Inside the Making of Prime Video’s Most Heartfelt Love Story

There’s a reason “The Last Sunrise” has book fans and newcomers alike reaching for the tissues. I sat down with the film’s stars, Maia Reficco and Fernando Lindez, along with author Anna Todd and director Carlson Young, to talk about the making of this deeply personal romantic drama — and what it took to bring Ry and Julián’s story from page to screen.

For Maia, who plays Ry, chemistry with her co-star wasn’t something that had to be manufactured. Reficco described an instant connection with Lindez that carried through casting, rehearsals, and finally, filming in Mallorca. That connection anchors a story about a young woman confronting her own mortality and searching for what she calls “a little ray of hope” — a phrase that takes on new weight given the personal roots of the material.

Because “The Last Sunrise” isn’t just fiction for Anna Todd. The author, best known for the After franchise, based Ry’s condition on her own son’s experience, a choice she says fundamentally shaped how protective she felt during the adaptation process. Watching that deeply personal story move from the page to a film set, she told me, brought its own kind of emotional reckoning.
Director Carlson Young brought her own life circumstances into the work as well, shooting the film while newly postpartum. That timing, she explained, gave her fresh insight into the mother-daughter dynamic between Ry and her mother, played by Eva Longoria — a relationship that pulses through the film’s emotional core.

Fernando Lindez, who plays Julián, spoke candidly about his character’s own transformation over the course of the summer, and offered a rare glimpse into what audiences might not expect from the film’s more intimate moments. Both he and Reficco returned to the film’s central, quietly devastating question: what are we living for? For Reficco, finishing the project left her with an answer she’s still sitting with.

As “The Last Sunrise” arrives on Prime Video August 26, Todd had a message for longtime readers nervous about seeing their beloved book adapted: this one was made with care. And for Young, one moment on set still brings her to tears when she thinks back on it — proof that this “gorgeously hopeful” story left its mark on everyone who made it.