Besides increasing global streams of Taylor Swift’s “London Boy,” restoring my faith in rom-coms, and boosting mascara sales in pursuit of Alex’s luscious lashes, the chemistry between Red, White & Royal Blue’s leads has given stan culture the greatest gift of all: a new actor duo to fall in love with. Some of Hollywood’s most iconic friendships started out as on-screen lovers. There’s Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, Tom Holland and Zendaya (they were friends first!), Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet — honestly, my heart could go on and on. Every new romance movie that comes out has an opportunity to bless the world with a fresh off-screen pairing, and I’m happy to say that the couple at the heart of Gen Z’s latest rom-com obsession absolutely delivers on this promise.
Nicholas Galitzine and Taylor Zakhar Perez’s off-screen friendship, dubbed NickTaylor by RWRB stans, has the same kind of electric chemistry that’s hooked fans into their on-screen counterparts’ enemies-to-lovers relationship. I mean, how can you bring Prince Henry and Alex Claremont-Diaz to life without being friends IRL? Getting smothered in cake is an intimate bonding experience.
Their dynamic goes back to before either of them put on a suit and yellow rose tie. The film’s director, Matthew, told People that he cast Galitzine and Perez because of the “natural and instantaneous” chemistry he saw during their auditions. Galitzine chalked their connection up to their similar senses of humor, while Perez simply said, “We just vibed,” which is exactly how I would expect their characters to answer the media in the RWRB-verse.
Some people weren’t convinced that the pair would be able to pull it off when Prime Video started promoting the movie in August 2022. The scathing comments under a video of Galitzine and Perez comparing their heights include “The acting better be good, because the natural chemistry is in another place of the multiverse but here” and “This is the straightest interaction ever.” López dismissed the doubts by saying, “Anybody who criticizes their chemistry doesn’t know what chemistry is.” Now that the movie is out, fans are parading in the streets (AKA their social media feeds) that their faves have successfully beat the no chemistry allegations.
Due to the current strikes in Hollywood, the cast of RWRB hasn’t been able to do any recent press to promote the movie. Thankfully, Galitzine and Zakhar Perez completed a few interviews before the press shutdown went into effect, and since they’re both active on Instagram, they’ve kept fans in the loop about their lives and friendship off-screen. Fans have been living on crumbs, but you know what they say: If you give a stan a crumb, they’ll make an eight-tier wedding cake out of it. Here are some of the best social media reactions to Galitzine and Zakhar Perez’s chemistry on and off-screen.