Gabrielle Union revealed that her age-gap romance with her husband, Dwyane Wade, inspired her to adapt The Idea of You.
“Being inspired by Robinne [Lee]‘s book and knowing that Solène’s story was a very specific story,” Union, 51, said during a post-screening Q&A on Sunday, April 28. “I was like ‘I want in.’ I live this! I’ve got a younger man with a big life.”
The Idea of You centers around 40-year-old Solène (Anne Hathaway), who falls in love with 24-year-old musician Hayes (Nicholas Galitzine) after taking her teenage daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), to see the group August Moon perform at Coachella.
For Union, a scene where Solène vacations with a younger crowd reminded her of her own experience traveling with Wade, 42. (Union and Wade, who exchanged vows in August 2014, have an almost 10-year age gap.)
“She comes with her things because she’s worried about sun protection and all the sorts,” Union said. “I love it because it reminds me of when I vacation with some of my husband’s friends. It’s like, ‘Oh, so no one’s heard of Jefferson Airplane?'”
When it was revealed that The Idea of You would be adapted onto the big screen, fans drew comparisons between the main characters and Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde’s previous romance. (The pair, who were linked from January 2021 to November 2022, had a 10-year difference.)
However, Hathaway, 41, slammed the speculation that Styles, 30, and Wilde, 40, inspired the movie. “No, just no,” she said during an interview with Extra in March.
During the SXSW Film & TV festival in March, Hathaway detailed showcasing the pair’s age gap romance in the movie, which is based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Lee.
“For some reason, we talk about coming-of-age stories as being something that happens to you in the earliest part of your life, and I don’t know about you, but I feel like I keep blooming,” she said. “I don’t want to be pigeonholed and don’t want to be placed in a box of what type of films I have to be making because of my age, gender and because I won an Oscar. I want to have fun, dammit. It speaks to me.”
The Idea of You premieres Thursday, May 2 on Prime Video.
