Shannon Purser 'Lightly Stalked' Noah Centineo Before Working With Him
Shannon Purser and the Internet’s boyfriend Noah Centineo are the stars of Netflix’s new rom-com Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, a flawed-but-touching re-telling of Cyrano de Bergerac set in a suburban high school. Purser plays the titular character, a bullied teenager whose phone number is given to hot jock Jamey (Centineo) in a prank orchestrated by mean girl Veronica (Kristine Froseth). The catch, though, is Jamey thinks he’s texting Veronica the entire time, and Sierra does nothing to make him think otherwise—she’s too afraid that he won’t like who she actually is. Granted, it’s a little frustrating that Sierra spends so much time in this movie hiding behind a cheerleader, but the ultimate result is positive. The movie is also just delightful and charming and, at times, very, very funny.
That’s no doubt a product of the dynamic chemistry behind Centineo and Purser, who spend a majority of the movie talking behind screens but still have sparks. In a new interview with Glamour, the two young stars dish about how they met each other and got in the mindsets to film Sierra Burgess.
“I did not know who Noah was before we met,” Purser told us. “I’m pretty sure I did some, like, light stalking and watched a little bit of him on The Fosters.”
Interestingly, Centineo says he watched Stranger Things (in which Purser plays fan-favorite Barb) up until her character died. “I was like, ‘No Barb? No me,'” he said.
Purser and Centineo crossed paths IRL for the first time for a Sierra Burgess screen test, and then had lunch together at a cafeteria to learn more about each other. “[You probably ate] salad or something,” Purser told Centineo, to which he replied, “I was not that healthy back then, OK?”
Watch these two divulge more details in the video, above.
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