Laura Marano is starting the new year the only way she should be… booked and busy!
The 26-year-old has a lot to celebrate today (January 20), as her new Netflix film The Royal Treatment — which also features new music — is out on the streaming giant.
In the film, Isabella (played by Marano) runs her own salon and isn’t afraid to speak her mind, while Prince Thomas (played by Mena Massoud) runs his own country and is about to marry for duty rather than love. But when Izzy and her fellow stylists get the opportunity of a lifetime to do the hair for the royal wedding, she and Prince Thomas learn that taking control of their own destiny requires following their hearts. Sparks between them fly, and fans have to tune in to see if love — or duty — prevail.
“[‘The Royal Treatment’] is a romcom and its aim is to bring joy, laughter and romance. I think it was really fun to just be in this genre and have a really good time; and hopefully everyone who watches it kind of sees that and feels that and has a good time as well,” Laura tells Celeb Secrets reporter Juliet Schroder in an exclusive interview.
“Izzy is a character where she speaks her mind. She’s not afraid to let you know how she feels about something. And that’s certainly something that Prince Thomas is not familiar with at all and his sphere and his life. So they end up meeting kind of accidentally — you’ll have to watch the film to see exactly how it happens — but I think they’re both very struck by each other’s different worlds and opposite personalities and not being used to what the other person kind of brings to the dynamic. It’s really, really fun and really, really cute.”
Filmed during the height of the pandemic in New Zealand in 2021, Laura said working with her co-star Mena Massoud was “so lovely” and “so wonderful” from the moment they began quarantine to the moment they wrapped.
“We had such a good time [together]. We were in quarantine in New Zealand for two weeks — we were different hotels in different cities — and I feel like the fact that we had to FaceTime to go over lines and go over our characters helped us get to know each other that you don’t always have,” Laura said with a smile. “You kind of jump in when you’re filming a movie — maybe you have five days of pre-production as an actor to like get familiar with material on set and familiar with your director and co- stars — but with this movie, Mena and I like got to just like hang out virtually for two weeks and I think that really helped us create this bond between our two characters.”
Aside from starring in The Royal Treatment, Marano had her hand in both the production and music aspect of the romcom. Her songs “Dance with You” featuring Grey and “Worst Kind of Hurt” featuring Wrabel can both be heard in the film, which is something she is super proud of.
“The duet with [Wrabel] is very similar lyrically to my solo version, and originally was not involved in the film at all. I was writing it for me and dealing kind with my breakup, so the lyrics and that first person didn’t make a lot of sense. I’ve spent four years of my life [in this relationship], and Izzy and Thomas certainly do not know each other for four years. So, I had to rewrite those lyrics to make it work for the film when the director heard the song and was interested in having it in the film,” Laura said.
On the contrary, “Dance With You” with Grey was specifically made for The Royal Treatment, and since its release earlier this month, the song has been featured on 31 Spotify editorial playlists, including New Music Friday in the US and several other countries. Within a week, the song has accumulated 258K Spotify streams, making it Laura’s No. 1 most popular song on Spotify, and a Top 5 for Grey.
“For [Dance with You], I was like, I want this song. I wrote that song for the movie. So that was a totally different situation. Someone on my team knows the original writers of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanted Dance with Somebody’ and was like, ‘if you wanted to sample the song, we could clear it.’ So I interpolated, ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ to make ‘Dance with You’ and [Grey] jumped on and it’s brought me so much joy.”
If you’re wondering whether you should skip or stream The Royal Treatment, Laura highly suggests streaming, as she says it has a deeper message about how we can all make a positive difference in this world.
“It’s a romcom and it’s such a cute, sweet story between our two main characters, but you know, the the film also dives into identity and the dynamic between self versus who you are as an individual versus who you are with your family,” Laura shared. “I think it also dives into the power that we all have as individuals to make change. Obviously some people are born or end up in a position that have a big platform and have a lot of responsibility and power. But I think some people who don’t necessarily have that same platform or those same political responsibilities still have the same capacity and ability to make change and positive change in the world.”
“I’m really proud of this film because it’s this sweet romcom that I think brings joy and I hope will bring joy to people watching it, but we definitely have a bit of a deeper message about how we all can make a positive difference in this world,” she added.
For more on The Royal Treatment, be sure to watch our full interview below and don’t forget to let us know if you loved the film by either leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sending us a tweet at @celebsecrets.
You can watch The Royal Treatment on Netflix here.
