Jenny Han also dishes on the final movie in the Netflix trilogy and if there could be a fourth one down the line.
Spoiler alert! Do not proceed if you have not watched To All the Boys: Always and Forever.
Lara Jean's story may have ended, but her life is just beginning.
Netflix's To All the Boys: Always and Forever, the third and final movie in the trilogy, dropped Friday and knowing this is it for her may leave you reaching for the tissues. Inspired by Jenny Han's novel, Always and Forever, Lara Jean, the film deviates a bit from the book but the outcome stays relatively similar. After Lara Jean and Peter make a pact to attend Stanford University together, Lara Jean discovers she didn't get in. Luckily, she's been accepted to nearby UC Berkeley, just a two-hour drive away from Stanford. Perfect, right?
A senior class trip to New York City adds a wrinkle to Lara Jean and Peter's seemingly foolproof plan, and when she applies to NYU -- on a whim -- and gets accepted, it becomes clear it's the perfect college for her. But things come to a head at prom when Lara Jean and Peter break up over misunderstandings over their relationship -- him taking her desires to be in the Big Apple that she wanted to put distance between them -- and their future. After some time away from each other, Peter makes one last romantic gesture, apologizing to her for his reaction and insisting they try to make a long-distance relationship work. A flash-forward reveals Lara Jean moving into her new NYU dorm as Peter drives to Stanford, with Lara Jean promising they'll do everything to stay together.
"I loved it," To All the Boys star Lana Condor tells ET's Rachel Smith of the film's ending. "It was very important for me when we were starting to talk about the third movie... that the choices she makes are about her future and her future as a young woman going out and living her life. I think in the past two movies, her choices have been really about relationships and not really about her future, not really about where she's going as a young woman. I really appreciate that at the end of the film, it feels very satisfying for me to see her make a choice on her own and step out into the world on her own. And she follows her heart in a new way. It's not just following a love for a person, but it's following a love for a city and a new life."
Han called Lara Jean's decision to move across the country instead of staying put on the West Coast to be closer to Peter "a big moment" for her to "stand on her own two feet."
"I honestly don't think that there's a wrong or right decision to make in this situation because your life can look so many different ways and if anything, what I would love for viewers to take from it is there are so many different forks in the road and ways that your life can go," the best-selling author tells ET. "And there's not really a right or the wrong, or mistakes or any of that. It's just what you decide in the moment. You can always take a left turn or a right turn and figure [out] your way back because I think wherever you go is where you're meant to be in that moment."
With this being the last of the To All the Boys movies, Condor took a moment to reflect on Lara Jean's journey, from the shy, introverted high schooler in the first film to this one. Though she acknowledged some fans' disappointment over Lara Jean choosing not to be on the same coast as Peter.
"If Lara Jean from the first movie saw Lara Jean in the third movie, she would be pretty happy with the glow-up," the 23-year-old actress says. "But I also know there will be a faction of people who are like, 'You didn't go with him!' You're not all these things!'"
Condor offered up an idea for a fourth movie, should it ever come to fruition at some point in the future.
"Oh god, I wish!" she said when asked about the idea of continuing Lara Jean's story. "I know that for what people have been telling me, there won't be one but never say never. And I have this dream that maybe in 10 years, when Lara Jean and Peter are grown up and they're professionals in the workplace and they're adults, it'd be so cool to see them in that different light."
Han echoed Condor sentiments, saying if she "had an amazing idea" for Lara Jean's story past this point that she was "excited" to dig into, "then I would do it." "I think it's about being excited to tell the story and there are so many stories that I want to tell... And it's never really goodbye because the characters live on," the author says. "You can turn on Netflix and see them again. You can pick up a book and spend time with them. For me, even as a creator of it, they live on, they keep doing their thing."
To All the Boys: Always and Forever is streaming on Netflix. For more on the franchise, watch below.
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