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Paul Feig tells PEOPLE that Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick “just are so magical together” on screen in Another Simple Favor
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Kendrick and Lively reunite in the sequel to 2018’s A Simple Favor
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Henry Golding, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Joshua Satine, Ian Ho and Kelly McCormack also reprise their roles in the sequel, streaming on Prime Video May 1
Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick’s Another Simple Favor director is singing the actors’ praises before it premieres on streaming.
Paul Feig, the director and producer behind both the new sequel and 2018’s original A Simple Favor, told PEOPLE at a special screening of the movie in New York City on Sunday, April 27 that Lively, 37, and Kendrick, 39, have “magic” chemistry in their second big screen outing together.
“They’re so great in these movies,” Feig, 62, says of his co-leads. “They just are so magical together. It’s crazy. I mean, we were the third day of shooting, we had this scene with the two of them in a pool kind of drinking martinis and bonding, and we learned a lot about them during that scene. I shoot them both at the same time. My producing partner Laura Fischer and I were at the monitor just going like, ‘It’s crazy how their chemistry just is on fire on screen.’ “
Kendrick stars in the Simple Favor movies as a blogger named Stephanie Smothers, who strikes up a friendship with a woman named Emily (Lively) after meeting her through her son’s school. The first movie centers around Stephanie’s efforts to solve Emily’s mysterious disappearance; Lively’s character is ultimately put in jail for murder. In Another Simple Favor, Emily is released from jail and invites Stephanie to attend her lavish Italian wedding, to deadly ends.
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Lorenzo Sisti
Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in Another Simple Favor
“Yeah, it’s really natural. There’s something about the two of them,” Feig adds of Kendrick and Lively’s onscreen chemistry. “They just, they come together and it it’s magic.”
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“They were both kind of equally excited, I will have to say, because they both really loved these characters, you know, and, and so it was not hard at all to talk them into it,” Feig tells PEOPLE of recruiting both women to make a sequel seven years after the first movie.
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Lorenzo Sisti
Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively in ‘Another Simple Favor’
“We called them up and like, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about doing a sequel.’ They’re like, ‘We’re in,’ ” Feig adds. “So then it was just the pressure was on for us to make sure we gave them a script that was good enough with enough surprises, enough different things to do, that could give them somewhere to go.”
Another Simple Favor also features a large returning cast from the first movie, including Henry Golding, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Joshua Satine, Ian Ho and Kelly McCormack.
Another Simple Favor is streaming on Prime Video May 1.
Read the original article on People
