Chase Hudson and Sara Waisglass Talk Rom Com Tropes in “How to Lose a Popularity Contest”
This interview was originally posted on Film Obsessive.
High school is a popularity contest with a little bit of academics thrown in for good measure. The jocks, the nerds, the popular kids, the burnouts…you’ve heard the speech from Mean Girls a thousand times. But, high school gets interesting when the kids start to cross these invisible social boundaries, to befriend someone who is wildly different from themselves. How to Lose a Popularity Contest is the new Tubi young adult romantic comedy starring Sara Waisglass and Chase Hudson. Waisglass plays Ellie, an academic-focused high schooler who has resigned herself to a life of unpopularity. Hudson is Nate, a popular underachiever who coasts through all his challenges with a charming smile and floppy bangs. The two team up to get Nate elected as class president for their own personal reasons, but find themselves drawn to one another in ways they didn’t anticipate.
One of the reasons people keep returning to romantic comedies is the well-worn tropes the genre affords. With all the unpredictability of the real world, there’s something comforting in the familiarity of the rom com. Even though people, places, and circumstances change, a romantic comedy has a few promises it won’t break. It’s these beloved tropes that made Waisglass so excited to join How to Lose a Popularity Contest.
“I love rom coms so much,” Waisglass gushes. “There’s always the exact moment that one of the two of them opens up and you get a little bit of a glimpse into why they are the way they are, and it absolutely gags the other person.”
High school is a popularity contest with a little bit of academics thrown in for good measure. The jocks, the nerds, the popular kids, the burnouts…you’ve heard the speech from Mean Girls a thousand times. But, high school gets interesting when the kids start to cross these invisible social boundaries, to befriend someone who is wildly different from themselves. How to Lose a Popularity Contest is the new Tubi young adult romantic comedy starring Sara Waisglass and Chase Hudson. Waisglass plays Ellie, an academic-focused high schooler who has resigned herself to a life of unpopularity. Hudson is Nate, a popular underachiever who coasts through all his challenges with a charming smile and floppy bangs. The two team up to get Nate elected as class president for their own personal reasons, but find themselves drawn to one another in ways they didn’t anticipate.
One of the reasons people keep returning to romantic comedies is the well-worn tropes the genre affords. With all the unpredictability of the real world, there’s something comforting in the familiarity of the rom com. Even though people, places, and circumstances change, a romantic comedy has a few promises it won’t break. It’s these beloved tropes that made Waisglass so excited to join How to Lose a Popularity Contest.
“I love rom coms so much,” Waisglass gushes. “There’s always the exact moment that one of the two of them opens up and you get a little bit of a glimpse into why they are the way they are, and it absolutely gags the other person.”
In the context of How to Lose a Popularity Contest, this moment comes between Ellie and Nate one afternoon after school, preparing for the presidential race. It’s the first time they see each other as something different from their expectations, which are based on who they are at school.
“For Ellie, it’s when Nate is like, I never showed my drawings to anyone. I think for Nate, it’s when Ellie is like, yeah, my mom threw me a party and I was an asshole, and I regret it every day,” continues Waisglass. “I thought that was a really cool moment that we got to do. I got to live my rom com dreams.”
“For me, the thing that really made me understand rom coms was Twilight,” says Hudson. “I remember my sisters taking me to…”
“Is that a rom com?” interjects Waisglass with a smile. “I think you just laughed at it. You just didn’t understand the vibe.”
“I was definitely cracking up,” laughs Hudson. “One embarrassing truth is that I went on a date to a rom rom com and it was The Fault in Our Stars.”
“That is a rom,” agrees Waisglass.
“Yeah,” grimaces Hudson. “I was laughing.”
“So maybe your toxic trait is thinking everything’s a comedy,” jokes Waisglass. “A beautiful way to walk through life.”
Image courtesy of Tubi
How to Lose a Popularity Contest is Hudson’s first feature-length film. He shot to fame for co-founding the TikTok collective the Hype House and performs music under the name Huddy. He released Teenage Heartbreak in 2021, and it’s this album that Hudson says holds the song that most sounds like Nate’s emotional arc in How to Lose a Popularity Contest.
“I thought about this earlier today, and it’s ‘Partycrasher,’” says Hudson. “‘Fragile’ is another one. Shows he’s human.”
The banter between Waisglass and Hudson is quick and sweet, a glimpse into the dynamic that is Ellie and Nate in How to Lose a Popularity Contest. The relationship doesn’t start off perfectly, though. By her own description, Waisglass says that Ellie is “mean,” which is fairly atypical for a female lead in a romantic comedy. We’ve seen plenty of examples of self-centered male characters as the romantic lead in these movies, but it’s not common for women to get to play that part. For Waisglass, a self-described lover of the genre, the role of Ellie had its strengths and weaknesses.
“A very big part of me wants to play the super-sweet, girl-next-door who meets the love of her life. I think that’s so fun,” answers Waisglass. “This is definitely a challenge, especially since I wasn’t on her side when I first read her. I really didn’t understand why she was so mean to everyone, and so controlling.”
“Something that has gone out of style is the anti-hero, and Ellie is an anti-hero, which is really cool,” continues Waisglass. “Following her journey and seeing her fix her own problems when everything blows up is a really beautiful thing. It makes you feel for her and you’re proud of her. At the end of the day, all we want to do when we make something like this is make someone feel something. I hope people feel that and they’re on the journey with her.”
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