Pack your bags, because it’s time to jet off with People We Meet on Vacation. The first film adaptation of Emily Henry’s popular novels is hitting Netflix on Jan. 9, with Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and Emily Bader (My Lady Jane) starring as Alex and Poppy. The duo are longtime friends with polar-opposite personalities—Alex is introverted and loves routine, while Poppy is outgoing and free-spirited—who begin a tradition of traveling together every summer. After years of these vacations, including one disastrous trip that leaves them estranged, the two begin to wonder if they could be something more.
“I'm such a big fan of rom-coms. I think there's elements that I miss about some of the early 2000s, '90s romcom genre, and I felt like this had a little bit of that,” Bader recently told PEOPLE. “There's something grounded about these two characters' slice of life. It was exciting to get to read that.”
Before we jet-set into their globetrotting love story, read on to learn more about Bader—including why her co-star and director have hailed her as the next rom-com queen.
Emily Bader attends the People We Meet on Vacation Hollywood premiere.
Emily Bader is an American actress who got her start in her home state of California.
Emily Bader, 29, was born in Temecula, California, where she caught the acting bug early. “I was truly desperate to do small plays,” she shared with Air Mail, “but I couldn’t even get cast in my high school’s [productions].” She even made a PowerPoint when she was 15 to try to convince her parents to let her move to L.A., a move inspired by something similar she’d read about Emma Stone doing—but her parents said not until she was 18.
So, she moved to LA after high school, studying theater at Loyola Marymount University and landing parts in low-budget films and TV episodes. She made her professional theater debut at L.A.'s Geffen Playhouse in the play Our Very Own Carlin McCullough in 2018; from there, she starred in 2021’s Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, had a recurring part on the rebooted Charmed TV series, and appeared in the mafia movie Fresh Kills in 2023.
Emily Bader as Lady Jane Grey in My Lady Jane.
She played the titular role in the Amazon Prime series 'My Lady Jane.'
Bader found her first big mainstream role in the Amazon Prime historical fantasy-romance My Lady Jane, which premiered in 2024. The series, based on the popular YA novel of the same name by Jodi Matthews, is a reimagining of the life of Lady Jane Grey (Bader), the Tudor noblewoman known as the “Nine Day Queen” because she held the throne for that many days before being executed once Mary I (Kate O’Flynn) took over. My Lady Jane, though, rewrites her tragic history and fills it with witty banter, contemporary needle-drops, sexy romance, and shape-shifting humans. (If you liked Dickinson and The Great, you’ll really vibe with this too.)
“People like to compare it with The Great, and I think it’s pretty different, but there are similarities there. It’s got a little bit of Clueless in it, The Princess Bride is a huge reference for us, Monty Python is there in some moments, and a little bit of Pride and Prejudice, too,” Bader explained to Vulture in 2024. “It’s got a little bit of everything, but it’s tricky because I don’t know if I could directly compare it to any one show. There’s even some full-fledged fantasy in there, a little bit of Dark Crystal-ness in some moments.”
The series was sadly canceled after one season, a move that was met with uproar from fans, including Game of Thrones scribe George R.R. Martin, who used his blog to highlight a petition asking Amazon to reverse their decision. “I wish them luck,” he wrote. “Jane deserved more than nine days, or eight episodes.”
Poppy (Emily Bader) and Alex (Tom Blyth) in People We Meet on Vacation.
Bader was cast as Poppy in 'People We Meet on Vacation' in 2024.
The announcement that Bader and Blyth would play Poppy and Alex, the two close friends who might be more than just good travel partners, came in August 2024.
Director Brett Haley (Hearts Beat Loud, All the Bright Places) told Tudum that they were the perfect duo to play these characters. “This story lives or dies on the chemistry between Alex and Poppy—and Emily and Tom’s chemistry is electric,” he shared. “They capture that opposites-attract dynamic in a way that feels effortless and true.”
“I think there's a lot of me in Poppy, which is probably maybe why I got the job,” Bader told PEOPLE in November. “She's not good at editing in her mind, and that's something that I work on. And I think that she just lives fully, and I think something that I also aspire to be, is to live as authentically as Poppy lives. It was an opportunity for me to just strip away insecurity and have faith in my director and Tom and the whole team and just try to be the biggest, loudest, most annoying version of myself, but in a real way.”
Poppy (Emily Bader) and Alex (Tom Blyth) in People We Meet on Vacation.
She and co-star Tom Blyth had immediate chemistry—even over Zoom.
When Bader and Blyth did their first chemistry read over Zoom, Haley knew “instantly” that they were the perfect Poppy and Alex, according to People We Meet on Vacation author Emily Henry. Still, she didn’t know what to expect until she watched the footage for herself.
“I was so nervous to watch it," she recalled in an interview with IndieWire. "Of course, it’s not ideal circumstances, you’re seeing two people in horribly lit rooms on opposite sides of the world, Zooming. But they were so good. They were so good,” she gushed. “So quickly, I was so ecstatic. And it was the day that they met, by the way. And then getting to see them act together on set. I did two different set visits, which was really fun. I got to see a little bit of everything. I just couldn’t be happier.”
Bader also told PEOPLE that the on-screen chemistry between her and Blyth came easy to them. “I think it was about us getting to know each other and becoming friends quickly,” she said. “And I think it was very easy because we shot the movie basically being on vacation on Costa Brava, on the beach swimming and eating beignets in New Orleans and doing the things that make quick friends.”
Poppy (Emily Bader) and Alex (Tom Blyth) in People We Meet on Vacation.
Bader's 'People We Meet on Vacation' director and co-star compare her to rom-com royalty.
Haley and Blyth’s high praise for Bader goes beyond playing Poppy: Both say she’s joining the ranks of iconic rom-com stars.
In an October interview with PEOPLE, Blyth praised his co-star as "the new Meg Ryan" of rom-coms. “She's got that quality where she can be going off the rails and you still are just so enamored by her," he explained. "She's so endearing and she's so playful within the language of the script, and I think she's going to really do justice to the character." (Bader later told E! News that was “the biggest compliment that I could have possibly gotten.”)
Speaking to Tudum, director Haley compared Bader’s charisma to the likes of Ryan and Julia Roberts. “[Poppy] wears her emotions so openly, and Emily Bader captures all of that so fully,” he said, adding, “Her comedic timing is razor sharp, but she also has the range to land dramatic and romantic moments with real depth…She’ll make you laugh, and she’ll make you cry.”