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With the premiere of Sidelined: The QB and Me on Tubi, stars Noah Beck and Siena Agudong are experiencing simultaneous career firsts. For Agudong, this is the actress' first time leading a romantic comedy; for Beck, this is his acting debut.
The pair play the titular lovebirds in the film adaptation of Tay Marley's The QB Bad Boy and Me, the YA Wattpad sensation of the late 2010s. Sidelined, out today November 29, belongs to a growing lineage of popular Wattpad novel adaptations, like the After series and The Kissing Both trilogy.
Sidelined: The QB and Me follows two high school seniors, headstrong dancer Dallas Bryan (Agudong) and cocky quarterback Drayton Lahey (Beck), who fight their feelings for each other while dealing with challenges to post-grad dreams and family drama that threatens to keep them apart. Starring in the film alongside Beck and Agudong are familiar actors and YA alums like James Van Der Beek (Dawson's Creek, Varsity Blues) and Drew Ray Tanner (Riverdale).
Below, Teen Vogue caught up with Noah Beck and Siena Agudong ahead of the film's premiere to talk about their individual journeys to Dallas and Drayton, what they were like in high school, and how Beck prepared to transition from social media star to actor.
Noah Beck: [The movie] first came to me around just over two years ago, and the script kind of fell into my inbox. My team brought it to me, and they were like, “Give this a look.” They had mentioned that it's a Wattpad adaptation, and I was like, “Okay, I'll give it a look.” Read the script. I loved it. I was like, "There's something here. I would love to be a part of this." Didn't want to jump the gun, didn't want to be too excited, of course, you don't want to show all your cards.
I read the book and was like, "Okay, the book and the script are slightly different, but they're obviously ultimately the same story," and I just fell in love with it. We've seen this story before with the jock-cheerleader kind of dynamic, and personally, I've always wanted to be a part of it, and I've always wanted to play the jock. But even if it wasn't that, I'm just a fan of this genre and these [kinds of] films.
Siena Agudong: I heard of this project two years ago as well, but it was later down the line. I really lucked out. I feel very blessed for it. I think I had a lot of beautiful creatives that believed in me and threw my name in the mix. I got a wonderful email the week I flew to New York for school about this and that it was going to start filming. So I started to scramble with my professors and figure it all out. And I met with Justin [Wu], the director, met with him on Zoom in a library to talk about the film, and then met with him in person and talked about it further.
But obviously, I read the script and I was drawn to that. I was genuinely surprised that I was even thrown in the mix because I had never played a love interest or [in] a coming-of-age rom-com, all those things that you grow up watching. I still feel like I'm 10 years old, [like] I'm not really old enough for a movie like this. It was very exciting, and I heard great things about Noah, and so I was very much on board.
SA: At the time it was NYU, but I did transfer.
SA: I couldn't tell you because it was all a blur. But some things happened and the movie got pushed until this last summer. And I was able to film it in between my semesters, and that was lovely. I got to train for dance at the end of the semester, and it just worked out. I flew out the next day after everything was done with finals.
SA: Very, very scary, but very exciting. And I knew that because it made me so nervous and uncomfortable that I would grow from it, and that is the most exciting feeling. And I was nervous going into it because, A) I had never experienced a movie like this, and B) it's just a very— I keep using the word vulnerable, but on many levels it was just very vulnerable to play someone similar to yourself. And then also to lean into dance, which is something I am not totally familiar with, [I] grew up doing [it] once in a while, nothing to the extent of Dallas. There were just a lot of opportunities for growth.
NB: It was truly surreal when [the movie] first fell into my lap and being a part of it from the start, it just felt like my baby. And when we first started to talk about filming it, I was like, "Okay, well, because I've been with this from the beginning and kind of been a part of the development process," I'm like, "I need to do it justice by knowing my guy, knowing my character." And, yeah, how do you prep? How do you prep for something like this? These movies — this genre and this film in particular — it's such an easy watch. In general, rom-coms are easy watches. They're feel-goods. But they're not always easy to film, and they're not always easy to act in due to what she was saying in terms of the vulnerability and just being so raw.
