All About the Cast of ‘The Love Hypothesis,’ (and One Star’s Connection to the Original Fan-Fiction)
All About the Cast of ‘The Love Hypothesis,’ (and One Star’s Connection to the Original Fan-Fiction)
Giovana GelhorenMon, September 28, 2026 at 8:58 PM UTC
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Lili Reinhart and Tom BatemanCredit: Getty ImagesTHE GIST -
Prime Video’s new romantic-comedy, The Love Hypothesis, premiered on September 23, 2026.
The movie stars Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman as Olive Smith and Dr. Adam Carlsen, respectively.
Other cast members include Rachel Marsh, Arty Froushan, Nicholas Duvernay, and Jaboukie Young-White.
Just last week, on September 23, 2026, Prime Video launched its newest romantic comedy, The Love Hypothesis.
Starring Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman, the movie tells the story of Stanford PhD student Olive Smith (Reinhart) as she makes an unexpected deal to pretend to date her department’s most intimidating professor, Dr. Adam Carlsen (Bateman). For Olive, their fake dating is a way to convince her best friend that it’s okay to date the guy Olive had a crush on. To Adam, it shows his fellow staff members that he’s serious about staying at Stanford. It’s a win-win deal, if only their own personal relationship didn’t begin to influence the experiment.
The movie is based on Ali Hazelwood’s 2021 bestselling novel by the same name. Notably, the novel started out as Star Wars fan fiction about characters Rey (played by Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (played by Adam Driver). Hazelwood later transformed that story into The Love Hypothesis, with Rey becoming Olive and Kylo Ren becoming Adam.
And, considering that Bateman is married to Ridley in real life, he’s now playing the fictional character based on his wife’s former onscreen partner. “You couldn’t write that; the serendipity is so out there because they were leaning towards me anyway,” he told USA Today.
“I genuinely thought what [director Claire Scanlon] meant by that was Ali Hazelwood was inspired by Star Wars to start writing some fan fiction, and that gave her a taste for writing,” he said. It wasn’t until his casting was announced that Hazelwood’s fans made the connection crystal clear. “Press is going to be fun,” he thought to himself.
Below, find out everything there is to know about the cast of The Love Hypothesis, from their previous projects to their personal relationships.
Lili Reinhart as Olive
Lili Reinhart at the New York Historical Society in 2025.Credit: Getty Images
Reinhart, who’s TheLove Hypothesis’s leading lady, is no stranger to the camera. Per IMDb, she’s had acting credits starting in 2010, with her first roles on TV shows like Scientastic! and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
In 2017, she starred in one of her most well-known roles to date as Betty Cooper in Riverdale. The CW series spanned seven seasons and came to an end in 2023. Other notable credits of Reinhart’s over the years include Hustlers, Chemical Hearts, Look Both Ways and Hal & Harper. Many of these projects, including The Love Hypothesis, also saw Reinhart as a producer and executive producer.
In addition to acting, Reinhart also launched her acne-safe skincare brand, Personal Day, in October 2024. She also released a collection of poems, named Swimming Lessons, in 2020. “If I’m going through something— depression, anxiety, a breakup—I need to talk about it,” Reinhart told People. “I’ll talk to my friends for hours, I’ll write about it for pages and pages in my journal, I’ll write countless poems about it.”
As for her personal life, Reinhart has been dating content creator and actor Jack Martin since 2023. Martin recently starred in the Hulu comedy Not Suitable for Work.
Tom Bateman as Adam
Tom BatemanCredit: Simon Ackerman/WireImage
Tom Bateman, who plays Dr. Adam Carlsen in the new rom-com, started acting at a similar time as Reinhart, with early credits dating back to 2011. His first roles were in the TV shows The Tunnel, The Honorable Woman, and Da Vinci’s Demons, where he became known for his role as Giuliano de’ Medici.
Over the years, Bateman has starred in several well-known movies and TV shows, including Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, where he played the role of Bouc, as well as Vanity Fair, Beecham House, and Based on a True Story.
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Regarding his personal life, Bateman is married to Star Wars: The Force Awakens star Daisy Ridley. The two met in 2016 while filming Murder on the Orient Express, and have kept their relationship away from the spotlight ever since. In 2023, Ridley confirmed they were married. “Yes! I got married,” she told Rolling Stone.
Rachel Marsh as Anh
Rachel MarshCredit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Rachel Marsh plays Anh in The Love Hypothesis, Olive’s best friend and fellow Ph.D. student.
Marsh’s acting credits began in 2017 with shorts before moving to bigger projects like Half Vanilla, The Kids Table, and For the Throne. Some of her biggest roles to date include playing Luna Castillo on Unstable, Claudia in The Fallout, and Remy in The Morning Show alongside Hollywood powerhouse Jennifer Aniston, who played her onscreen boss. She also recently went viral for her role as Carly in Hulu’s Adults after her character’s short-lived K-pop career proved to be a hit with viewers.
Arty Froushan as Thomas
Arty FroushanCredit: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Arty Froushan is a British-Iranian actor who has experience both onscreen and onstage. In The Love Hypothesis, he plays Dr. Thomas Benton, a longtime friend of Adam’s who develops a keen interest in Olive’s work.
Per IMDb, Froushan has starred in many well-known projects, including as Ser Qarl Correy in House of the Dragon, Noël Coward in Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, and Buck Cashman in Daredevil: Born Again.
He’s also starred in many plays over the years, including a 2022 production of Leopoldstadt in London’s West End. There, he met his girlfriend, actress Eden Epstein, per Tatler.
Nicholas Duvernay as Jeremy
Nicholas DuvernayCredit: Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images
In The Love Hypothesis, Nicholas Duvernay plays Jeremy, a fellow Ph.D. student who’s first introduced to viewers as Olive’s crush.
Duvernay first began acting as a teenager and moved to Los Angeles after high school to pursue acting professionally. Some of his most notable credits over the years are Purple Hearts, Bel-Air, The Rookie, and The White Lotus season 3. In 2026, he starred in two of his biggest roles to date, as Kel in Not Suitable for Work (alongside Reinhart’s boyfriend Martin) and as Roman in Reminders of Him.
According to People, Duvernay is currently seeing someone, but their identity has remained a secret for now. In a June 2026 interview with Bustle, he talked about watching the first episode of Not Suitable For Work. “I wasn’t going to watch because I’d already seen them and don’t really like to watch myself, but I had my girlfriend over, and she wanted to watch them again,” Duvernay revealed.
Jaboukie Young-White as Malcolm
Jaboukie Young-WhiteCredit: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Last, but certainly not least, Jaboukie Young-White plays Malcolm Browne, Olive’s friend and one of Adam’s researchers.
Unlike the other actors on this list, Young-White has had quite a varied career, establishing himself as a stand-up comedian and social-media personality in addition to acting. Some notable projects include becoming a correspondent on The Daily Show in 2018 (a role he had until 2021) and working as a writer onBig Mouthand American Vandal.
More acting credits of Young-White include Rough Night, Companion, Someone Great, The Threesome and Only Murders in the Building.
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