Matt Cornett is Taking The Lead in “Every Year After”

But before stepping into the universe of Every Year After, the Arkansas native was catapulted into the spotlight as E.J. Caswell in Disney’s High School Musical: The Musical, prompting a career fueled by raw passion, grit and purpose. Since then, the planets have been aligning for him—someone who is heading exactly where he’s meant to be with his vibrant presence. Needless to say, there were naturally years of steady work between stage and screen to perfect his craft, and the 27-year-old took a moment to walk us through how it all fell into place. So, to say we’re speaking at a pivotal moment in his life feels like an understatement.

“I’ve always been a fairly creative person. It’s been fun getting to play a diverse range of characters at a deeper level,” he kicked off our conversation. Cornett got his acting roots from theatre in elementary and middle school, charting his own course in Hollywood at a tender age. “It showed me that there are so many different ways to explore our imagination and creativity,” he said. Yet, it was his affinity for films and TV shows, especially the Disney Channel, that moulded and geared his trajectory of life. “I loved Hannah Montana—I remember being obsessed,” he burst out with enthusiasm. “Growing up, Jason Earle, who plays Jackson Stewart on Hannah Montana, was a big inspiration of mine. I loved watching him be silly and goofy. So, in my head, I wanted to be able to do that.” And that was enough to make him pack up and head to Los Angeles to chase his dreams. The early years were what they always were: a mixture of hope and patience and the particular endurance required of someone who refused to back down. Even through a screen, Cornett’s gravitation towards storytelling is crystal clear. He can easily define moments that shaped his artistry.

Now with more than a decade’s worth of experience under his belt, he’s branching out and finding new meaning in his craft. When asked what kept him going, he’s refreshingly candid in an unfiltered conversation about the realities of it—the setbacks, resets, defying expectations and the ever-changing industry. There’s no complaint in it, only honesty—the kind that comes from someone who has loved something long enough to see it clearly. “Contrary to popular belief,” he said, leaning into the candour, “It is sometimes a very difficult job. It is very exhausting, and it takes a lot out of you.” But, despite the emotional excavation, the physical endurance and the hours spent waiting for callbacks, the rigour toughened him, and the roles began to land, leading to his role as Sam Florek. This year, Cornett is bringing to life a beloved and long-awaited character that will be on everyone’s lips—and he handled and delivered an emotionally demanding performance, which will no doubt thrust him further into the limelight.

The casting process, it turns out, was its own kind of romance. It was slow-burning and full of false starts. When Cornett first auditioned for Every Year After, the project was cloaked in secrecy—a code name, fabricated characters and dummy materials. “I had no clue it was based on a book, no clue at all,” he said, laughing at the memory. He read for the romantic lead, and then silence—three months of it. Long enough that the whole thing dissolved into a blur until his agents rang with an invitation to come back in. What followed were sessions with the showrunner Amy Harris, casting directors, and a Zoom chemistry read with Sadie Soverall. “Sadie’s so lovely. I just instantaneously felt a connection to her.” It was somewhere in that session, almost casually, that Harris mentioned the book it was based on. Cornett recalled, “I just thought, great. I wish I’d read it.”

When the role was finally his, Cornet drove 45 minutes to the nearest bookstore in North Carolina—and the universe, it seemed, was ready for him. “I walked in, and on the very first desk, it was summer romance reads—and all of Carley Fortune’s books were right there.” In that moment, standing there, the weight of what he’d signed onto became suddenly, undeniably real. But rather than unsettle him, it lit something up. The size of the book’s following, the depth of its devotion—it didn’t intimidate him so much as sharpen him, pulling him closer to the story and the responsibility of telling it right.

This summer, Cornett and his co-lead, Sadie Soverall, step into Carley Fortune’s beloved novel Every Summer After—a childhood friends-to-lovers, second-chance romance told over six summers and one pivotal weekend timeline. It follows Persephone Fraser (Soverall) going back to Barry’s Bay—a lakeside town she grew up vacationing at—after a phone call changes everything, and reuniting with Sam Florek, her first love and the person she’d convinced herself she could survive losing. “It’s such an easy read. It’s just so incredible, and it is written in a way that you don’t want to put the book down,” Cornett enthused. The bestselling debut novel captured hearts with its sun-drenched nostalgia and achingly real portrait of first love and second chances—and now it’s leaping to television. Prime Video is bringing Percy and Sam’s complicated yet tender romance to life in Every Year After, a series adaptation that explores how the people we love and the choices we make become permanent parts of who we are.

Sam Florek is a character people have been living with in their heads for years. So, we had to ask if Cornett felt any pressure taking on the character. “Yeah, for sure,” he said instinctively. “Anytime there’s a pre-existing character, there’s an inherent pressure—but with someone as beloved as Sam, that pressure feels especially real.” From the beginning, fidelity to Fortune’s vision was non-negotiable. Cornett, alongside showrunner Amy Harris, Fortune herself, Soverall and Michael Bradway—who plays Sam’s brother, Charlie, in the show—made a quiet collective promise: to keep the story as close to the book as the medium would allow. “I didn’t want to steer anything away,” he said. To make good on that promise, Cornett came prepared in the most methodical way possible—printing all eight episodes and compiling them into a single binder, each section labelled by age, character and scene, so he could move fluidly between timelines and cross-reference each scene. “I played myself at five different ages, which is very difficult and having to follow where they’re at emotionally was tough to follow.”

