With ‘The Kissing Booth 3’ Joey King Closes Part of His Life

In retrospect, it’s kind of a miracle.”Kissing Booth 3“It was done in the first place.

Because 2018″kissing booth” was originally an indie movie—before the summery romantic comedy about a high school student who falls for her best friend’s brother, it became an unexpected hit on Netflix. And not because of the pandemic; this last episode was earlier, in 2019, “Kissing Booth 2”

with working days including Wrestling in huge inflatable sumo suits, montage shooting at a water park, and racing go-karts in Mario Kart-like costumes, it’s remarkable that Joey King and his colleagues, who have a ball in the process, are able to focus enough. job done.

“If you put us in a room and expect us to do a lot of things that are productive, it’s going to be difficult,” King, the 22-year-old star of the franchise, said in a video interview. “We’re like 12-year-olds.”

The final installment of the trilogy, which premiered on Wednesday, follows King’s character Elle during her last summer before college, as she flirts with boyfriend Noah (Jacob Elordi) and checks out the aforementioned oddities with her friend Lee (Joel Courtney). One last effort to complete their childhood to-do list.

One of his later projects has a different feel: King described “The Princess”, which he will shoot in Bulgaria this summer, as an action movie, “‘The Raid: Atonement’ meets RapunzelHe sat down for a video interview (as always energetic, noteworthy at 6am local time) to discuss the ending of the series that defined this stage of her career and how Elle’s coming of age mirrored hers. These are edited excerpts from the speech.

How was it shooting the last two movies back-to-back?

We actually shot them at the same time – so we’ll be shooting scenes from both movies in one day. It was very confusing.

How did you keep everything right?

I can’t give myself that kind of credit because I didn’t. I knew exactly what I was doing every day but when I was on set, I was the director. [Vince Marcello] I’d come in and say a note or something, “Wait, are we on Movie 3 right now?” said. “No, we’re still in Movie 2,” he says. They’re not very similar because their stories take wildly different turns. But marrying them was a bit of fun.

With “The Kissing Booth 2”, was this the first film you ever produced?

This was beautiful. Recently I started to produce more; Actually, I’m also producing “Princess”. But it was really special for me to start those movies since I’ve been with them for a long time.

I’m a bit of a sponge. On the set, he took more from Vince and said, “So why did we make this decision?” I’m just asking more questions. He was very willing to cooperate with me more and ask my opinion. I felt like I had a voice on set, but my voice really came in the back half of the shoot. I had a lot of say in what the final product was, and I was also very heavily involved in the marketing process. I am very passionate about both and I feel like I am one of the target audiences. It’s fun to have a say in something I want to watch at the end of the day.

At the heart of these movies is a youth story. Did you find any similarities with your own experiences at this stage of your life?

I’ve always felt very connected to Elle. I remember getting the script for the first movie. I called my team and said, “When can I audition for this? I want this so bad.” And they were like, “You don’t have to audition for this; it’s an offer.” If I had to audition for this, I would do anything to get that job.

When I started playing with hands, I felt like this: [she] And I was very, very similar. His vibe, his sense of humor; I felt very in tune with him. The same goes for the second and third movie, and even more so – I had many important life moments in its place.

How do you feel that has changed since then?

I’ve changed a lot It’s actually pretty incredible for me. I never thought I would change as a person and I was very wrong. That’s the beauty of being young. My perspective on life has changed – my perspective on family, relationships, career. So when I feel like I’ve really gone through a lot with Elle, it’s because I’ve changed a lot as a person and learned a lot.

In what ways?

I became a little more present. I started meditation. i found it so incredible relationship [the director and producer Steven Piet]. Frankly, I’ve always loved my family, but I’ve found a deeper appreciation for them. And the career stuff too: I started to focus more on exactly what I wanted to do and how much I didn’t want to do certain things. And that was really interesting, feeling a little more empowered in my own decision-making abilities. I am actually quite an indecisive person. If you take me to a restaurant, I don’t know what I want. And even if we decide where to go. But when it comes to my career, my brain goes into decisive mode. This is a new development for me.

You’ve had a wide variety of roles at this point — “The Kissing Booth” is very different from “The Kissing Booth.”Movement” [King was nominated for an Emmy for her performance in the Hulu true-crime drama, as a young woman convicted of killing her mother.] When you talk about narrowing down what you want to do, do you hope to preserve such diversity? Or do you prefer certain roles?

Personally I like to keep a wider range and there has never been a specific “what I want to do next”. I want to keep the excitement of this. I love the fact that they are [“The Kissing Booth” and “The Act”] were polar opposites. And I hope people will be excited to see me in different roles because I have very carefully decided that this is what I want to do.

This was the last “Kissing Booth” as far as we know for now. But if an opportunity arises, can you see it coming back to Elle and this story in the future?

I started these movies when I was 17. That’s exactly what we were, we hope people like it – if someone sees it. Little did we know how big an impact this would have. I never got tired of playing with hands. This is so fun. I think it will be a little difficult to go back to wrapping this story up so beautifully like a beautiful bow. We made this ending exactly as I thought it should be. Selfishly, do I want to play Hand again? Absolutely. But I think it’s in the last part of the story.