Online Dating is Hard (Even in Rom-coms) with Matty Finochio
Rom-com-versations is an interview series with people from the entertainment industry discussing all things rom-com.
Hi Meet Cuties,
I had the pleasure of chatting with Matty Finochio, who is most recently known for his role as Lee in Love Hard, one of Netflix’s new holiday rom-coms. Matty has had roles in various shows and films that range from action and adventure, to comedies and rom-coms, and even into fantasy and sci-fi, with the Once Upon a Time franchise. I had a great time chatting with him about holiday rom-coms and some of the most memorable moments he had filming Love Hard.
💓 Naomi: Out of curiosity, where are you based?
🧡 Matty: I'm in Vancouver, BC right now, but I grew up in Los Angeles. I still have family down there and I'm back and forth, obviously with work sometimes, but I'm based out of Vancouver.
💓 Naomi: Amazing. I love Vancouver by the way, I'm from Portland, Oregon. So we would go up a bunch.
🧡 Matty: Well, everybody says Portland is Vancouver except it's cool.
💓 Naomi: Really? Is that what people say, because I'll take it! I’ll start off easy with what is your favorite rom-com and why?
🧡 Matty: I haven't watched that many rom-coms, but three come to mind right now. One would be Interspace with Meg Ryan, Martin Short, and Dennis Quaid. I thought that was a great movie with the whole sci-fi rom-com thing going on. Of course everybody likes Love Actually. I think that another great one is When Harry Met Sally. You have great actors, good writing, and a good storyline, that really is what makes a great rom-com, I think, and those movies really nailed that.
💓 Naomi: I like the sci-fi rom-com thing that you brought up because I think genre bending is one of the coolest things, where you take two and smash them together.
🧡 Matty: Exactly! Interspace was one that was totally genre bending and I've never really seen a movie like that because it usually gets shut down. I think it's hysterical how that thing gets injected into Dennis Quaid, then they can hear him talk and Martin Short starts walking him through how to handle Meg Ryan and gives him pointers. It's so good!
💓 Naomi: I’ll definitely have to rewatch that one. My next question gets into holiday rom-coms because Love Hard obviously is a holiday rom-com. In one of our previous interviews, we dug into why holidays make for great rom-com settings. I'm curious, to you, what is it about Love Hard that stands out compared to other holiday movies?
🧡 Matty: I think that Love Hard hits all the notes. It makes you literally laugh out loud, and watching it for the first time I definitely did. It makes you cry as well! I totally teared up at the end with the cue card scene, so it's hitting all those notes. It's a feel-good movie because it's Christmas time, you go home, there's family around family, and it's nostalgic. One of my favorite scenes from the movie is the caroling scene when the two brothers are trying to one up each other. That was the laugh out loud moment for me. I thought it was hysterical! On a side note, how Harry, Jimmy, and everybody committed to that made it feel like a musical. It's like watching a musical with the characters committed to this thing and it was awesome. Going back, Love Hard hits all those notes: It’s feels-good, it's nostalgic, it's laugh out loud funny, it's heartwarming, and it's a tear jerker.
💓 Naomi: Going back to the caroling scene really quick, the new and improved lyrics of “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” I want that to become a single that everyone is singing around the holidays. I want that song to go viral! He's saying. "Go, please go," and she says, "No, no, I'll stay a while!"
The other aspect of Love Hard that I really liked and something that we've talked about a lot at Meet Cute is online dating and dating through apps. There haven't been that many movies that portray how real and hard it is for people to be swiping on the apps and to find someone. Are there any movies or stories that you think have portrayed this well besides Love Hard?
🧡 Matty: The only movie that really pops up for me when I think about it is You've Got Mail, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan again-- Meg Ryan really does a lot of rom-coms, way to go Meg Ryan! But yeah, that one was kind the first of its kind, wasn't it? It used pop-ups from Yahoo Messenger or something like that. But that's the only movie that I think handled that well, as far as online dating. We had conversations around the apps in the movie, like when Natalie says, "Oh my god, my circle is too small, I can't find anybody." And her friend says, “Well, you gotta look farther out than the five mile radius!"
💓 Naomi: Totally! It takes this localized romance and says, "Why are you limiting yourself to the geography and five mile radius around you?"
