For ‘You, Me & Tuscany,’ the Location Did Half the Work

For as long as Halle Bailey could remember, Italy lived in her imagination as a single image: a woman running through a vineyard. She traces it to no particular film or moment, but to something more diffuse. “It was just a beautiful feeling,” she says. “The big sky, rows of vines going forever.” So when producer Will Packer (Ride Along, Girls Trip) called her about starring in a romantic comedy set in Tuscany, Bailey barely needed asking. “The minute he said it was set in Italy, I was like, ‘Where do I sign?’ ” she recalls.

That’s how the singer and actress — best known for playing Ariel in the live-action The Little Mermaid — found herself dashing past sun-warmed Sangiovese grapes for You, Me & Tuscany, Universal’s warm-blooded new romantic comedy shot among the rolling hills and ancient stone towns of Italy’s storied countryside. The film opens April 10. “You hear that phrase ‘fantasy come to life,’ ” Bailey says. “But this was really it.”