Anyone But You Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Glen Powell & Full List

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell’s electric chemistry makes Anyone But You stand apart from typical romantic comedies—audiences noticed immediately, and the film delivered on that promise when it opened in January 2023.

Lead Actors: Sydney Sweeney as Bea, Glen Powell as Ben · Supporting Cast: Alexandra Shipp as Claudia, GaTa as Pete · Release Year: 2023 · Genre: Romantic Comedy · MPAA Rating: R

Six principal cast members, each with a distinct role in the Anyone But You ensemble: here’s how they fit together.

Is Anyone But You worth watching?

Cast Performances

Sydney Sweeney plays Bea Messina with a sharp wit that makes her initial coldness toward Ben feel earned rather than arbitrary. Her delivery on the film’s many exchanges of insults — which serve as the rom-com substitute for confessions of love — lands with timing that suggests she understood the assignment completely (Wikipedia). Glen Powell’s Ben matches her beat for beat; his easy charm creates the kind of character who’s clearly capable of holding his own in their verbal sparring. The chemistry reads as genuine in part because both actors commit fully to the absurdity.

The supporting cast does the essential work of making the destination wedding setting feel populated rather than hollow. GaTa’s Pete functions as Ben’s best friend, providing reaction shots and comic timing that take pressure off the central pairing. Alexandra Shipp’s Claudia, who is marrying Halle (played by Hadley Robinson), anchors the subplot that gives Bea and Ben their cover story for pretending to be a couple (Wikipedia). Dermot Mulroney appears as Leo, Bea’s father, bringing veteran rom-com credibility to a role that requires him to play along with the central deception without asking too many questions (Collider).

Audience and Critic Reviews

The film has generated enough positive response to suggest it found its audience, though exact box office figures aren’t included in this analysis. The combination of Sweeney’s rising profile from Euphoria and The White Lotus with Powell’s visibility from Top Gun: Maverick gave the film built-in curiosity that translated to theatrical draw (Britannica). The real measure of success for a romantic comedy in this era is whether it generates word-of-mouth, and the sustained conversation around Sweeney and Powell’s chemistry suggests the film cleared that bar.

How much did Sydney Sweeney get paid for Anyone But You?

Salary Reports

Specific salary figures for Anyone But You haven’t been confirmed through official channels. The Hollywood Reporter reported in January 2023 that Sweeney had agreed to first play a supporting role in Madame Web in order to get Anyone But You made — a disclosure that suggests Sweeney was investing career capital rather than commanding top dollar for this particular project (Wikipedia). This kind of career calculus isn’t unusual for actors pursuing a passion project or a role that represents a strategic pivot.

Post-Film Pay Raise

The more relevant financial story may be what happened after the film released. Sweeney’s breakthrough had already begun with Euphoria (where she played Cassie Howard from 2019 through 2026) and The White Lotus (first season, 2021), establishing her as one of the more sought-after young actors in television (Britannica). Anyone But You appears to have expanded her reach into film in a way that meaningfully changes her positioning for future negotiations. The pattern — a relative unknown taking a supporting role to enable a project, then leveraging that success for better positions — is well-established in Hollywood, but it plays out differently for each actor.

Is Anyone But You based on Much Ado About Nothing?

Shakespeare Connections

The film openly acknowledges its source material: Anyone But You draws directly from William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, transplanting the play’s central conceit to a contemporary Australian destination wedding (Wikipedia). In Shakespeare’s original, the tension between Beatrice and Benedick — two characters who clearly care for each other but refuse to admit it — drives the comedy. The film inverts this: Bea and Ben had a brief but magical encounter that somehow went wrong, leaving them with mutual attraction they won’t acknowledge and an elaborate excuse to pretend otherwise.

Famous Quotes Adapted

The adaptation works because it translates the essential Shakespearean mechanic — witty people who can’t say what they mean — into contemporary speech patterns rather than attempting period-accurate language. The famous line “I do wonder at so strange a saying” becomes something like a dismissive aside about someone’s LinkedIn attitude. This approach keeps the film’s Shakespeare bones invisible to viewers who don’t know the source, while providing an extra layer of pleasure for those who do. The character names even nod to the original: Bea for Beatrice, Ben for Benedick (Britannica).

Why is Anyone But You rated R?

Content Warnings

The MPAA rating reflects language, sexual content, and some thematic material appropriate for older teenagers and adults. The film operates in the tradition of romantic comedies that don’t pretend their characters are experiencing romance for the first time — there’s a maturity to the references, jokes, and situations that excludes younger audiences by design rather than accident.

Parent Reviews

For parents considering whether to watch with younger teens: the R rating is consistent with Sweeney’s other high-profile work. She’s known for playing characters navigating adult situations in Euphoria and The White Lotus, and Anyone But You maintains that register. The humor is sharp, sometimes raunchy, and assumes an audience comfortable with contemporary romantic comedy conventions. Parents who have watched the film with their teenagers generally report that the conversation value depends heavily on whether they’ve had prior conversations about the film’s themes.

Is Anyone But You a hit or flop?

Commercial outcomes for romantic comedies in the post-theatrical era operate differently than they did in the genre’s peak decades. Anyone But You found its audience in theaters and has continued circulating through digital platforms, which represents a successful lifecycle for this type of film rather than a failure by default (Collider). The combination of theatrical release with strong digital availability means the film can be evaluated on multiple success metrics rather than opening-weekend numbers alone.

The clearest indicator of success is the conversation: Sweeney and Powell’s chemistry became a talking point that extended beyond the film’s release window, suggesting emotional resonance rather than just momentary entertainment. For a romantic comedy, that kind of staying power is meaningful. The film didn’t need to clear a billion-dollar threshold to be considered a hit — it needed to be remembered, shared, and rewatched, and the evidence suggests it achieved at least the first two.

Anyone But You cast quotes

In the edgy comedy Anyone But You, Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and Ben (Glen Powell) look like the perfect couple, but after an amazing first date something happens that turns their fiery hot attraction ice cold — until they find themselves unexpectedly thrust together at a destination wedding in Australia.

— Official film description via Sony Pictures

Inspired by William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, the movie follows Bea and Ben, who are unexpectedly reunited at a destination wedding months after their brief but magical encounter turned icy.

— Britannica (editorial encyclopedia)

The pattern these descriptions share is the acknowledgment of the central transformation: attraction to ice to something else. The film earns that final movement by giving Bea and Ben enough genuine conflict that their eventual thaw feels surprising rather than inevitable.

Summary

Anyone But You succeeds because it trusts its audience to appreciate sharp dialogue and competent comic timing without needing the characters to explain why they’re funny. Sweeney brings Bea’s defensive wit into focus as something to admire rather than simply overcome; Powell meets her there without trying to out-cool her. The supporting cast does the quiet work of making the destination-wedding world feel inhabited. For anyone who skipped it on initial release, the streaming availability makes the case for catching up easier — and for fans who want to understand why it worked, the film’s Shakespearean bones are worth a closer look.

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