There's the lightheartedness of the fun, playful scenes, but then you gotta be in love with one another, and that's vulnerable. That's challenging to [portray] through the screen… I did my part in the preparation just knowing my lines and honestly everyone else's. I think because I was with the script for so long, I just knew it like the back of my hand. And that's something that I will take into my next project, hopefully, is the preparation aspect of it.
Knowing it so well that when Justin, our director, would yell, "Action," it was just like I was able to kind of forget the lines and be in the moment. I think personally that helped me so much. I think that part of it made it very easy for me, to just be overly-prepared.
SA: [Joking] Awful, terrible.
NB: The worst.
SA: It was so easy! It was so easy. I think from the get-go, we connected. We met virtually first and then in person in New York. Noah is such a great guy off-set. And then, as an actor, watching him grow… he's so grateful for everything and eager to learn. And that's just so humbling to be around, and also refreshing because... I feel like I saw everything through your eyes for the first time again. Things that I may have overlooked as an actor, you kind of reintroduced to me. It made me a better actor, seeing someone work so hard.
NB: I was just so curious with everything on set, as just a fan of films and this space and [as] someone who is new to acting. It was just like we showed up on set and it felt like summer camp. I was just learning and being such a sponge and being like, “What does this do? What does that do?”
One of my jobs was to develop chemistry with someone who I had just met, which is not an easy thing to do. But she made it easy, and it was just the best time, and we had an amazing time. And you're talking about the playful banter and everything that we see on-screen, but off-screen, there was probably more of it, and I had the best time. And if she was out of the room, I'd say more, but because she's here in front of me I can’t.
SA: I just adore him. He was so fun to work with. I've said it to his face, but I was so intimidated by him when I first met him. But he brings so much, and working with him on-screen sort of felt like I didn't have to do anything. I really just felt like I was in it with him. We just connected on a very emotional level. We had a lot of those great scenes together where we got to play around, and he just brought so much creative juice and wanted to throw things at me, and I loved it. He just wanted to play. Yeah, he's a great actor and person.
NB: Scary. It's terrifying. It's still crazy hearing it come out of your mouth! It's like, it just will never sit for me, the fact that I have that following and these eyes on me. But more than anything, I had fun shooting this. I am so proud of it. And as long as that shows — and I've seen the movie multiple times now, and it does show — I'm just so excited for the world to have it. It feels like they already have it because we've been promoting it for [a while]... But with the amount of times I've seen it, I'm like, "You guys are missing out."
And so, November 29th, they will get it. And I can't wait for them to have it. I'm really excited to see the response. The people that have been following me from the beginning, they know that I have been hinting at this idea of, "Oh, I kind of want to act. That'd be cool." But then kind of dropping this on them, I think it'll be cool, and I'm really excited for it.
SA: I had an unconventional high school experience because I was in and out, traveling. So as popular as you can be online the last two years. No, I don't know. I wouldn't say I was popular. I kind of just didn't show up. I wasn't really there. But I loved school.
NB: Yeah, I would say for me—
SA: He was popular.
NB: No, I loved my high school experience! I had two years of a normal public high school locally in Arizona. And I had a great time. I had a good experience. I was in a lot of different groups due to my parents being teachers, I was a pretty good student. So I was in all these extracurricular activities, like I was in the robotics club, I was in NJHS and all, the student council. I was very active, I guess, in terms of my schooling. Because my parents are teachers, so they would stay after school and grade paperwork or have meetings and whatnot, and they were my ride home, so I'm like, "What do I do, just twiddle my thumbs until they're done or... " So, yeah, I enjoyed high school.
And then, yeah, the last two years of my high school experience were a bit of a anomaly because I moved to Utah for soccer, and that's where I lived and... That's a whole other thing. We can crack that open another time. But that was also an amazing experience, which was just different. But the first two years of public high school I loved, and I genuinely had a good time. “Popular, ”some would say, I guess… But I definitely am not going to be like, "Oh, you know, I was bullied." I had a good time.
Sidelined: The QB and Me is now streaming on Tubi.
