Prom Dates Producer Talks Casting Ginny & Georgia and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series Stars

We talked to Luke Kelly-Clyne about Hulu's Prom Dates.

By Jamie Jirak

You can watch many original films on Hulu these days, and one of the newest releases to hit the streamer is Prom Dates. The coming-of-age comedy follows two best friends as they scramble to find prom dates the night before the big event. The movie stars Julia Lester and Antonia Gentry, who are best known for playing Ashlyn in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and Ginny in Ginny & Georgia, respectively. ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with Prom Dates producer, Hartbeat's Luke Kelly-Clyne, who spoke about casting Lester and Gentry, and the choice to have the Tony-nominated Lester sing poorly. 

"I was, yeah,"  Kelly-Clyne confirmed when asked if he was part of the Prom Dates casting process. "So we and our partners at American High were really involved, and Hulu was of course a guiding light for us in terms of what kind of talent they were looking for and what worked for their audience and all of that, but really it was collaborative between Hartbeat, American High and Hulu."

"And when we saw Julia Lester's audition tape, we were like, 'Okay, that's Hannah. No brainer.' It was one of those things where we immediately knew," he continued. "Obviously, she had had a bunch of success in the High School Musical space and then Into the Woods. She was getting a Tony nom and we were like, 'Oh, this is such a cool, surprising choice.' And then Antonia Gentry, we were fans of hers from Ginny & Georgia and thought, 'Hey, what about a little bit of a raunchier turn, and would she do it?' And luckily she was willing to take the swing."

We then brought up how Lester has an awkward song at the end of the movie, and wondered if there were any discussions about whether or not they should let her showcase her real singing chops.

"I love that you asked this question because not everybody knows this unless you watched all of the credits, but the song at the end of the movie, 'When You Were Young,' is sung by Julia, so that is her sort of like, 'Okay, let me show off my pipes moment.'" 

Kelly-Clyne also spoke about comedy legends John Michael Higgins (Pitch Perfect) and Chelsea Handler (Chelsea Lately) being in Prom Dates.

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"Yeah, it's funny. I mean, obviously with every role you have a list of folks just depending on availabilities and all of that, but they were very much at the top of our list for both of these roles," Kelly-Clyne said of Higgins and Handler. "And we got lucky with both that they had some time to come play around in Syracuse for a bit. And what's so funny is both roles, I think Chelsea's role is even a little bit smaller than John's in terms of screen time, but what I'm hearing from people after they see the film is calling out specific moments from those characters. And so, they did a whole lot with a very little bit of screen time."

Stay tuned for more from our interview with Luke Kelly-Clyne. 

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