Growing Up Is A Family Affair for Joey King and Liza Koshy (2024)

If your 20s are for finding yourself, then A Family Affair’s Zara Ford (Joey King) is in need of a map. A 24-year-old personal assistant, her professional life is stagnating: Years of navigating the whims of her nightmare boss, celebrity —sorry, movie star — Chris Cole (Zac Efron), haven’t led to the associate producer job he once promised her. And while living at home with her brilliant author mother, Brooke (Nicole Kidman), is good for Zara’s wallet, it’s not really helping her grow into an independent adult. Throw in the fact that she’s just walked in on said boss and said mom in bed —together — and it’s no surprise that Zara’s a little adrift.

“I’m fighting for my life,” King jokes to Tudum about her character’s emotional journey in the film, which hits Netflix on June 28.

She’s not the only one. Directed by Richard Lagravenese (Beautiful Creatures), A Family Affair is a multigenerational coming-of-age tale. While Zara is figuring out what it means to be out of college and forging an identity of her own, Brooke is looking for the sense of self she feels she’s lost after decades as a mother, wife, and widow. Meanwhile, Hollywood superstar Chris is also at a crossroads: Can he move past the action franchise that made him famous? These three threads intersect when Brooke and Chris embark on an unexpected love affair, leaving Zara with questions —and, judging by the trailer, a pretty severe concussion.

Navigating the treacherous waters of early adulthood is a struggle screenwriter Carrie Solomon knows all too well. In fact, she was exactly Zara’s age when she first came up with the idea that eventually became A Family Affair. “Millennials at the time were getting a lot of flack about being whiny and complain-y and not really putting their heads down and working,” she tells Tudum. “I remember simultaneously being frustrated by that and being like, ‘I do make it a lot about myself.’ I wanted to show how painful it can be to come to that realization.”

The result was Zara, an endearing but also flawed character, whose path to growth is lengthened by the occasional detour into selfishness. Yes, her situation is uncomfortable, but like so many of us, she has trouble seeing the bigger picture, focusing instead on how it affects her directly. Lucky for her, Zara has a best friend to keep her honest. Played by Liza Koshy, Eugenie is vivacious and no-holds-barred, as eager to support her bestie as she is to bring her down to earth.

“Zara is a really hard role to play,” Solomon says. “This is a character that could so easily become cloying and whiny, and seem so privileged. And yet, she is so lovable and earnest and trying so hard just to grow up. Joey gives great one-liners and she gives an enormous amount of emotion. She completely brought this girl to life.”

“I love Zara’s constant frustration,” King says. “She cracks me up because she’s self-aware enough to know she’s an angsty adult but [she] also has a great sense of humor and absolutely adores the people that drive her the craziest.”

Aaron Epstein

Enter Chris, the source of (most of) Zara’s frustrations. King and Efron are natural antagonists, trading increasingly creative insults like it’s an Olympic sport. In a classic rom-com, that would be the prelude to the two of them falling for each other — but Solomon was determined to offer a fresh take. That meant focusing Zara’s arc on her career, rather than a romantic pursuit.

“The whole script started as an exercise in trying to write a story about a girl in her 20s that didn’t revolve around her own love life,” she tells Tudum. “I really wanted to tell the story of a girl stuck in the middle of a horrendous personal situation that had nothing to do with her own sex life, which I think is something we don’t often see from women in their 20s on-screen.”

“I loved that part of the movie,” King says. “I’m just focusing on my familial relationships, my personal relationships, and furthering my career.”

Instead of Chris, one of Zara’s most meaningful relationships is with Eugenie. “I don’t feel like best friends usually get their moment in the sun,” Solomon says. Here, they take center stage as Eugenie cheers Zara on through the highs and lows of watching your mom date a Hollywood icon — and gives her the kind of real talk only a true friend can dish out. “Their friendship is one of the main relationships that we explore in the movie,” Koshy says.

On set, the two actors instantly formed a friendship that translates to the screen. “The first day, we had to take best friend photos that then end up in frames by Zara’s nightstand,” Koshy says. “[Joey] immediately lifted her shirt and shoved my head into it, and we shared it like two Sarah Paulson heads.”

“It was just really nice to jump in with someone you knew was going to be really chill and looking after you,” King adds.

At 24 and 28, it was easy for King and Koshy to relate to challenges their characters face. “I wish there was a doula for kids in their 20s rebirthing into their identities post-college,” Koshy says.

The film’s emphasis on finding oneself over and over at different phases in life continues to resonate with King. She points to Brooke, and Zara’s grandmother (played by Kathy Bates) as examples of this constant rebirth.

“It’s really nice to highlight all the different lenses of what being a woman means,” she says. “Each of them has their own moments and their own scenes where they get to discuss their desires and what’s led them to be who they are today. It’s really special, especially with Brooke’s character, to see a woman who’s in her second coming of age. Zara, through her own selfish lens, does not understand that. Her growth in this movie is she finally sees that her mom is going through something too. And [that] she’s a person, not just her mom.”

Both King and Koshy hope that the movie will lead to laughs, but also very real conversations as audiences put themselves in Zara’s shoes. “For a young woman to separate herself from the role of daughter and see her mother as a whole woman and allow her to enjoy her womanly desires is hard,” Koshy says. “This is such a great, loving example of what conversations can look like at your own kitchen table too.”

As for how to handle difficult bosses, King has only one piece of advice: “Don’t let ’em f—k your mom.”

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