buy the book at Barnes & Noble, I walked in, and it's the first book on the first table at the main entrance for Your Summer Reads. And I was like, "Okay, so this is a really huge deal." It was a very interesting way of finding out that I was gonna be playing this guy in this really awesome book.

What was your first impression of the story?

I didn't read the book until after I booked the show because I didn't want to get my hopes up and get excited about it and fall in love with it and then not be able to do it. So once I booked the show, I read the book, and it's such a strange thing. I wanted to read it as just a fan, but it's hard because I knew I was going to be playing Sam, so inherently, I read the book seeing myself as Sam. It was strange because I'm seeing myself as this guy. As I was reading, I immediately was falling in love with these characters and with this story. Carley wrote such a beautiful book, and I think that this world that she created is so incredibly impressive and so in-depth, and these characters have so much heart and so much soul behind them. Something that really intrigued me was how they bounce back and forth in the timelines. I was like, "I cannot wait to see how they do this in the show." The second I read the book, I was like, "Oh, this is gonna be something really special."

What a surreal experience. In what ways did you immediately connect with Sam while reading the book?

When I did my audition with Amy Harris and one of our directors, there was a scene I did. It's a different version of the scene than what happens in the show, but one of my audition scenes was the big, long monologue that happens at Sue's memorial. In my audition, I had one singular hair that kept falling in front of my eye. As I was doing the scene, I was so annoyed because this hair keeps falling. I move it, or I'll run my fingers through my hair, and that one hair always falls back. I don't know why, but this one thing was just pissing me off. I read the book, and it mentions multiple times about Sam having his long hair and a few times having one hair that dangles in front of his eye. And I was like, "That's insane." It was pissing me off, but I didn't even know that that was the most insane thing that could have been happening at that moment.

There were so many different parts of Sam that I saw myself in. When he gets comfortable around people, he becomes a bit of a goofball. I feel I tend to be the same way. And he's just got such a kind heart, and he's just such a good guy. Obviously, he has moments where he kind of teeters and is trying to figure things out, and he gets nervous and pulls away. But at his core, I think he is just a kind, loving guy that cares with every bit of his being. That was something that was just so intriguing to me about him.

When did you first realize or experience the dedicated fan base of the book series?

[There are] two moments that I remember. There's the moment when they announced the casting. That was really nerve-racking because inherently fans, as they should, have an image in their head of who these characters are. So when they announced the casting, we were all a little nervous—like, "I hope that they feel I'm this character. I hope they feel like we fit these roles." I think the casting team and Amy and everyone involved killed it, in my opinion. I'll speak for every other character. I think Sadie is so perfect for Percy, and Michael [Bradway] is so perfect for Charlie. I cannot picture better people to play these roles. They just knocked it out of the park, and that was something I know was really important to them—not only in casting but in every sense of the matter—staying true to the book. It's a phenomenal book for a reason. We wanted to stay very true to the book, and I think that starts with the casting. So for me, the first moment was that casting announcement, and then seeing how excited people were getting about feeling like we were capturing what Carley captured in her book was really exciting. And then seeing those things pop off and blow up and [seeing] all the talk and chatter about that was really exciting.

The second moment was when I was out to lunch with Joseph Chiu, who plays Jordie in the show. We went out to get lunch one day, and we were walking back to our places, and all of a sudden, this group of people [walked] up, and the show's not even out yet. I think they had just announced the casting, and we're walking out, and this group of people comes up freaking out, and they're like, "You guys are the cast of Every Year After!" They were just talking about how much they loved the books, and at that moment, I was like, "Oh, this show has a big enough audience that people are seeing us and recognizing us simply from the fact that they follow the book enough. They know this casting."

The story hinges upon the chemistry between Sam and Percy. What was the chemistry read like with Sadie Soverall?

Coming into it, I believe Sadie was already cast. I believe that they had just cast her or offered her a couple days before we did the chemistry read. I went into the call, and we had a 10-minute little moment on Zoom where we just chatted. Everybody got off the Zoom, and just Sadie and I stayed on and chatted for about 10 minutes to get to know each other and get comfortable with each other. I remember immediately being so enamored by her accent because I've never worked with a British actor or anybody with an accent nonetheless. I just kept asking her questions about where she's from and her accent and stuff. She was probably like, "This kid is so weird." I was just so enamored by it. We did that little 10-minute thing, and I felt like there was an instant comfortability with each other that we had, and then we hopped on and did these scenes.

