Meet August Moon, the Fictional Boy Band from The Idea of You: 'We Love Each Other as People' (Exclusive)

As Hayes Campbell, star of boy band August Moon, Nicholas Galitzine steals the hearts of girls everywhere in The Idea of You. But he’s not doing it alone. 

The actor stars alongside four bandmates in the film, and while it's centered around the love story that blooms between him and Solène (Anne Hathaway), there are a few other prominent characters in Hayes’ life that play a role in his story.

In The Idea of You, adapted from Robinne Lee’s 2017 novel, August Moon is the world’s biggest boy band, and Hayes and his four bandmates — Adrian (Jaiden Anthony), Oliver (Raymond Cham Jr.), Simon (Vik White) and Rory (Dakota Adan) — are at the height of their careers.

They headline Coachella (leading Hayes to meet Solène, who inadvertently stumbles into his trailer) and embark on a world tour. But before the actors could step into the shoes of the fictional boy band, they had to get to know each other.

To prepare, the group went through an entire training camp to develop their chemistry — both onscreen and off — and the result was not only a swoon-worthy Coachella performance in the film, but some real-life friendships too.

“I think you see us together as a group and it just kind of makes sense,” Galitzine, 29, tells PEOPLE. “Everyone can see that we love each other as people, and we hang out with each other still, even now the movie’s wrapped. You can’t fake chemistry, and people like seeing a bunch of people performing together and having a really good time.”

How did you find your groove together. There was a boy-band bootcamp? What does that look like?

GALITZINE (Hayes): I think the boot camp was more for me than it was for the boys.

ADAN (Rory): No, it was for us too. We all got notes in that bootcamp. We all got called out.

GALITZINE: Also, for the lads, the aspect of holding a microphone and letting that drive them around stage, and really a lot of the work was actually just establishing a sense of a chemistry between us, because it wasn't just about the choreography. The choreography was kind of this sort of nonchalant, effortless kind of thing, and really what you're trying to sell is your connection to each other and your connection to the audience. That's something that came really naturally to us hanging out with each other. We all have the same sense of humor and we all stayed in the same hotel together, so there was a lot of hang time and a lot of chemistry-building then.

This was kind of an homage to boy bands. What were bands that you guys pulled from, whether explicitly when you were preparing for this or in your own mind?

GALITZINE: I think there was a lot of different references. I know BTS, for some of the dance stuff, was kind of useful because they're really good at doing that effortless thing, but I do want to sort of point out that I think, for all of us, we were kind of on the same page that we wanted to make August Moon feel extremely distinct. So references only help to a certain point. It really then becomes about how we're interacting with each other. Can we create an atmosphere that feels really individual?

CHAM (Oliver): My biggest reference was Ferris Bueller[‘s Day Off]. 

GALITZINE: I remember that. That was so good.

CHAM: The float parade. That was my target. It just looked like he was having the most fun out of anyone in the world, and I just wanted to bring that same enjoyment to our performances. I hope it showed. We had a blast every day.

The four of you, excluding Nicholas, had more training going into this, more background in dancing and performing. What was it like bringing Nicholas into the fold?

WHITE (Simon): He did pretty well.

ADAN: He was a great sport about it. He had these shoes that he would come into rehearsal with that had Velcro on them, and we knew he was serious because he would take the Velcro and tighten it really tight, and we all said, "Oh, he's in sports mode now. We're getting the best of him." So he was a great sport about the whole thing.

ANTHONY (Adrian): I think it also went hand-in-hand, because we all come from such heavy dance backgrounds, and dance can just be so big and so bold and in your face. To see him kind of take it in more of a chill approach or just what he did naturally.... Sometimes he would do a move and our choreographer would be like, "That's how we all need to do the move," and vice versa. It was definitely a collaboration of taking extreme dance and not so much dance and meeting in the middle.

CHAM: We had a great leader and choreographer, Dani Vitale, and she just created an atmosphere that made it feel safe. A good percentage of those rehearsals were spent laughing and collaborating and just making each other feel really good.

