The Last Sunrise, an adaptation of Anna Todd’s book of the same name, follows a young woman with a serious health condition who finds unexpected romance during a summer in Majorca. As she weighs her heart’s desires against family obligations and plans to return home, she must decide what she wants for her future.
Remezcla spoke with stars Maia Reficco and Fernando Lindez, as well as author Anna Todd, about the film, its portrayal of a protagonist with a chronic condition, and the story’s message.
For Todd, it was vital to portray a character like Ry authentically. “I would have rather not had a book or a film if it wasn’t going to be such a major part of it because I definitely see the lack of representation and I feel it as a reader and as a mother of someone with a chronic illness,” Todd shared. “I just got really tired of someone always dying at the end, and we don’t get to see people, you know, fall in love and jump off boats and sing karaoke in a bar. It’s like, I haven’t seen that. I haven’t read that. And I’ve read a lot. So, for me, it was really important.”
Reficco also emphasized the importance of that representation and described how she approached the role. “The truth is that for me the most important thing was first to inform myself. And second, to tell her story honestly, with truth, and not with my idea of what that could be.”
She said she spent “a lot [of time] understanding how her illness informed her daily decisions, her ability to project to the future.”
Reficco plays a Young Adult heroine, while Lindez takes on the role of the heartthrob—a part he called “a privilege.” He especially valued playing someone “with a very interesting inner world, and with their vulnerabilities, their feelings and their traumas.”
Playing a Latina character was also meaningful to Reficco, especially as YA enjoys a resurgence. “The truth is that it’s not something that I have really internalized. I never could have imagined that I would end up in a situation like this. I grew up in Argentina, I lived all my life in Argentina, and being in this position today, in this role, and leading a film of this caliber, for me it’s a great pride.”
“As a Latina, indeed, beyond that, it’s very exciting for me to be able to occupy these spaces, and I think that the more the merrier. The more Latinas leading any project, the better. After all, we deserve to be in those spaces. It excites me to be able to be part of that.”
Wherever she goes, Reficco says, she’ll carry Argentina with her. “I’m very Argentinian; I have my mate here,” she laughed. “I learned to sound Yankee to be able to work in the United States, but all my life I had an accent. I started sounding Yankee in the last few years because I wanted to work here. Sometimes, if I’m with my friends, my English isn’t that good. It’s like…the code switch.”
We can relate—and we’re glad to see Reficco thriving in so many different roles.
Catch The Last Sunrise now streaming on Prime Video.