Sterling Point's Creator Confirms That Viral Leg Pull Was Unscripted

It takes about four seconds. Ellis hooks his leg around Annie, slides her across the closet floor, and history was made. Any good romance series lives and dies by the sparks between its leads, and Sterling Point has clearly aced chemistry. Towards the end of Season 1, the usually shy Ellis surprised his crush by dragging her towards him and planting the most romantic kiss imaginable on her.

The swoon-worthy leg pull (and passionate makeout that followed it) has gone triple platinum on TikTok. “This scene was literally everything,” proclaims one viral clip. “Men, take notes,” another demands. “How do you get over this scene (asking for a friend),” another TikTok reads. The answer, of course, is that you don’t.

While actor Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie has previously dispelled rumors that Ellis dragging Annie into his embrace was improvised, showrunner Megan Park confirms the moment wasn’t in the script, and that Whiteduck-Lavoie surprised her with one in-the-moment choice.

Park says the now-viral leg pull came together out of necessity, after the closet turned out to be bigger than expected. “Once we were in the space, we realized it was wider than we thought, and they were on opposite sides and not next to each other,” Park says. She, the episode's director Andrew Ahn, and the camera team worked the blocking from there. “Someone had this idea of sort of a slide, and then we tried a few different ways and it wasn't working.”

The show's director of photography finally demonstrated the move on Park herself. “And then I sat down with the DP, [Kristen Correll], who's amazing, and she's like, ‘What if you just go?;” Park recalls. “And she just kind of slid me across the way and everyone went, ‘Ooh. That was really hot.'"

Whiteduck-Lavoie picked it up immediately. “I remember Jacob being like, 'Got it,' and then just killing it,” Park says. “He did it a little differently than we did, in the best way. He did it the perfect speed.”

Park credits Whiteduck-Lavoie entirely with the chin tilt Ellis gives Annie during the kiss. “He did that on the first take, and I was like, ‘Do that again. That was an amazing move,’” Park says.

She knew they were creating an iconic romantic gesture in the moment. “It was really cute because that was their first kissing scene they shot,” Park says. “And you just never know what the vibe is going to be. But I remember looking over at [the rest of the crew], and they at their monitor so into it. I was like, ‘It's working. It's really working.’”