Los Angeles (IANS) – Actress Joey King says she understands the fact that not every film she does has to be critically acclaimed.

Joey was speaking in the context of her latest release, “The Kissing Booth 2”. The teen rom-com has opened over the weekend on OTT, but hasn’t impressed the critics very much.

“I understand that critics weren’t all over this movie, but that’s the thing — it’s not meant for critics to be like, ‘Wow, what a movie!’ It’s meant for people to watch and have a great time,” she said, according to a report in variety.com.

Joey’s performance in the crime drama series “The Act” had been universally applauded by fans and critics alike, raise the bar of expectation on her.

“I’m thankful that I got to do ‘The Act’, where critics were like, ‘Oh, that’s awesome’. But also not everything you do has to have critical acclaim. It doesn’t mean it’s not successful. And it doesn’t mean it’s not one of my favourite projects I’ve worked on. The fan reaction to it is all the criticism I need as far as just the way it fills my heart,” she said.

The first film of “The Kissing Booth” series, she said, has emerged a fan favourite.

“I think that people were kind of craving that classic John Hughes feel-good movie, and there hasn’t been a lot of that. When ‘The Kissing Booth’ came out, it just ticked all those boxes of that feel-good summery vibe. Our characters, the way they were written, they talk like real people. My character Elle, she’s not the outcast or the popular girl. She’s just a girl that goes to school, and has some friends, has a best friend. I think what resonates so much about her is that she’s just your every girl,” she said.

“The first movie was this beautiful surprise. It was in Netflix’s independent department, and they weren’t expecting too much out of it. They were like, ‘Make this, have fun, and give us a movie afterwards’. When the first trailer was released and it started tracking so well, we were like, ‘What’s happening?’ We only signed on for one, but then the fan reaction was incredible. When they asked us to do the second, it was a no-brainer,” Joey added.

–IANS
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