Photo courtesy of Oona Yaffe ’23
Oona Yaffe ’23 acts in a flashback at the beginning of One True Loves.
Oona Yaffe ’23’s acting career did not start immediately with films and movies, but instead on the kids’ cooking show MasterChef Junior. At just age nine, Yaffe joined the show to fuel her budding passion for cooking, which very quickly turned into something much greater. After her appearance on MasterChef Junior, agents began reaching out to her with acting opportunities. Yaffe said that acting had started off as an “experiment,” but it quickly became clear that she wanted more. “I really liked the actual practice, as much as I liked the idea of getting famous,” she said.
Yaffe’s acting career has since taken flight. Last year, she was cast in the movie One True Loves with the likes of Phillipa Soo and Simu Liu. It all started in August 2022 when Yaffe sent in a self-tape that she had filmed on her phone in the ga-rage of her home in Los Angeles. She received a callback for a chemistry read on Zoom with the actors and actresses going for other roles. Just three days later, Yaffe learned that she got the part — a “ridiculously fast turnaround,” she said.
Yaffe traveled to Wilmington, North Carolina, to begin shooting for the movie, taking only three days off from school at Choate to do so. In One True Loves, Yaffe plays the character Young Emma, who is in a flashback in the first seven minutes of the movie. The movie was released in select theaters on April 7 and is available for purchase on Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video.
The romantic comedy is based on a book of the same title by Taylor Jenkins Reid, who is also the author of the popular novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. In the film, Emma is married to her high school sweetheart, Jesse, until he is presumed dead in a helicopter crash. When she receives this news, Emma is absolutely heartbroken and tries to pick herself back up. In the process of rebuilding her life, she bumps into her childhood friend, Sam. They hit it off and start dating, eventually getting engaged, only for Emma to discover that her dead husband, Jesse, is actually alive. Ultimately, Emma has to make her choice between Jesse and Sam.
Having read the book before filming, Yaffe said that it has more background on the characters as young people, which was helpful for “flush[ing] out the character and building a performance that makes sense, especially when there’s an older ver-sion” of the character.
Yaffe described the experience of working with the cast as “fast-paced,” adding that some of the more experienced actors were “laser-focused.” “They go through each moment in a very careful mechanistic way, and I want to do that,” said Yaffe.
“I was so starstruck and nerdy about all of this,” said Yaffe, commenting on her first reactions to being on set.
One of Yaffe’s favorite memories on set was when she filmed a scene where she went on a midnight walk in the street with fellow actor Cooper van Grootel, who plays the role of Young Jesse. This moment was meant to take place in the summertime but was shot during the mid-November North Carolinian winter instead. “We had these big coats, and we were shivering. [When] they said cut, we didn’t have enough time to get the coats on, so we’re standing there, and he’s like, ‘It’s ok, it’s ok,’ and we sort of held each other and shivered together,” said Yaffe.
Currently a senior at Choate, Yaffe has decided to take a gap year next year before heading off to Harvard University, where she hopes to hone her acting skills through taking scene study classes. “I hope my acting career continues for a long time. That would be awesome,” said Yaffe.
