Angourie Rice fell in love while filming her new rom-com “Finding Emily.”

With Manchester, England. 

“I came to Manchester as an outsider, as someone who’d never been there before — very much like the character in the film — and just completely fell in love with it,” says Rice of the industrial British city where the film is set. “It’s an incredible city.”

The 25-year-old Australian actress is in Los Angeles doing press for the film, which is being released Stateside following a U.K. release in May. Viewers are already smitten with the nostalgic premise: Owen, a young sound engineer, falls in love with a girl in a nightclub, gets her number, and the next morning realizes one of the digits is missing. All he has is her name: Emily. Rice stars as a different Emily, a university student who sees an opportunity to use Owen’s infatuation for Emily as a case study for her psychology thesis, and offers to help him track her down. 

The film, which costars Spike Fearn as Owen, marks the directorial debut of Alicia MacDonald.

“ I think rom-coms are really important, because they give us a language to talk about love and to talk about emotions,” says Rice, reflecting on the film’s resonance with audiences during its initial release. “Rom-com is a difficult genre to pull off, because if the audience goes into it knowing how it’s gonna end — that is a convention of the genre — then how do you make the journey really interesting?” she adds.  “It’s all about the characters, and it’s about their specificities and their quirks and the dialogue.”

She cites classic film “When Harry Met Sally” as a prime example.

“ We don’t necessarily remember every time they meet and all the situations they’re in, but we remember the characters,” she says. “And with ‘Finding Emily,’ I just loved the dynamic between Owen and Emily. Owen is this soft, gentle, well-meaning boy whose life kind of gets out of control, and Emily is this crackling ball of energy who is trying to seize opportunity. And I think for them both, it’s about how they play off of each other.”

The genre also offers viewers a vicarious opportunity to experience the whirlwind of early romance. “A good rom-com lets the audience in on that love, and lets people into the crazy world of being so obsessed with somebody,” she adds. “And the heartache and the yearning.” 

Earlier this month, Rice wrapped production on indie coming-of-age film “Nice Eggs” in New Jersey, the first narrative feature from documentary director and theater producer Amanda Lipitz.

“ It’s happened a number of times in the past couple of years where I’ve worked with a female director on their first narrative feature,” says Rice. “What is so valuable for me is I feel like I’m constantly learning as well, and seeing how each person handles that pressure and that responsibility [of their first film] differently.”

Rice, who recently starred as the lead of Paramount’s “Mean Girls” musical adaptation and in Apple TV+ thriller series “The Last Thing He Told Me,” isn’t committed to any specific genre, adding that she gravitates toward portraying characters that feel rooted in reality. 

“That is the marker for me: well, do I feel confident that I will learn this scene and go on set and really, to my core, believe what I’m saying?” she says. “And I had that with ‘Finding Emily.’ It’s funny and it’s light and it’s sweet, but it also has big discussions about growing up and navigating relationships and navigating the internet. And every day I went on set, I was saying those words and meaning them and believing them.”

Rice was getting ready to head back home to Australia, where she’ll soon start filming a new series in Sydney — currently a secret, “ but I’ll be doing that for the rest of the year,” says Rice. “It’ll be nice to be — if not at home — in my home country, at least.”