Moviefone recently had a chance to speak with screenwriter Travis Braun about his work on ‘One Night Only’, coming up with the premise, his own personal inspiration, creating the characters, the cast, working with director Will Gluck, and what it’s like to have a script on the Black List.

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(From left) Allie (Monica Barbaro) and Owen (Callum Turner) in ‘One Night Only’, directed by Will Gluck. Photo: Universal Studios.

MF: I read that you got the idea for this screenplay on your honeymoon.

Travis Braun: Yeah, I was freshly married and sort of reflecting on the kind of crazy winding path to find my person, and wanted to write a movie about that, but it seemed to me like it would make for a very long movie. So I needed to find a box to put that in and stumbled across how could I tell this movie if it all took place on one night — take all the things, all the dating nightmares that we talk about, catfishing, meeting someone you love and finding out they’re not as great as you thought, or getting stood up or ghosted — all these trials and tribulations of modern dating and condensing it into one night. That’s the heartbeat of it, and I hope people can see their own experiences sort of reflected on this one night — and obviously it’s a very crazy heightened version of it.

MF: All these things you mentioned are all very universal experiences. Was there anything that you drew from your own dating history that you didn’t think people would necessarily believe was true?

TB: I mean, the whole movie’s really pulled from my own personal history. There are obviously a lot of bad dates that you go on to find someone that you love and I can definitely can relate to that. But also, some of the most heartbreaking ones were great first dates, and then you start to find out, oh wait, actually this isn’t as good as I thought, or this compatibility isn’t what I thought it was. That’s a lot of what we play around with in the movie, which is how that first spark can be intoxicating and fun. Monica and Callum go through various sparks throughout the night, and the question is, you know, which is the spark that’s real? And by the end, you get that answer.

(From left) Allie (Monica Barbaro) and Owen (Callum Turner) in ‘One Night Only’, directed by Will Gluck. Photo: Universal Studios.

MF: What was your reaction when this script landed on the Black List? I ask because this was your third time on the Black List, and were you starting to think, ‘Can we get one of these off the Black List and onto the screen?’

TB: A thousand percent that was a huge part of it. I’ve been working in various forms of television and film for over a decade now and I’ve been very fortunate to have a career doing what I love, but I had never gotten a movie made until this one. So it was a huge opportunity. The Black List is such a great platform to showcase material that the town thinks is strong, that Hollywood is excited about, but hasn’t necessarily figured out a way to make it onto a screen yet, and it was a big part of getting this script the attention that it got…having that Black List accolade just meant that this is a script that a lot of people like and there’s something cool here and maybe this is a story we need to take more seriously.

MF: What was the process of collaborating with Will Gluck like?

TB: Fantastic. Jacqueline Monetta, the producer on it with Will, was super collaborative and just immediately understood what this movie was and knew that it was just about getting the right package together, finding the cast, and [Will feeling like] he could take this script and this cast and do what he does best and make that chemistry come alive…It was really helpful for me to see exactly what that secret sauce is. How does he, time and time again, capture this magic on screen? It was a crash course in rom-coms, and coming out of it, I learned a ton and was just really excited about the movie that we all were able to make.

(From left) Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner and director Will Gluck on the set of ‘One Night Only’. Photo: Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

MF: Do you see potential actors’ faces in your head when you’re writing, and then how does that translate for you when you actually see the actors inhabiting these characters?

TB: I love to dream cast when writing, but it changes by the moment. It’s really helpful to have kind of an idea of someone in mind when I start writing, but at some point — this always happens in everything I’ve written — the character becomes its own thing. And so you can start with ‘oh, this is John Travolta,’ and then at some point you’re writing and you’re like, ‘okay, it’s its own character.’ You’re trying to create something new, something fresh, and that means that it can’t really hinge on any prior person or performance. But having a cast take on those roles, that’s when the characters really came to life for me. And now seeing it, it’s like, oh, of course, Callum and Monica are the only versions of this that would work. They are Owen and Allie.

MF: No spoilers, but there are a bunch of cameos in the movie, and it’s also great to see Molly Ringwald, and as a ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ fan, really delightful to see LeVar Burton in supporting roles.

TB: Crazy cast, right? One of the joys of watching this thing is you go, ‘oh wait, he’s in this movie. Oh, she’s in this movie. Oh, he’s in this movie too.’ There is such a fun experience of all these cameos, which I didn’t even really think about in writing it. The cast is so large because it’s really these two people moving through this night and interacting with all these different people throughout the city trying to also navigate this night. It just allowed for so many fun casting opportunities, and I think one of the joys of watching this is seeing and being surprised at who actually shows up next in this movie.

(From left) Rick (LeVar Burton) and Linda (Molly Ringwald) in ‘One Night Only’, directed by Will Gluck. Photo: Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

What is the plot of ‘One Night Only’?

Allie (Monica Barbaro) and Owen (Callum Turner) are two love-starved strangers who crash into each other in an alternate history New York City on the one night of the year when single people are allowed to have sex.

Who is in the cast of ‘One Night Only’?

• Monica Barbaro as Allie
• Callum Turner as Owen
• Maya Hawke as Malika
• Molly Ringwald as Linda
• LeVar Burton as Rick
• Charlie Gillespie as Ezra Strong
• Michelle Hurd as Detective Vanessa Bryan Brown
• Julia Fox as Skye
• King Princess as Jacinta
• Quintessa Swindell as Arya
• Andrew Burnap as Max
• Ella Loudon as Gorgeous Vivian

Monica Barbaro in ‘One Night Only’. Photo: Universal Pictures.

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Buy Tickets: ‘One Night Only’ Movie Showtimes

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