And yet, for all his preparation, the fans have a way of humbling him. At a recent meet-and-greet, someone asked him what song would define Sam’s arc across the season. He chose Us by Taylor Swift and Gracie Abrams. She came back with three Taylor Swift tracks, “and I was like—those are perfect,” he chuckled with a kind of delighted defeat. It’s a reminder, he seems to understand, that Sam had belonged to the readers first—and that the best thing an actor can do is honour that.

Playing Sam, it turns out, held up like a mirror. The character had a comfortable way of illuminating patterns he recognised in himself. “Something admirable about Sam to me is his silliness and the way that he’s so unafraid to be himself. It definitely hits home for me.” But beneath the lightness, Sam is something else entirely: a romantic to his core. And here, Cornett is unequivocal about the kinship he feels. “Sam is such a romantic, a lover to his core. I know when I love somebody, I love them with every bit of my being. So, that’s something that I can sit alongside Sam with,” he said. Sam, in the end, gave him more than a role. And if the show returns for more, Cornett suspects the lessons aren’t finished yet.

At the heart of Every Year After is the pull between Percy and Sam—without it, nothing else holds. But ask Cornett about his favourite moments on set, and he doesn’t hesitate: it’s anything with Michael Bradway. “He and I have such a brotherly chemistry that it’s so fun to film anything with him,” he said, breaking into a grin. “Even if it’s an intense scene where we have to fight and physically push each other, there’s still banter.” There is one scene in particular that stays with him—Sam and Charlie together in the tavern, just two brothers standing in a space thick with shared history, taking stock of all the memories and love the place held. “At that point I had only known Michael for a couple of months,” Cornett said, “and in that scene, it felt like I had known him for ten years.”

For the scenes lifted directly from Fortune’s pages—the ones book fans have been hoping would make the cut—Cornett promises they’re there, handled with care and shot as faithfully as possible. “Those scenes were so fun,” he said, “and Sadie and I had so much fun shooting them because we are so ridiculously goofy with each other.” That ease, he insisted, is exactly what Sam and Percy feel like. Which perhaps explained what happened on the day they were filming a particularly long, montage kissing scene—and both of them had, without a single regret, been eating salsa immediately beforehand. “Most people have their breath mints and their Listerine,” he said, “but we were both just like—you know what, if you’re going to do it, I’m going to do it.” Onion-salsa breath and all, the scene got done. “There’s probably nobody else on this planet I could do that with,” he added.

The long hours and emotional demands of a set don’t disappear when the cameras stop rolling—and Cornett is honest about the rituals that keep him sane. His family is, without question, his first call. “Whenever I start to get burned out or overwhelmed, I know I can call anyone—my mom, my dad, whoever,” he said. “They talk me through it, and then I pump myself back up, and I’m ready to get back to work.” There’s an unshowy gratitude in the way he speaks about them, just someone, unsurprisingly, wise, warm-hearted and extremely close to his family.

But the decompression doesn’t stop there. Cornett, it turns out, has become a reader. It started, fittingly, with the book that brought him to the role in the first place—and something about Fortune’s book unlocked a habit he hadn’t quite managed to cultivate before. Now, evenings on set often end with a book. And on days off, there’s golf. “Golf is genuinely my therapy,” he said. On particularly long shooting days, even the driving range will do for him—a bucket of balls and an open sky, enough to quiet everything that the day has stirred up.

It’s a grounded life for someone standing on the edge of something enormous. Because make no mistake: Hollywood is paying attention, and Cornett seems ready for whatever comes next. When asked what he’d love to do beyond Every Year After, his eyes light up with the enthusiasm of someone who has clearly thought about this. “I’d love to do something dystopian, science fiction or a little fantasy—anything in those worlds,” he said.

He’s now geared up for an array of promising projects, and it feels like a natural next chapter for an actor who has already proven he can make you believe in the impossible. This summer is only the beginning for him.

Here are fun facts about Matt Cornett:

Who was your first celebrity crush?

Miley Cyrus

What’s your love Language?

Physical touch and quality time.

What’s your go-to coffee order?

[Laughs] I’m not a big coffee drinker, but if I do drink, it’s a vanilla latte with cinnamon.

What’s your go-to drink then?

Well, fortunately, I drink 99 per cent water. Either that or an orange juice with my breakfast.

What’s your favourite kind of date night?

A good night in with a good meal, some fresh chocolate chip cookies and a good movie.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Selling Sunset. I love that show, it’s so good.

What are you reading, watching or listening to right now?

Well, funny enough, I’m rereading Every Summer After right now before going on the press tour, so that I can get a refresher on the book. I’m also rewatching the Jurassic Park films right now. I just watched the second one last night, Lost World. Those are some of my favourite movies of all time, so I try to watch them at least once a year.

What is your simplest pleasure in life?

Just a good drive and good music—that’s the best way to clear my head. It makes me feel so good.

What’s your favourite karaoke song?

I don’t do a ton of karaoke because I don’t like to sing in front of people. It makes me nervous. But I would say “The Great Divide” by Noah Kahan—the song is stuck in my head right now.

What’s your go- to summer destination?

Anywhere tropical.

What’s the last thing that made you cry?

Watching reaction videos to the Every Year After trailer.