My Old Ass was just as much a coming-of-age for Maisy Stella as it was for her character.
Stella hadn’t acted since the musical drama Nashville wrapped when she was 14 years old, and while she continued to put herself on tape, the universe kept the then-teenager on the sidelines until Megan Park’s comedy-drama came along at 18. In hindsight, Stella realizes how valuable it was for her to enjoy those four years of being a teenage student. After all, she’d had a whirlwind childhood alongside her older sister, Lennon. Together, they not only co-starred on Nashville, but they also performed as a country music duo, highlighted by a direct ode to Taylor Swift at the 2013 CMA Awards. (Stella would also later find out that her 7-year-old self’s cover of Missy Higgins’ “Secret” was an influence on a young Billie Eilish.)
Stella’s time away from acting only intensified her desire to focus on the craft, and on the heels of her critically acclaimed and Critics’ Choice-nominated performance in My Old Ass, she’s already shot two more films: David Robert Mitchell’s highly anticipated Flowervale Street and Maude Apatow’s Poetic License.
“I missed acting so much, but I did enjoy my years of just being a kid and going to school,” Stella tells The Hollywood Reporter during an FYC conversation. “I then had such a fire inside of me when I was creeping up on turning 18, and I was just so eager to get back into the world. So I definitely knew in my gut that I would always return, but my break was also very necessary and needed for my growth as a person.”
Fittingly, My Old Ass centers on Stella’s Elliott as her lakeside adolescence comes to a close and adulthood begins. Thus, the Canadian girl decides to take hallucinogenic mushrooms with her two best friends, only to be paid a visit by her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza). While Stella and Plaza bear virtually no resemblance to one another, Stella was the first person to champion Plaza’s casting just because of how well she could portray Older Elliott’s disillusionment. Principal photography was already two weeks underway when Park and co. abandoned the idea of casting someone with Stella’s likeness and shifted to Plaza, which then resulted in a rewrite of the character’s age from 50-something to 39.
“Megan had a printed-out list of names, and every time I saw Aubrey on it, I was like, ‘Megan, Aubrey would be so cool.’ And Megan was just like, ‘She’s too young. You don’t look anything alike,’” Stella shares. “But then she actually thought about it and was just like, ‘Oh my God, when you pan the camera and see Older Elliott sitting next to you, you just want to see Aubrey.’ The tone of the film also matched Aubrey so much as an artist, and her energetic match was so perfect to me. So I knew we didn’t look the most alike, but I definitely thought that she made so much sense.”
Elliott bonds with her little brother, Spencer (Carter Trozzolo), over their mutual love for Greta Gerwig’s Little Women (2019), resulting in a clip of the movie being played at a certain point. Spencer then takes things a step further when he sets up a photographic shrine to Little Women lead actor, Saoirse Ronan, in Elliott’s bedroom, knowing he’s about to move in once she heads off to college. Stella, having long considered Ronan to be one of her top influences, bumped into the American-Irish actor at last month’s Gotham Awards, where Ronan added her voice to the choir that’s been singing the praises of My Old Ass.
“She was so unbelievably kind. She loved the movie, and she was so happy about her cameo,” Stella says. “She is genuinely such an important figure to me. I’ve always looked up to her and adored her so much. So it was very surreal to get to talk to her about that.”
Below, during a recent FYC conversation with THR, Stella also discusses how she incorporated her childhood into Elliott’s, such as the casting of longtime friend, Maddie Ziegler, as well as suggesting Elliott’s mushroom-induced cover of Justin Bieber’s “One Less Lonely Girl”
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You previously worked on a TV series, but then you stepped away from acting for a handful of years. Did you always intend to come back?
Absolutely. I went back to school during the years I wasn’t working, but I was still auditioning throughout that time. I missed acting so much, but I did enjoy my years of just being a kid and going to school. I then had such a fire inside of me when I was creeping up on turning 18, and I was just so eager to get back into the world. So I definitely knew in my gut that I would always return, but my break was also very necessary and needed for my growth as a person.
I’ve talked to a bunch of actors who, like you, are also highly capable singers and musicians, and they’ve all indicated that juggling both endeavors at the same time is very difficult. Has that been your experience as well?
Honestly, I got so lucky as a kid. I was on a show [Nashville] that was musical, so I was able to do both at the same time. I lived out my acting dreams, and I recorded a song for every episode pretty much. After that, I guess it’s been a little hard, but I am mostly focused right now on acting as a whole. I just do music for myself, and I choose to share when I want to. So there’s no pressure on my music career at all, and it’s not too hard to balance right now.
You probably never imagined that your first role in a long time would be the lead role in your first movie, My Old Ass.
