After Chapter 1: Josephine Langford (Tessa) was to play another character
Josephine Langford has played Tessa in the “After” saga since 2019. But originally, the actress was aiming for another role. It was a little twist of fate that allowed him to get the leading role alongside Hero Fiennes Tiffin.
After, the complicated romance between Tessa and Hardin
It was in 2013 that Anna Todd began writing her first novel, After, on her smartphone and publishing it on the Wattpad application. It was originally a fanfiction about the group One Direction and more particularly Harry Styles who inspired its main character Hardin Scott. Finally, the author moved away from the singer to tell this romance between a bad boy and the young and innocent Tessa.
After being downloaded more than a billion times, his story was published in print before Hollywood took a strong interest in it. After: Chapter 1 was released in theaters in 2019 and did not escape comparison with Fifty Shades of Gray – particularly because of its falsely sulphurous sex scenes.
The film was not as successful, but still grossed nearly $70 million on a budget of $14 million. Enough to motivate producers to launch a franchise while still following the novels of Anna Todd.
Josephine Langford was lucky
Josephine Langford got the role of Tessa while Hero Fiennes-Tiffin got the role of Hardin. However, the duo could have been very different since the actress had originally applied to play another character. She was in fact to play Molly, Hardin’s “friend” who, in the first opus, reveals to Tessa the true intentions of the boy, who simply wanted to go out with her and then dump her.
A role which fell to the luscious Inanna Sarkis. Suffice to say that today we would have a hard time imagining Josephine Langford as Molly as we now associate her with a nice, not very shy girl – at least in the first film.
In her place, Julia Goldani Telles (The Affair) was to play Tessa. But a few weeks before filming, the actress had to withdraw due to a busy schedule. The production therefore contacted Josephine Langford again, offering her the role of Tessa, two weeks before the start of filming! The actress immediately took a plane to Los Angeles, read the script in flight and had two interviews before finally getting the role.
Josephine Langford then returned for the sequels before bringing the romantic comedy The Other Zoey (on Prime Video October 20, 2023), in a style quite different from the After saga.
Hero Fiennes-Tiffin did not convince everyone
This change in situation therefore helped the actress, but also Anna Todd. Indeed, the author of After had a preference for Josephine Langford from the start. Conversely, the choice of Hero Fiennes-Tiffin to play Hardin was less obvious.
It was Daniel Sharman (Teen Wolf) who was first approached. Fans even started an online petition for him to get the role. But this time it was director Jenny Gage who had to insist that it be Hero Fiennes-Tiffin. She declared on this subject to Vulture:
The producers were not on board for Hero. Disagree at all. And I kept telling them, ‘Trust me.’ They weren’t convinced by his looks.