One of the scenes was the anatomy-textbook scene, which is such a huge scene in the book and, I think, a scene that a lot of fans are really excited for on the show. And then another scene was where Percy reveals to Sam what happened. So two very important scenes. Intensity on two totally different spectrums. I felt an instant connection with Sadie, and obviously, she's a phenomenal actor. I remember being in this chemistry with her and being like, "Wow, this girl is really good. I need to step up my game." I felt really confident about the session, and what Sadie and I were doing was really working, and I felt like we had this connection that we knew this version of Sam and Percy we were doing was working.

Did it feel that instant on set as well?

I think it was very important to us that we had this chemistry going into it because, obviously, these characters have such immense chemistry. We both got to Vancouver, and at night, we went and got dinner and bonded over our love of bread. The restaurant we went to had the most incredible starter bread. It's so funny because it's strange meeting a person that you know you're going to be kissing a lot and talking about that—being like, "We have to have this chemistry that two friends who've known each other for years and years have." And also, sitting across from somebody that you've never met but knowing "I have to play your love interest, and we're going to be kissing a lot. We're gonna have a lot of physical contact"—let's talk about it. Let's make sure we're all good. Let's get the weirdness out of the way now.

Sadie always made things so comfortable and fun and silly. I know there were so many moments in those intimate scenes where we would just laugh through it because inherently, it's so funny to do these things with your friends. I just love Sadie to death, and we had so much fun on set, and I think we had this immediate comfort with each other where we felt like we could fully be ourselves. There was one scene where we have to kiss for a very long time, and it's kind of a montage-y scene, and we're kissing for like a solid minute in this take. We were in between takes, and before we were shooting the scene, we were both eating chips and salsa over in the green room. It was like, "You're going to eat salsa. I'm gonna have salsa. We are not gonna worry about the breath, man. Just gonna lock into it." I think that's a beautiful testament of Sadie and I's friendship and how comfortable we were with each other.

Was there a scene that felt particularly giant for you?

I think there's a few. The anatomy-textbook scene was a big one. Honestly, most of the scenes that are big scenes in the book are the ones that were really, really important because it was important to me and the entire team that we really do the book justice and that we stay true to the book. I wanted to make sure that we were capturing the book scenes the way that the book captures them because they are so beautiful. Carley wrote them so perfectly that I wanted to make sure that the feeling and emotion that she captured in the book we were able to capture on-screen to a more heightened degree. But I think the anatomy-textbook one was a big one and then also the memorial scene. Those are two huge moments for Sam: that first moment with Percy when they have their first real intimate moment together and then the moment where he's having to speak at his mother's memorial.

How was it shooting on location with this great ensemble cast of rising actors?

It definitely felt like summer camp. Everyone was so lovely. We had this really fun dinner with everyone and went over to Sadie's, and she did a roast. There was another night where we came over to my apartment and just played games. This was all before we started shooting—just getting to know each other and hanging out. Michael and I spent so much time playing games on set. I would come in with a new game every week. Michael, Joe, and I would go play golf, and we would spend so much time together outside of work. I had so much fun with them. They are all so silly and goofy and fun in their own ways. They're such a little family.

Amazon is on a hot streak with its YA romantic dramas. Are you prepared for the massive response to the show?

You know, it's so weird because me and Michael have talked ad nauseam about this. I'm a "don't count your chickens until they hatch" kind of guy, and … I obviously see the success that The Summer I Turned Pretty had. I see the success that Off Campus is having. I am so happy for both of them. They both deserve it so much. The casts are lovely people, and the shows are phenomenal shows, and they deserve it. I feel very good about our show. I feel like our show is a really solid show. I'm so proud of it. It's a weird thought to me—and this is with every project—to think of people watching this thing that I did. I hope that we're able to make something that people love, and I hope we're able to talk to people's hearts that are missing certain things and bridge a gap in so many different areas and do it in our own new way. I really hope it does that well, where people love it and they want more and it blows up. Obviously, we all want that, but it's such a weird thing to be like, "This show's gonna blow up" because you never know. I feel like our show has the legs to do really well, that people are going to love it. I'm just excited to see fans' reactions to it and let them see the love that we poured into it.

Every Year After is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Photographer: Henry Wu
Stylist: Ashley Weston
Groomer: Aika Flores