What if we told you one of the most pivotal, symbolic moments of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (ahem, the best movie ever) was improvised by none other than the glorious Noah Centineo? Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is true. Remember the scene in the Netflix teen rom-com where Peter Kavinsky goes over Lara Jean Covey’s house for a movie night? Of course you remember. It was freakin’ adorable.
Well, Lara Jean’s little sister Kitty obviously tagged along because – let’s be real, she and Peter became besties on that first day of carpooling to school. And while they’re chillin’ on the couch, Kitty and Peter start a painfully precious pillow fight together. Like come on, what’s cuter than seeing your soon-to-be-bae hitting if off with your little sister? Nothing. Literally nothing.
Just as the pillow fight starts, there’s a blink-and-you-missed-it kind of moment that is actually quite metaphorical. The Popcorn Save, fans are dubbing it. Before Peter’s playful battle with Kitty gets too cray, he slyly moves the popcorn bowl off of the couch. Can’t be makin’ a mess at your crush’s house! It basically represents that he’s a man with manners – gotta love it. And turns out, Noah totally improvised this because moving the popcorn wasn’t in the script. Was the head nuzzling in the script? Unsure, but we’d like to believe that was Noah’s work too.
Netflix
Director Susan Johnson confirmed, “The moving the popcorn was totally Noah. I didn’t ask him to do it. Kitty didn’t place it there every time, but she did that time and he was clever enough to figure out how to move it while throwing a pillow and leaning over, and I thought that was brilliant so we kept that take.”
That wasn’t the only iconic improve scene that Noah was responsible for. Perhaps the most romantic moment of the movie (aside from the steamy hot tub scene, of course) was when Noah put his hand in Lara Jean’s back pocket, like in the movie Sixteen Candles. Noah improvised and put a little spin on it – literally, he spun her around.
Netflix
The directed added, “The spin in the back pocket was also Noah. He did it in the rehearsal and I was like, ‘That is beautiful, we’re going to change the shot around!’ He’s a natural flirt so he knew what he was doing. The hot tub, it’s just their chemistry. There’s a little of Noah there and a little of Peter there.”
A NATURAL FLIRT, she says. Noah really is a Peter Kavinsky IRL. And for that reason, we’re forever swooning over the guy.
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