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When Ilana Wolpert<\/strong> imagined her life, she pictured much of it tucked away in a library, analyzing the works of Shakespeare after earning her PhD in English. Instead, she\u2019s days away from walking the red carpet for her feature screenwriting debut Anyone but You<\/em>, a modern-day romantic comedy inspired by Much Ado About Nothing<\/em> that stars Sydney Sweeney<\/strong> and Glen Powell.<\/strong><\/a> Wolpert uprooted her own trajectory during her senior year of college, when she opted to enroll in a screenwriting class. It was love at first sight. \u201cEverything clicked,\u201d she tells Vanity Fair,<\/em> \u201cI haven\u2019t looked back since.\u201d<\/p>\n After her collegiate meet-cute, Wolpert moved to Los Angeles, where she worked as an assistant to Rachel Bloom<\/strong> on The CW\u2019s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend<\/em> and then secured a plum staff writing position on High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.<\/em> \u201cI met some of my best friends writing on the show, met my girlfriend writing on the show,\u201d Wolpert says, referencing Tony-nominated cast member Julia Lester.<\/strong> But during breaks from production on the Disneyfied teen series, Wolpert devoted herself to her passion project: an R-rated romantic comedy she wrote in her parents\u2019 Utah home mid-pandemic. Often she\u2019d work next to her dog Ella, who snoozes behind Wolpert during our Zoom interview. \u201cI missed my friends. I missed weddings. I wanted to fall in love,\u201d she remembers. The film \u201cwas an escapist fantasy for me.\u201d<\/p>\n But what resonated with Sweeney, who was the first to board the project as an executive producer, was the realistic uncertainty that plagues protagonists Ben and Bea (named for Much Ado<\/em>\u2019s Benedick and Beatrice, naturally). Like Wolpert, Bea upends her plans by withdrawing from law school and getting \u201cdeprogrammed\u201d from the idea of marriage, despite childhood Halloweens spent dressing as a bride.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that we talked about is this pressure in your mid-to-late 20s to have your life look a certain way, to know what your career is going to be, who you\u2019re going to be with,\u201d Wolpert says. \u201cWhen we first met, we were in the place of all of our friends getting married, dealing with people trying to set me up or meddle in my life because they think that, to be happy, you need to be in a relationship\u2026. She just totally got that.\u201d And even as Sweeney\u2019s star status soared with dual Emmy nominations for Euphoria<\/em> and The White Lotus,<\/em> Wolpert says that she always made room for the movie. \u201cIt would not exist at all without her,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Just as it did with May December<\/em>\u2019s Samy Burch<\/strong><\/a>,<\/strong> what started as a first-time film writer\u2019s spec script morphed into a major motion picture once big names got attached. This time, they were Top Gun: Maverick<\/em>\u2019s Powell and director Will Gluck,<\/strong> whose own film Easy A<\/em> was inspired by classic literature in Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s The Scarlet Letter.<\/em> Persistent discourse about the state of the rom-com<\/a> is \u201ca little tiresome,\u201d says Wolpert, but the fact that hers is getting a prime Christmas release is a promising sign.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I\u2019m grateful for is that both Sydney and Glen were so down for a rom-com. There are not a lot of people in their age demographic, actors of any gender, who wanted to do rom-coms\u2014at least from early stages when we were exploring the cast,\u201d she adds. But Wolpert doesn\u2019t consider it \u201ca dying genre.\u201d In fact, she\u2019s set her sights on tackling a queer rom-com next.<\/p>\n \u201cI really just wanted my life to look like a romantic comedy,\u201d says Wolpert. Evidence of her lifelong adoration is all over Anyone but You,<\/em> from a Titanic<\/em>-referencing scene, to perhaps the most consequential grilled cheese since Nate\u2019s burnt beauty in The Devil Wears Prada.<\/em><\/p>\n Wolpert drew inspiration from Much Ado About Nothing,<\/em> which she calls \u201cthe perfect enemies-to-lovers story,\u201d as well as other modern works based on literary classics, including Clueless<\/em> (loosely based on Jane Austen\u2019s Emma<\/em>), 10 Things I Hate About You<\/em> (born from Shakespeare\u2019s The<\/em> Taming of the Shrew<\/em>), and She\u2019s the Man<\/em> (from Shakespeare\u2019s Twelfth Night<\/em>). \u201cThe sense of farce, especially in She\u2019s the Man,<\/em> was something that I really leaned into and loved when it comes to Bea and Ben getting tricked into being together,\u201d Wolpert explains. \u201cThat incredible scene where Amanda Bynes<\/strong> goes to the carnival and is running around and trying to be two people at once\u2014I loved that sense of physical comedy too, which we have in Anyone but You.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Like other faithful students of the rom-com<\/a>, Wolpert classifies herself as a Nora Ephron devotee, referring to 1989\u2019s When Harry Met Sally<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> 1993\u2019s Sleepless in Seattle<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> and 1998\u2019s You\u2019ve Got Mail<\/em><\/a> as \u201cmy holy trinity.\u201d Wolpert continues: \u201cShe just so effortlessly made you fall in love with those characters and the conflict really came from a place of character\u2026. But I definitely saw [the movies] at too young of an age on a cable channel I probably shouldn\u2019t have been watching,\u201d she adds with a laugh.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n