Netflix’s new romantic drama One Day tells the sprawling story of two friends over the span of 20 years, as their lives weave in and out of one another’s.
The series — based on the 2009 David Nicholls book of the same name and the previous film adaptation from 2011 — stars Leo Woodall as Dexter Mayhew and Ambika Mod as Emma Morely, who were tasked with bringing this emotionally powerful decades-spanning love story to life.
Speaking with ET’s Ash Crossan, Woodall and Morely reflected on how they built their bond as collaborators and actors so that their chemistry could translate on screen.
“I think we just knew that we had a kind of a big job to do together, and that we both might find it tough at times,” Woodall shared. “We knew that we were going to, you know, want to lean on each other and check in, and so I think that happened pretty, pretty fast.”
“You can’t really force that stuff, so we just sort of let it happen,” Mod explained. “We didn’t really have time to talk about the characters or the relationship really, so we just had to dive straight in and do it. [And] I think our relationship progressed as the characters’ progressed, because we shot largely chronologically.”
While fans of the film adaptation — which starred Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess — are likely already familiar with the moving, nuanced and complex story of Dexter and Emma, Mod and Woodall explained that there are many bold and exciting differences that set the show apart as a fully different experience.
“The series is, like, six times longer than the movie, so we cover a lot more of the book,” Mod explained. “And I think tonally, we’ve been very, very, very faithful to the book — it’s basically like one episode per chapter.”
“We’ve dedicated a lot of time to these characters and to what they go through,” Mod added. “So I think, hopefully, fans can just expect a lot more of what they enjoyed and loved in the book, in the series.”
One Day debuts Feb. 8 on Netflix.
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