Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey go on a Holidate

MANILA, Philippines — Are you willing to go on a “holidate”?

That is, you become or get a date strictly for special holidays and gatherings, so that you don’t have to stress over “well-meaning” titos and titas asking (again) why you’re still single.

This “dating hack” is the premise of the new romantic-comedy starring American actress Emma Roberts (American Horror Story, Scream Queens) and Australian actor Luke Bracey (Point Break, Hacksaw Ridge), the first holiday film of Netflix written by Tiffany Paulsen and directed by John Whitesell.

Emma and Luke are Sloane and Jackson — two strangers who accidentally meet at a mall, “forever” single, bitter and have zero romantic interest in each other. For seemingly convenient reasons, they end up agreeing to be each other’s “holidate,” purely companionship for special occasions that need a plus-one like a wedding in the family, Valentine’s Day, Halloween parties, Christmas and New Year’s reunions, etc.

This special arrangement eventually backfires as they fall in love and want to be each other’s date beyond the holidays. But that’s getting ahead of the story of the film, which you can now watch on Netflix.

The STAR recently joined a virtual roundtable interview with the two lead stars during which they shared their thoughts on dating and how people couple up during this time of pandemic.

In the film, Emma and Luke had a hilarious scene of duplicating Dirty Dancing’s famous jump and lift, and they said that from that scene onwards, they became besties.

Here’s the rest of the fun interview:

Have you guys felt any pressure being single, you know, in the past or at any time, and is it sort of amplified during the holidays, you think?

Luke: “I never really had that pressure. I guess my family’s always been quite chill about it all. I’ve got a couple of older sisters so they’ve kind of started families before me so that might have taken a little bit of the pressure and there are grandkids in the family already so it’s a bit easier.”

Emma: “Yeah, I’ve never felt the pressure being single and during the holidays, I feel like it’s more about family and friends. Or at least when I was younger. But I mean, I definitely can relate to feeling like Sloane, my character. I think she’s just kind of over at all because she feels like she’s not at the place in her life that she wants to be at yet. I think the holidays magnify that because everyone’s asking you so many questions and it kind of makes you have to pause and really look at where you’re at. So I definitely relate to that. We’re like, if you haven’t had the best year and then it’s like buttoned with a holiday with people just asking you, ‘how are you, how are you,’ I think it can definitely make someone crack a little bit.”

If you guys are going to be given the chance to pick anyone living or dead as their own holidate for a year, who would you want it to be?

Emma: “If it’s somebody in my life, I would say my best friend Karah, who I started my book club Belletrist with. She’s kind of always my holidate, we like to spend the holidays in the same place for the most part. But as far as someone like a celebrity, I guess living or dead, I mean I would love to be holidating around with (writer) Joan Didion.”

Luke: “I’m gonna go your route as well, and I’m with my best mate. Will is just the most fun you have made your life, and he’s just the perfect guy to take anywhere because he’s just this ball of energy and this giant smile and this bellowing laugh and he’s the perfect bloke to take anywhere.

“Then when it comes to famous people, past or present, I don’t know, there’s just so many to choose from… Maybe someone who’s kind of funny, someone like a Steve Martin-y type of person or like a Kristig Wigg, (she) would be hilarious. How much she would be!

Emma: “We both choose Kristin Wigg. I was literally going to take my answer to Kristin Wigg. Actually, I want both — Joan Didion, Kristin Wigg, and I’ll take you and Will, too.”

Luke: “Perfect!”

What do you think of the concept of a holidate? Would you or did you already try it?

Luke: “No, I haven’t really. I can’t say like, you know, I had that but I think it’s a brilliant idea. And, you know, we all have those moments where you’re like, I got this thing and I can’t go online and so, yeah, I will be trying it in the future, probably, maybe.”

Emma: “I think it’s a great idea because it’s even like, who likes showing up to a party by themselves? Even if you’re single, you don’t want to show up to a party by yourself. It’s always nice to have a friend or somebody to make you not feel like you’re walking into a room by yourself.

“So, I love the idea of a holidate and I think it can be anyone. It doesn’t even have to be somebody of the opposite sex necessarily. It can be like a good friend or just someone that you like spending time with or a family member or a sibling. It doesn’t always have to turn romantic, either. It’s kind of just having support when you’re out in public.”

Have you noticed any sort of change in people’s romantic behavior in this time of COVID? There’s a supposedly new dating phenom called coving or coupling up because of the lockdown.

Emma: “I don’t think I can answer that. I mean, I’m pregnant and with someone so I don’t know about coving hahaha!” (In an Instagram post last August, Emma announced that she is pregnant with her first child, a baby boy, with actor Garrett Hedlund.)

Luke: “I was staying with my parents for a couple of months (during the quarantine). It was the first time since I was like 19 so that was a whole other thing. That was a whole different kind of coving hahaha!

“But no, it’s funny, I think, I got some friends who kind of met some people just before it all happened and then kind of brought them really close together, and there’s obviously stories that go the other way as well.

“But look — it’s such a strange time. I don’t think anyone knows how it goes and I think we’re all just trying to figure it out on the run. And I think some beautiful stories are going to come from this in the future. There’s going to be some really sweet stories in rom-coms that are going to come out of this obviously in a few years’ time, like in the reflection of it once we’re through it.

“Because I don’t think anyone wants to watch a movie about what we’re going through right now. I think we all want to get away from what we’re going through right now. But in the future, there could be some funny movies coming out of it and stuff like that.”

Emma: “Yeah! So, imagine when kids ask their parents, ‘You live through a pandemic or like you met during a pandemic?’ It’ll sound romantic one day but currently, it’s not.”

Your chemistry was so much fun to watch. Was that something instant or did you have to work on it?

Emma: “We were besties from the jump. So funny because I’ve known Luke’s work obviously and I think he’s very talented but I’d never seen him do comedy and I don’t think I’d seen you play an Australian. And so, seeing him in this part, I just was obsessed with him and we just laughed so much when we were doing this movie and we kind of hit it off right away, don’t you think?”

Luke: “Yeah, it was like meeting an old friend. When we first met, the first thing we did was burst into laughter and something ridiculous. And it was like hanging out with someone I’ve known for years which made it so easy. And the good correlation between the characters and us was that we met on a friendship basis of just like, honesty and openness.

“There were moments I remember when we started and we gotta have a bite after work or something like that and I was seeing that we’d be having these conversations going, ‘oh, this is so weird because this is kind of almost exactly the conversations that we’re having in the film.’ And it was a bit wacky, but in the most perfect way.

“It is really nice to meet someone where the first thing you feel is that you’ve known them for a very, very long time. So, there certainly wasn’t any labor involved in terms of the friendship and the connection was there — it was old friends and lasting friends. I hope we are.”

Emma: “Yes! friends forever!”