You may already know that Oscar-winners Ke Huy Quan (the best part of Everything Everywhere All at Once) and Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) lead the charge in Love Hurts, which has been released just in time for the Valentine’s Day leadup. But there’s and impressive number of other beloved performers that help round out the ensemble as well — Marshawn Lynch, Sean Astin, Rhys Darby, Cam Gigandet. Arguably better than them all are Lio Tipton (Crazy, Stupid, Love) as a receptionist and Mustafa Shakir (Ghosted) as a mercenary. In fact, Tipton has a funny little dynamic opposite Shakir in their new action-comedy, and MovieWeb recently caught up with them to learn more.
“That was a dream because honestly, like, it’s such a ridiculous tone, and it can be really hard to set, and working with Mustafa to make sure that we felt like everything we did, even if it was over-the-top and kind of ridiculous, felt grounded to us and that we felt like our characters really believed it,” Tipton told us, adding:
“Mustafa reads people in an insane way. Like, I’ve never been one for, you know, kind of like reading energies and things like that, but Mustafa is someone who can just look into your soul. I mean, his eyes are just piercing anyway, but he uses them, and he really just, like, looks into your soul. So when you’re acting across from him, I don’t know, it was a wonderful, collaborative, truly unique experience. I mean, honestly, working with him was the best.”
Related: ‘Love Hurts’ Review: Ke Huy Quan Cements His Leading Man Status in a Hilarious Action-Romance
Working with Ke Huy Quan: “Let’s Have Fun”
3.5
/5
Release Date
February 7, 2025
Director
JoJo Eusebio
Writers
Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard, Luke Passmore
And then, of course, there’s leading-man Quan, with whom Tipton’s eccentric Love Hurts character Ashley also has a deliciously silly dynamic. Ashley is the assistant to Marvin (Quan) and gets caught up in all the madness once Marvin’s world is suddenly flipped upside down. “It was so easy working with Ke. He genuinely is one of the kindest, best people that I have worked with,” said Tipton. “The cast in general, the cast and crew were just really spectacular. And the set, that’s just a wonderful workspace dynamic.”
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Tipton continued:
“The first day of shooting is always, to me, really intense. You just never know the flow of things. And I was thrown into the opening office scene, which is a big walk-and-talk where we film everything in one take. And multitasking is not my forte, so I was extremely nervous about having to, like, hold papers, move things, and also hit my marks and do the lines. And thankfully, Ke is so full of light that he made it really comfortable and a place where you were encouraged to experiment and to have fun.”
“I think that was the biggest throughline of the production — just like… ‘Let’s have fun. If we’re not having fun, the audience is not going to have fun,'” added Lipton. “And so comedy kind of came easily because of that.” You can see the throughline for yourself now. From Universal Pictures, Love Hurts is now playing in theaters.
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