The film adaptation of Everything, Everything is sure to be one for the books. Based on the young adult fiction novel by Nicola Yoon that spent weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List, the movie stars Amandla Stenberg as the imaginative Maddy, a teenage girl who has never left her house because of a rare disease. When a new family moves next door, a romance soon sparks between her and Olly (Nick Robinson) which starts shaking things up.
Amandla hadn't read the book before getting the script, but once they read through it they could see how special the project was. Especially since Nicola and the movie's director Stella Meghie knew the importance of having a black lead character, something that hardly happens in movies let alone those in the young adult fiction genre.
"I was also really drawn to it because it was the first time I had seen a project like that that wanted to cast me as the lead," Amandla tells Teen Vogue. " I think it’s important to have an accurate representation of what young people are like today and the fact that it’s a changing world and interracial couples exist and are valid. I think it’s important we have that representation as well as just have a story featuring a black girl as the lead."
In the movie, Maddy and Olly don't get to meet each other in person for a while because of her condition, even though he first tries to start a conversation by showing up to her house with a bundt cake. The two end up talking to one another via texts and emails, getting to know one another's minds and values without relying on physical or IRL chemistry. It mirrors how so many of today's connections happen online before meeting face to face.
But even though the two mainly communicate through the internet at first, Maddy uses her imagination to dream up what it'd be like to hang out with one another at a diner and various other settings. These scenes give a dreamy feeling to the movie, a whimsical tone that Amandla loved to film.
"It’s supposed to be kind of like an extension of Maddy’s imagination," Amandla says. "She’s stuck in this house and so what she does in having conversations with him is imagine what it would be like to be in the real world, having these interactions with him even though they’re all happening on her phone. What was fun was we got to do whatever we wanted with those sequences and have weird, quirky incidents in them and things not based in reality and also think about how the characters would interact differently in a conversation on their phones versus in real life."
Eventually, the two do get to meet in person, which starts off just a little uncomfortable since they aren't used to being in the same room together. But they quickly get past that awkwardness and are really able to embrace the connection that first blossomed in a virtual space.
As for becoming Maddy, Amandla talked with Nicola about how to best bring the character to life. They agreed that they just wanted to make it seem as naturalistic as possible, to make Maddy almost just another expression or part of Amandla, to help her feel like a real teenager who's accessible.
Everything, Everything has shared with Teen Vogue an exclusive emoji trailer for the movie, an adorable remix of the original trailer told instead with everyone's favorite texting symbols set to Alessia Cara's "Stay." Check it out below:
As for Amandla's most often used emoji? They tell Teen Vogue that it's the little black angel, which the actress says they often use "in context to referring my friends and to myself."
Everything, Everything premieres in theaters on May 19.
Related: Amandla Stenberg Shaved Their Head For a Powerful New Role
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