Nicholas, what was it like learning to dance alongside trained dancers? Is that more daunting than walking into an audition having to sing for Anne Hathaway, or is that equal?

GALITZINE: God, that’s a good question. I was very quick to say, "Listen lads, don’t try anything. Don’t try anything too eccentric or too big." Because I was told that Channing Tatum’s body was going to get CGI’d onto mine, and so when I found out that wasn’t the case, I was distraught!

But they were so kind and giving and would help me in little moments, and it's a very vulnerable thing to kind of look into this sort of huge mirror and really analyze your body and how it moves. And me, having a background in sports, there was kind of a certain rigidity that I think I had to get rid of and seeing how all the lads had their own individual styles was so incredible to watch. Then coming together and being this unit, it's incredibly empowering, seeing your movement essentially echoed in four other people as well. It's a very powerful thing. I just had so much fun doing it.

While filming the Coachella stage performance, there were actual people in the crowd? Was that intimidating, or did you feel you were living out a childhood pop star dream?

WHITE: It made it more real and fun because instead of just having to dance in the studio and look at ourselves in the mirror, finally being able to perform in front of the crowd I think gave us more energy. I think that's what made the performance more real because we were actually performing in front of people.

ADAN: There's an exchange of energy that happens with a real audience there. Cameras are exciting, but a camera doesn't have that same energetic feedback of having people there shouting and screaming. They had big posters and signs and cutouts of everyone's heads. It was wild.

ANTHONY: The confidence boost that it gives you when finally, we’re going out and performing and we have fans there to cheer us on that we can point at and that we can connect with and see how they're receiving us, it's just very solidifying that what we did and all the work we put in to portray a boy band is worth it.

CHAM: Also, I just remember it being so cold.… 

GALITZINE: Because it was three nights at, like, 3 a.m. in the morning, in Atlanta, in winter. ... We were thinking to ourselves — because we’d do the performance and then we'd be out of breath, everyone could see our breath on stage and we’d be like, "How are they going to sell that this is Coachella in summer?" No one's picked us up on it yet. I mean, the amount of people who ask if we actually performed at a past Coachella. It's obviously a testament to the production design and the performance and everything.

Are you staring at Anne Hathaway while you're on that stage?

ADAN: She was there, she was there in some of the shots. There were a couple times where we did it and she was right there in the audience, but she was nothing but lovely to work with so I never felt nervous around her. 

ANTHONY: She was super involved. She was super excited about the band and us and even if it was just a few minutes that we had to be offstage and getting ourselves together, she would be there, having conversations or be like, “Ah, this song is so good!” It’s the craziest feeling, of course, because this is Anne Hathaway, but she was so friendly.

I know Nicholas sings, but are any of you singing on any of these songs?

CHAM: No. but, I mean, what was funny is during the performances we have to sing so you can see the veins, you can see us actually attempting to hit a note, and that is another memory I’ll keep very close to the chest. Just like, walking by in formations and hearing someone singing. Or just hearing yourself and being like, “That comes out of me? Like, what is that sound?”

ANTHONY: Also it’s such a different beast to do a full performance, sing it full out, perform it full out, versus just sitting here and singing a song... I just realized that amount of control, vocal control, and this energy that it takes. Even though we didn’t have to worry about notes (we’re just projecting our voices to sell it), it just added a whole other level to it for sure.

The Hayes and Oliver dynamic is key to the story, and we get one major scene where Oliver makes a cheeky comment to Solène about the “Closer” song being a “bit” the band does. What was it like playing that antagonist character?

CHAM: The dynamic between Hayes and Oliver, it's definitely complicated. There's an element of me wanting to be him and believing that I can be, and jealousy. And they just have history. It was good fun being somewhat of a catalyst to a story and maybe their relationship crumbling, or that was the impetus of that, so I looked forward to it. Also, I mean, I had a scene with Anne Hathaway, and that was really cool.

The Idea of You is now streaming on Prime Video.