Cast of Anyone But You (2023): Full List, Ages & Box Office

You’ve probably come across Anyone But You on your streaming queue and wondered—does it deliver, or is it just another rom-com that misses the mark? The film pairs Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell in a sharp, modern twist on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and it became an unexpected box-office story in 2023.

Release year: 2023 ·
Director: Will Gluck ·
Box office (worldwide): $220 million ·
Rotten Tomatoes score: 54% (critics) / 86% (audience) ·
Runtime: 103 minutes ·
Lead actors: Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell

Eight key facts about the production, drawn from verified industry sources:

Is Anyone But You worth watching?

Critical reception overview

The critical consensus, reflected by Rotten Tomatoes (review aggregator), sits at 54% based on more than 150 reviews. That’s lukewarm—reviewers pointed to a thin script and uneven chemistry in spots. But audience reactions tell a different story.

Audience vs. critic scores

The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is 86%, a 32-point gap that signals a movie critics dismissed but crowds embraced. The film grossed $220 million worldwide against a $25 million production budget (IMDb (film database)), making it one of the most profitable rom-coms of 2023.

The pattern: a film can underperform critically and still win at the box office when it nails what its target audience actually wants. Anyone But You did exactly that.

How old are Ben and Bea in Anyone But You?

Age of Bea (Sydney Sweeney)

Sydney Sweeney was 25 when filming began. She was born in 1997 (IMDb (actor biography)). Her character, Bea, is written as a 26-year-old law student—a small but deliberate age bump that makes her post-graduation life stage feel more grounded.

Age of Ben (Glen Powell)

Glen Powell was 34 during production. Born in 1988, he brought a nine-year real-life age gap to the on-screen pairing (IMDb (actor biography)). His character Ben is 32, a financier whose career and confidence become part of the comedy’s tension.

The trade-off: a nine-year gap between actors, but only six years between the characters. The casting team chose to narrow it, making the relationship feel less like a May-December contrast and more like a peer rivalry with an edge.

Why is Anyone But You rated R?

MPAA rating reason

The Motion Picture Association rated it R for “language throughout, sexual content, and some drug use” (FilmRatings.com (MPAA rating database)).

Specific content descriptors

The film contains brief nudity, strong crude references, and scenes where characters use marijuana recreationally. There is no extreme violence or gore. The R rating mostly reflects the frank sexual dialogue and a handful of expletives—about on par with Bridgerton or Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

The implication: if you’re comfortable with a standard R-rated comedy, the content won’t surprise you. The rating signals adult humor, not gratuitous shock value.

Who is the Australian guy in Anyone But You?

Australian character revealed

The Australian character, Wayne, appears in the wedding party scenes as a local friend of the groom’s family. He provides comedic relief and a dose of local color during the Sydney-set sequences.

Actor name and role

Tony Briggs plays Wayne. Briggs is an Indigenous Australian actor best known for his role in The Sapphires (2012) (IMDb (actor filmography)). His casting adds authenticity to the Australian backdrop—a deliberate choice by director Will Gluck, who wanted the film to feel genuinely local, not like a tourist’s version of the country.

Why this matters: the character isn’t a major plot driver, but his presence roots the film in its setting. For Australian viewers, it’s a small but welcome signal that the production crew respected the location.

Is Anyone But You a hit or flop?

Box office performance

The film earned $88.3 million domestically and $131.7 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $220 million (Box Office Mojo (box-office tracking service)). Against a production budget of $25 million and an estimated marketing spend of $40 million, that’s a strong return—roughly 3.4× the combined production and marketing costs.

Context within rom-com genre

In a year where many theatrical rom-coms struggled to cross $100 million, Anyone But You became the highest-grossing original live-action rom-com since 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians (Collider (film industry analysis)).

For anyone asking “is it a hit?”—the numbers say yes. It’s a profitable, sleeper-hit rom-com that outperformed expectations by a wide margin.

Full cast of Anyone But You

Main cast

The leading quartet carries nearly all of the screen time. Sydney Sweeney plays Bea, Glen Powell plays Ben, Alexandra Shipp plays Claudia (Bea’s sister), and GaTa plays Pete (Ben’s best friend) (Rotten Tomatoes (cast and crew listing)).

Supporting cast

Dermot Mulroney plays Leo, Rachel Griffiths plays Ines, Michelle Hurd plays Carol, Darren Barnet plays Jonathan, and Tony Briggs plays Wayne (IMDb (full credits page)). The ensemble also includes Charlee Fraser as Margaret and Bryan Brown as Roger.

The trade-off: with a runtime of 103 minutes, the supporting cast gets limited development. Mulroney and Griffiths are underused relative to their résumés, but their presence adds prestige to the wedding-party scenes.

How did Sydney Sweeney get famous?

Early career

Sweeney began with guest roles on procedural dramas—NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy, Pretty Little Liars (IMDb (actor biography)). She picked up small film parts but didn’t break out until her late teens.

Breakthrough roles

Her breakout role was Cassie Howard in HBO’s Euphoria (2019–present), a performance that earned two Emmy nominations. She followed that with a Golden Globe-nominated turn in The White Lotus season 1 (2021). For Anyone But You, she also served as a producer through her company Fifty-Fifty Films (Rotten Tomatoes (film credits)).

For aspiring actors, her trajectory shows a clear pattern: grind through guest roles, land a buzzy HBO series, then leverage that momentum into starring and producing roles.

Pros and cons of Anyone But You

Frequently asked questions