The "Nice Guys" star opens up about “On Love,” the philosophical novel she says "reached into my brain" as she geared up for a leading role in a new rom-com.

LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, September 11, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Actors prepare for roles in a variety of ways; some “go method,” others spend hours in the gym, and a few, including Angourie Rice, head to the bookshelf.

Ahead of filming “Finding Emily,” a new rom-com set and shot in Manchester, she asked director Alicia MacDonald what she should read. The recommendation was Alain de Botton's “On Love.” The book, Rice says, "reached into my brain and pulled out everything I'd ever felt about love and relationships and said, ‘this is how you feel, and this is why.’"

On a recent episode of Books That Changed My Life, Rice joins host Chris Collins to talk about “On Love,” a novel told in numbered fragments that reads, in her telling, like "somebody was given the assignment to write a love story and at the same time was told to analyze their own love story in a paper for their literature class and did both in one."

The conversation earns its philosophical stripes as the pair address de Botton’s broadside against stoicism. "However brave, the stoic was in the end a coward at the point of perhaps the highest reality, at the moment of love," de Botton writes. It's a line that lands for Rice, who talks openly about the vulnerability required for travel, work, and relationships. "Real, deep love asks you to be vulnerable over and over and over again," she says. "That is absolutely terrifying."

They spend real time on the book's argument against perfection—de Botton's contention that "the more tempting kind of beauty…flirts dangerously with ugliness," and Proust's line, quoted by de Botton, that "classically beautiful women should be left to men without imagination." Rice provides her interpretation: "The idea of perfection and certain beauty standards create this scenario where you're more in love with an idea than a person."

Not everything gets settled—she and Collins disagree, warmly, on whether falling in love is something a person can control—but the conversation returns often to a single de Botton question that has stuck with Rice since her first read: "Did I love Chloe because she was beautiful, or was she beautiful because I loved her?"

“Finding Emily,” which Rice describes as a rom-com that "perfectly balances interrogating the genre and paying homage to it at the same time," is in theaters now. Her verdict on the shoot: "I got to go to work and pretend to be in love every day. Isn't that the greatest thing ever?"

Watch the full conversation HERE.

ABOUT BOOKS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE:

“Books That Changed My Life,” hosted by bestselling author Chris Collins, is a YouTube show exploring how great books transform us in profound and unexpected ways. Each episode features a special guest sharing a book that shaped or inspired them, sparking deep conversations and unearthing unfiltered personal stories.

Recent guests include actor and comedian Patton Oswalt, soap opera legend Susan Lucci, former covert CIA officer Andrew Bustamante, actress and reality star Lisa Rinna, Dancing With the Stars pro Jenna Johnson, Good Morning America icon Joan Lunden, and television legend Kelsey Grammer.

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