1 of 4 | Allison Williams (L) and Mckenna Grace star in “Regretting You,” now available to buy or rent on digital platforms. Photo courtesy of Paramount
NEW YORK, Dec. 5 (UPI) — Get Out and M3GAN actress Allison Williams says Morgan, the stay-at-home mom she plays in Regretting You, is forced to re-evaluate her choices after a devastating tragedy and betrayal upend her world.
“It changes, literally, everything,” Williams, 37, told UPI in a Zoom interview this week.
“I think her reaction is somewhat blunted by all of her responsibilities as a mom, but I think it just fundamentally restructures her life and makes her see everything differently.”
The adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel is now available to buy or rent on digital platforms.
Spoilers ahead.
The film follows Morgan as she struggles to cope with the car crash deaths of her husband Chris (Scott Eastwood) and her sister Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald), who Morgan didn’t realize were having an affair.
Also left behind to awkwardly pick up the pieces are Morgan’s teen daughter Clara (Mckenna Grace) and Jenny’s boyfriend Jonah (Dave Franco), who has secretly been in love with Morgan since they were in high school.
Further complicating matters, Clara is growing closer to Miller (Mason Thames), just as her home life is falling apart and she is planning to go off to college.
WIlliams said Clara and Miller’s romance parallels Morgan and Jonah’s relationship “pretty closely,” although the younger characters handle some matters more maturely.
“One of the things I’m so impressed by in the younger kids’ story-line is that they are able to be emotionally honest and do the right thing, for the most part. Until they don’t,” Williams explained.
“But, especially for Miller, he has a girlfriend at the start of the movie, but he knows he’s in love with Mckenna’s character, Clara. And, so, he does the right thing,” she added. “He does what you’re supposed to do. And then we see in parallel what happened with my character and Dave Franco’s character, where people weren’t as brave, I would say, and as emotionally honest with each other. So, I think things have gotten better with the younger generation.”
Despite the fact the movie is an exploration of grief and loss, there are also numerous moments of levity that add to its authenticity.
Williams said many of the jokes were made on the fly by an enthusiastic cast.
“There was a lot of ad-libbing. I did a lot of it. I’m very comfortable doing it because on Girls, we did a lot of improvisation to try to get into scenes. And that’s also my only training,” she noted.
“So, anytime I have an opportunity to ad-lib or improvise, I’m very happy,” she added. “I was lucky enough to be with a bunch of other actors who are very good at it… The whole set just felt really harmonious and like everyone was on the same page. When that happens, it makes all of it much, much easier. We were all just super-close, rowing in the same direction.”
The actress credited director Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars, The New Mutants) for creating a positive atmosphere on the production.
“Josh Boone did a spectacular job of setting the tone, setting the stage for what the scene called for, so everyone was in the same tonal landscape, which is not as easy as it sounds when you have characters with different senses of humor and different things to be feeling in any given scene,” she said. “That just shows the steady hand of a director.”
Susan McMartin’s script also did an excellent job of re-imagining for the screen a tale that captivated so many readers, according to Williams.
“For the most part, we were really loyal to the storytelling, to the character development from the book. It’s just filling in the gaps that you get to do when you’re adapting something to a visual medium,” she said.
“That’s where we maybe had to come up with some stuff or to embellish some things that were in the book, but we did our best,” Williams added. “There’s a reason the book was so loved, and we did our best to bring the things that people loved onto the screen.”
The film co-stars Sam Morelos and Clancy Brown.
Cast member Allison Williams attends the premiere of “Regretting You” at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on October 20, 2025. She stars as young mother Morgan Grant. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo
