Angourie Rice says she is leaning into romance, not away from it, as she promotes the British rom-com Finding Emily in Sydney. The 25-year-old Melbourne-born actor plays Emily, a cynical psychology student who believes people have evolved past the need for romantic attachment.
The film pairs her with Owen, played by Spike Fearn, who is willing to go to extreme lengths to track down a lost connection. Directed by Alicia MacDonald and written by Rachel Hirons, Finding Emily comes from Working Title, the production company behind Love Actually, Notting Hill and the Bridget Jones films. Rice said she is “definitely more of a romantic,” adding that she thinks there is “lots of romance to be found everywhere” and that rom-coms “push us to go for it, to run towards the thing you love.”
That pitch matters because Rice is no newcomer looking for a reset. She made her feature film debut at 12 in These Final Hours and has since appeared in The Nice Guys opposite Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe, Sofia Coppola’s 2017 remake of The Beguiled, three films in the Spider-Man franchise, Black Mirror alongside Miley Cyrus and Mare of Easttown with Kate Winslet. The role of Emily places her inside a genre that has long been part of Working Title’s identity, and it arrives while debates about Gen Z women, dating-app fatigue, heterofatalism and the boy sober movement continue to shape how younger audiences talk about relationships.
Rice’s own comments suggest the film is tapping into something more personal than nostalgia. She said one of her big ideas for 2026 is “just letting go of embarrassment” in relationships, and added that a friend’s advice had stuck with her: “no one can laugh at you if you’re already laughing at yourself.” That outlook fits a life in which she is currently dating and, by her own account, trying to keep control without becoming guarded. “You do have control in this situation,” she said. “You can be silly and earnest and romantic, and if it doesn’t work out, you can laugh.”
In the film, that balance is built into Emily herself. Rice said the character is “trying to prove that cynicism is actually worth something — to protect herself,” but the dynamic with Owen forces a shift. “Through meeting Owen and being fascinated with his open-heartedness and total lack of cynicism, she has to learn to accept those qualities in herself,” she said. That makes Finding Emily less a lecture about falling in love than a case for allowing it, even when self-protection feels safer.
Rice also pointed to an older screen romance as a personal touchstone, saying, “Casablanca is one of my favourite movies,” which gives her stance a classic edge even inside a contemporary dating story. For a performer now 25 and already well beyond the stage where many actors are still trying to be noticed, the message is simple: romance is not something she is done with. It is something she is choosing, in public, and on purpose.
