{"id":3417,"date":"2026-06-13T01:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T01:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/06\/13\/how-every-year-after-star-matt-cornett-used-the-novel-and-fan-edits-to-find-his-character\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T01:37:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T01:37:00","slug":"how-every-year-after-star-matt-cornett-used-the-novel-and-fan-edits-to-find-his-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/06\/13\/how-every-year-after-star-matt-cornett-used-the-novel-and-fan-edits-to-find-his-character\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018Every Year After\u2019 Star Matt Cornett Used the Novel and Fan Edits to Find His Character"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\t \t \t\t<\/svg>\t\tLogo text<\/span> \t<\/a> <\/p>\n

\tMatt Cornett<\/a> couldn\u2019t wait to bring viewers to Barry\u2019s Bay. <\/p>\n

\tThe 27-year-old actor stars as Sam Florek in Prime Video<\/a>\u2019s latest romance adaptation, Every Year After<\/a><\/em>. The series, based on Carley Fortune\u2019s beloved book Every Summer After<\/em>, explores first love, all-consuming heartbreak, regret and second chances \u2014 all set in a quaint Canadian lake town. Naturally, for Cornett, it was a no-brainer. <\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe second I read the book I thought, \u2018There\u2019s nothing about this that I could ever possibly say no to,\u2019\u201d Cornett tells The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> on a recent Zoom. \t<\/p>\n

\tFor the actor, who started in Disney\u2019s High School Musical<\/em> television series, Every Year After<\/em> is the chance for his romantic leading man moment. \u201cI look at Ryan Gosling and just love everything that man does,\u201d says Cornett. \u201cThis is my Ryan Gosling moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tBelow, the actor digs into Every Year After<\/em>, working with Fortune and the show\u2019s writer Amy Harris, and how he used fan edits to help him find Sam.<\/p>\n

\tHow are you feeling about everything with the show?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tI feel really good and really excited. I\u2019ve seen all eight episodes, and I\u2019m so proud and so happy with them. There\u2019s so many emotions and memories tied up with this show in my brain and my heart. I\u2019m just really excited for the world to see it. This has been our baby, and it\u2019s now time to let our baby go travel the world without us. <\/p>\n

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\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>

\t \t\t\t\t\tMatt Cornett in \u2018Every Year After.\u2019<\/span> \t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJustine Yeung\/Prime Video<\/cite> \t\t\t\t\t \t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\tOne thing you mentioned last year when we spoke was that you were trying to grow out of teen roles and move into a new spot. I think you can certainly do that with this movie. Why did this feel like your next move?<\/strong> \t<\/p>\n

\tWhat was so exciting about this role, in this world, is it\u2019s the first time that I\u2019ve played the romantic lead. I look at Ryan Gosling and just love everything that man does, so I [decided] this is my Ryan Gosling moment. This story is just so beautiful and so good. The second I read the book, I thought, \u201cThere\u2019s nothing about this that I could ever possibly say no to.\u201d What\u2019s so fun and challenging as an actor is playing multiple ages. I play 15, 16, 17, 18 and 28. I play five different ages in this. That was a challenge, and it made me change the way that I prepped every single thing that I have done for the past however long of my career. I now had to shift that and create a new system for this show.<\/p>\n

\tOverall, the character in the story was just so sweet and beautiful. The book is so incredible. Doing a book adaptation is so fun. There\u2019s so much nervousness and a sense of pressure that comes along with that, but also excitement to have creative liberty with these characters that already are so beloved.<\/p>\n

\tSomething you touched upon is the adaptation part. BookTok has definitely changed the way people consume books<\/a>. It\u2019s also grown fanbases quite a bit. Were you nervous about getting it right? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\tTotally. Anytime you have a preexisting IP or a preexisting character that people are so in love with, rightfully so. I mean, Carley\u2019s story is so incredible. Anytime you have that, there\u2019s going to be pressure to create it perfectly. I think what\u2019s so great is me and Michael Bradway, who plays Charlie, and Sadie Soverall, who plays Percy, we all had that conversation along with Amy Harris, our showrunner, about how important it was to be as accurate to the book as possible. \t<\/p>\n

\tAs a fan of books and movies and TV, anytime there\u2019s a project that\u2019s being remade or reimagined, or a live-action version of something that I already loved comes out, I want that new version to be as accurate to the old thing as possible. When things change, it starts to become a different story and sometimes it\u2019s hard for people to wrap their heads around, especially when it\u2019s something that so many people say that this is their favorite book. If it\u2019s your favorite book, you want to see your favorite book come to life. You don\u2019t want to see a different version of your favorite book. It was fun to navigate.<\/p>\n

\tWhat about the pressure for Sam in particular?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tThere was a lot of pressure of hoping I get Sam right because I feel like I know Sam really well. I know there are people that know Sam better than me, just because of how well they know this story, and they know these characters. It\u2019s fun, and it\u2019s nerve-wracking and exciting. I just hope that every bit of who Sam and Percy and Charlie are as people is what we captured in the show. It\u2019s important that people know it was very important to us. Obviously, there are certain things in the show that we have to change just to make it expandable for TV, but overall it was really important to be true to the book.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>

\t \t\t\t\t\tSadie Soverall and Matt Cornett in \u2018Every Year After.\u2019<\/span> \t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCate Cameron\/Prime Video<\/cite> \t\t\t\t\t \t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\tDid you work with Carley at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tI remember the day I met Carley. Me and Michael had talked about this, and we were so nervous to meet her. One of our producers texted us the night before and was like, \u201cHey, Carley\u2019s going to be on set tomorrow.\u201d Carley was involved to a pretty good degree behind the scenes \u2014 and I know she was working on other things at the time, so she wasn\u2019t able to be on set every single day. But she was definitely around. I remember the first day that we found out she was going to be on set and me and Michael were like, \u201cOh my God, we\u2019re going to meet Carley.\u201d It was this nerve-wracking moment of really hoping that she feels like I capture Sam and feels the way I\u2019m playing Sam is correct. \t<\/p>\n

\tWhat happened when you ended up meeting?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tI was so nervous. I walked up, gave her a hug and said, \u201cIt\u2019s so lovely to meet you.\u201d She\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019m so happy to finally meet you. I feel like I know you because I\u2019ve seen your face in all these auditions.\u201d I remember just talking with her and being so excited. I think she even said that she was nervous to meet us because she felt like she was meeting these characters that she created for the first time. I remember her saying that she felt like all of us captured, in her heart, who Sam, Charlie and Percy were. That gave us such a boost of confidence going into shooting because that was so early into the filming process. It gave us such a boost to really feel like we can dive into these characters knowing that we have the stamp of approval from Carley Fortune.<\/p>\n

\tFor this book in particular, how familiar were you with it before?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tNot at all. I didn\u2019t grow up a big book reader. I wish I did. The idea of sitting down with a good book is the most perfect picture in my mind. I\u2019m just so nonstop that it\u2019s so hard for me to sit down, [to] make my body sit still and read. Going into auditioning, I didn\u2019t even know that this was based on a book. They didn\u2019t tell us until very late in the audition process that it was based on the book. It was under a code name, different characters, different everything. Then in the final audition process, when I did my final chemistry read with Sadie, they were like, \u201cSo, this is based on a book called Every Summer After<\/em>.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\tAfter that, I read the book and I did a little bit of research, not a ton. When I booked the show, that\u2019s when I wanted to read the book. The day after I booked the show, I had a day off of work. I drove to a bookstore about 45 minutes away, and I was like, \u201cOK, let me find this. I wonder if they have it.\u201d I walk in and the first table is summer romance, and it\u2019s like all of Carley Fortune\u2019s books. I realized this is a really big book. That was the first moment where I knew what I was getting myself into. It was really fun, and the second I read the book, I was in love with it.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>

\t \t\t\t\t\tMichael Bradway and Matt Cornett in \u2018Every Year After.\u2019<\/span> \t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCate Cameron\/Prime Video<\/cite> \t\t\t\t\t \t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\tHudson Williams told me when he was finding his version of Shane in Heated Rivalry<\/em> that he\u2019d look through fan conversations or forums online. I\u2019m curious if you ever dug into that side? How tuned in were you with this character online?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tWell, I obviously wanted to capture what the fans love so much about Sam because I think there\u2019s so much about Sam that makes him likable and makes him such a fun character. Those were things that were definitely important to me. That\u2019s hilarious about Hudson. I did not go read fan forums, though; I think that\u2019s a great idea just to see how people conceive Sam.<\/p>\n

\tI\u2019ve heard it a few times now.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tI did go and watch TikTok edits of Every Summer After<\/em> [though]. People make these edits of who they feel is good and the vibe of Sam, and all these things. I did go watch a few of those just to get Sam\u2019s vibe from the audience, but I didn\u2019t dive too deep into that. I wanted to use the book as our Bible in a sense for the show. Then talking with Carley and with Amy Harris, our showrunner. So many conversations with so many people. Me and Sadie sat down and talked about Percy and Sam\u2019s relationship a lot and where they\u2019re at. It was a bit of both [for me]. It was a bit of creating this version of Sam that I want to create for myself, but also using the book and using the edits that I had seen fans make of Sam to create a perfect concoction of fan-Sam and Matt-Sam.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Logo text Matt Cornett couldn\u2019t wait to bring viewers to Barry\u2019s Bay. The 27-year-old actor stars as Sam Florek in Prime Video\u2019s latest romance adaptation, Every Year After. The series, based on Carley Fortune\u2019s beloved book Every Summer After, explores first love, all-consuming heartbreak, regret and second chances \u2014 all set in a quaint Canadian lake town. Naturally, for Cornett, it was a no-brainer. \u201cThe second I read the book I thought, \u2018There\u2019s nothing about this that I could ever possibly say no to,\u2019\u201d Cornett tells The Hollywood Reporter on a recent Zoom. For the actor, who started in Disney\u2019s High School Musical television series, Every Year After is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[265,1888,2,1970,804,163,85,335],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-every-year-after","category-hollywood","category-matt-cornett","category-next-big-thing","category-prime-video","category-tv","category-tv-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}