🧡 Matty: I can personally speak to that in that my wife and I kind of met online. I say “kind of” because we met briefly in Toronto way back and I met her for about 40 minutes. I was like, "Who is this girl?" I was taken aback. But, I wasn't living in Toronto, I was just visiting family. So I'd go back every year and I'd always ask about Karly Snow, what's going on with Karly Snow, and where is Karly Snow? Cut to five years later, I'm in LA and *ping!* I got a message on Facebook and it was from Karly Snow! She's pretty sassy, so she said, "Your profile picture is bothering me. Can you take it down?" So we started this kind of online thing, and then jumped into a crazy relationship. Now, we're married and we have an eight month old daughter. So you know, it does work out. But it is tough, the whole online thing. You definitely have to be open to it. If you're not open to it, you're gonna have a hard time finding it. That goes for anything in life. You have to be open and you have to say yes, then doors will open.
💓 Naomi: The next question I have is specifically about your character in Love Hard. He's kind of a neurotic guy. For those who haven't seen the movie, Matty's character is the boss of the main character and is introduced biking on his stationary bike, shaking his two Shake Weights at once, while talking to the main character. Who was your inspiration as you got into and played this character? It's an amazingly hilarious archetype of a person!
🧡 Matty: I didn't channel anyone specifically for this character. But, you know, especially in Hollywood, you come across people who are self serving, out for themselves and their image, and looking for you to fail so that they look good. I've come across people like that, so when I read the character I was like, "Oh, yeah, I know this person. This is a person who wants to shine at any cost." But then, once I started diving into character more, he does have a heart and comes around in the end for Natalie. You come across people in this industry that want to look good at any cost. Also, when you audition for characters and read parts, sometimes they just click and that's really what happened with this character. I got this character and it was fun, because the writing was funny. If the writing is tight and funny, then it's easier to dive into a character, and that's really what happened to me here. In my experience, you don't usually have the writers on the floor when you're actually doing the work. This time around, we were lucky enough to have the writers on the floor and bouncing ideas off each other. It became really collaborative, there was no ego, and the funniest idea always won. I would come up with an idea or I would improv a line and they would go, "Oh, that's hysterical! What about this?" Separately, it was just a really, really fun time making this movie. I think that's the other thing too about rom-coms or any movie, if everybody has fun together and there's no ego, then you end up with a better product when all is said and done.
💓 Naomi: Absolutely. That was very clear to me when I was watching the movie. There were many times that your character specifically would make me laugh out loud. I think that your point about no ego in the creative process, is really rare to find in traditional Hollywood, but when you do find that, you can get into these creative flows. You actually just led me to my last question for you, which is: What was it like to work with the cast of Love Hard and are there any funny or memorable moments from filming that you feel comfortable sharing?
🧡 Matty: What I'll carry with me from this movie is just how inclusive it was. I would get to work and everybody was so welcoming with open arms. The other thing is that you usually come in and there's a lot of pressure you receive right off the bat, like to perform well. So, if you're taking everything with open arms, it puts you at ease and you can work a lot easier, that's the case for myself anyway. That's exactly what happened: I came in, Nina was a joy to work with, Hernan the director was very supportive, same with the writers, and everybody was just onboard. There was a lot of improv in this movie, definitely in the scenes that I shot anyway, and it was fostered. There's one joke in the movie where I had said, "You gotta leave it up to real journalists, like Steve." I was just riffing because I thought it was funny, like some guy named Steve, super generic, white male, is the real journalist. But after the first take, everyone laughed and then Rebecca said, "What about if she says, 'Screw Steve!' And then you say, ‘I did, but don't tell HR.’ " That was a moment where we all riffed together and that was a fun moment of the movie that I'll always remember.
💓 Naomi: That was definitely one of my favorite moments from your character. It's incredible to hear that you all riffed off of that. It makes me feel like all the films that we love, all the movies and TV shows that we watch, as much as is written in the script that you can read before you start acting, there is some amount that's unwritten and those are the moments that you can't anticipate because it's just you getting into the character.
🧡 Matty: Exactly that! You jump into the character and you live the truth of that character in the moment, then those funny little moments can happen. Everybody on this movie was beyond sweet and I hope to work with them all again. You go to jobs like this and it makes up for any other experience that you've ever had that’s been a downer. I’ve been on projects that have had a more typical Hollywood experience: coming up, trying to get any part, trying to get bigger and bigger parts, and it almost always being a tough ride. It was so refreshing coming onto a movie like this and what a treat it has been to see it do so well!
Hope you all loved this conversation with Matty as much as I did! Be sure to check out Love Hard on Netflix, I give it my personal recommendation. And be sure to follow Matty on Instagram for the latest on his projects!
Stay tuned for my next Rom-com-versation.
xx,
Naomi