Despite the fact that Emily Bader grew up just three hours from Hollywood, in a small town called Temecula, acting always felt like a distant dream. “I was truly desperate to do small plays,” she says, “but I couldn’t even get cast in my high school’s [productions].” Inspired by Emma Stone, whom she read made a PowerPoint when she was 15 convincing her parents to let her move to Los Angeles, Bader tried to do the same—with little effect. Her parents told her she’d have to wait until she was 18, which she reluctantly agreed to.
Now the 29-year-old actress is set to star in People We Meet on Vacation, Netflix’s highly anticipated adaptation of Emily Henry’s best-selling 2021 novel. It’s a When Harry Met Sally–type story about two best friends who take a vacation together every summer, until a falling-out forces them to confront their deeper feelings. Bader stars as the adventurous travel writer Poppy opposite Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), who plays a high-school English teacher named Alex.
