Pop-Culturalist.com

Grace Kaufman, Pico Alexander, and Jacques Colimon are the stars of The Sky Is Everywhere.

Tucked among the magical redwood trees of Northern California and surrounded by her grandmother’s gargantuan roses, seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker (Grace Kaufman), a radiant musical prodigy, struggles with overwhelming grief following the sudden loss of her older sister, Bailey.

When Joe Fontaine (Jacques Colimon), the charismatic new guy at school, enters Lennie’s life, she’s drawn to him. But Lennie’s complicated relationship with her sister’s devastated boyfriend, Toby (Pico Alexander), starts to affect Lennie and Joe’s budding love.

Through her vivid imagination and honest, conflicted heart, Lennie navigates first love and first loss to create a song of her own.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with the cast about The Sky Is Everywhere, bringing these beloved characters to life, and creating the space to dive into this emotional story.

PC: Grace, I wanted to start with you. What was your process like bringing this beloved character to life? Was it a challenge to strike that balance between paying homage to this established character while also making her your own?
Grace: It felt surreal getting to play her. The Sky Is Everywhere was something that I had heard about but I hadn’t read myself. I don’t think I had really realized how important this story was to so many people and how a lot of people grew up on it and read it in high school. It painted their outlooks on teenagehood. That was really special. It felt like a total privilege. I felt very, very honored to get to be a part of it and tell Lennie’s story.

In regards to the fact that she was already an existing character from the book, I don’t think I paid too much attention to that. I felt like there was a lot of room to interpret her in my own way with guidance from Josephine [Decker] and Jandy [Nelson]. Jandy wrote the screenplay as well and that also contributed to me feeling comfortable and feeling so present with everybody while filming. I don’t think I was thinking too much about how people might look at what I had done or what they would think about me playing this already beloved character. In retrospect, that was a good thing because it kept me really present and it let me feel like I had creative freedom to make her my own.

PC: Great answer. Pico, each character gets to explore such a wide range of emotions. How did you create that space for yourself to dive into the emotional journey that Toby undergoes throughout the film?
Pico: That’s a hard question to answer. It was so sad to me. I didn’t really have to think about why. I love the idea of a character who has a secret that is weighing them down. It’s so sad what happens to him when we find out what’s been going on. It was just a matter of getting there on the day. Grace, Jacques, Josephine, Ava [Berkofsky], all the producers, and everyone else made an environment where we could do just that.

PC: Jacques, for you, Joe and Lennie have such a profound impact on each other. How do they influence each other throughout this journey? What was it like getting to collaborate with Grace to bring this fan-favorite duo to life on the screen?
Jacques: It was such a blast to bring Joe to life on the screen. Of all the characters, Joe is really about expressing his joy. That’s how he relates to Lennie. He shows her what that’s all about, which works as a foil to the relationship between Lennie and Toby. They definitely go through their conflicts at first. At the heart of it all, Joe is trying to get her to play music again. That’s the cornerstone of everything—the act of getting it out, right? Whether it’s grief, fear, pain, joy, pleasure—get it out, sing, play the clarinet. That is so much of the theme of their relationship.

Jandy was there with us on set for a lot of the day, so she could help shepherd the characters she wrote into a space of authenticity for all of us. Grace and Pico were so emotionally available and really dug through the material. You just heard Pico’s explanation that ambiguity was something he was grappling with. It was really beautiful to watch. I learned something from watching him do his thing. Josephine Decker is who she is for a reason. She was able to really wield the articulation of everything so perfectly.

Make sure to follow Grace (Twitter/Instagram) and Jacques (Twitter/Instagram). Watch The Sky Is Everywhere today on Apple TV+.