No, I’d been auditioning from 14 to 18. There were four years [between the show ending and being cast in My Old Ass]. But I live in Nashville, so all my auditions were on tape. If I got a callback or chemistry read or something, I’d fly out. But I found it very hard to book things before the age of 18. I would get a callback, and then it would always go to someone who was a legal 18 and could work full hours and not have a set teacher and all of that. So I found it to be really difficult around 16, and my mom was always like, “When you turn 18, it’s go-time.” And I was like, “No, it’s never going to happen!” But it really did. Right when I turned 18, I got My Old Ass.
My Old Ass has so many highly specific elements that I assumed it was somewhat autobiographical, but Megan Park’s Canadian experience wasn’t anything like this, save for some summer trips to Lake Muskoka. Were cranberry farms and lake activities also not a part of your pre-Nashville childhood in Canada?
Lake activities were definitely a part of my childhood. I’ve always been a lake girl. You can’t pay me to go in the ocean, but I will spend my days on a lake. I had also been to Lake Muskoka as a kid. It’s literally two hours away from my hometown [Oshawa], and so we would go to any surrounding areas with a lake. So that was definitely a part of my childhood experience, but no cranberry farms. Megan just had a visual of one and ran with it.
So the casting of Older Elliott really came down to the wire. You were a couple weeks into shooting without having cast the character, and Megan said they were initially looking for people who closely resembled you. So I have to imagine that someone along the way said, “Hey, what if we just asked that producer of ours named Margot Robbie?” Did you ever let your mind wander to that possibility?
Honestly, we threw so many people in the mix, but in Megan and Margot’s eyes, they were so set on it being someone that was much older. So I think Margot was too young in everyone’s minds. But when we got down to it, we ended up picking Aubrey [Plaza], so [the original 50-something age of the character] didn’t end up really mattering. But the original blockage was that Margot was not old enough; she’s not an “old ass.” I don’t fully remember if it was ever talked about, but I’m sure it was considered in some way.
Yeah, the character was originally scripted to be in her 50s. But, in the end, Aubrey was perfect for a younger Older Elliott, even if there’s little to no resemblance between the two of you. She’s so good at playing apathetic, jaded characters. Did it make perfect sense to you as well?
Yeah, we had been talking about the casting process so much when we were already filming in Canada. It was such a major conversation that we were always having. Megan had a printed-out list of names, and every time I saw Aubrey on it, I was like, “Megan, Aubrey would be so cool.” And Megan was just like, “She’s too young. You don’t look anything alike.” But then she actually thought about it and was just like, “Oh my God, when you pan the camera and see Older Elliott sitting next to you, you just want to see Aubrey.” The tone of the film also matched Aubrey so much as an artist, and her energetic match was so perfect to me. So I knew we didn’t look the most alike, but I definitely thought that she made so much sense.
Since you were already weeks into production, did you have to catch her up to speed with what you were doing, be it a mannerism or how you pronounce certain words?
Yeah, that was such a strange part of this. In any other situation, I would be matching Aubrey, but because I’d already been filming, the younger Elliott was already established. I didn’t know who was going to be playing her future self, so I didn’t try to act like anyone else. I was also told to be myself, and that [the Older Elliott actor] will come in and match me. That being said, Aubrey has such a specific demeanor and tone that I would’ve met her halfway if her casting happened sooner.
So we didn’t have much time together before we started filming, but we hung out one night and she was really dialed in on me. I could just feel her eyes were really focused on me as I was talking, and I have a bit of a strange accent. I’m from Canada, but I’ve lived in Nashville forever. So she was like, “You have a Canadian accent and a Southern twang. I don’t know how to do this.” But she had been watching my dailies the weeks before she came in, so she gathered that I talk with my hands a lot. She picked up on some of my physicality.
One of the funniest moments is when Older Elliott mocks Elliott’s pronunciation of the word “no.” Was that Aubrey being Aubrey?
(Stella laughs and mimics Plaza’s performance to a T.) That wasn’t scripted. That was just Aubrey.
Has anyone from the My Old Ass team heard from Saoirse Ronan yet?
My heart … Yes, I met her! I’d heard from our producers that she had seen it and loved it, but then I ran into her at the Gotham Awards. She was so unbelievably kind. She loved the movie, and she was so happy about her [photographic] cameo. She is genuinely such an important figure to me. I’ve always looked up to her and adored her so much. So it was very surreal to get to talk to her about that.
The title began as a joke; Megan wanted her lawyer to write contracts and emails with “My Old Ass” in the subject line and whatnot. Did you keep expecting one of the companies to force a title change throughout the process?
A hundred percent. I really did not think that it was going to make it to Amazon Prime Video being called My Old Ass; I just didn’t. When I would go to my local theater in Nashville and see the poster on the wall, I would giggle. It still makes me giggle, so I can’t believe that it stuck, But I’m so happy that Megan was so strong and made sure that it stuck. I did not think it would, honestly.
The predominant theme is: “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” But there are others, such as treating every moment like it’s your last. Is there one that struck you the most?
Love and loss was always such a huge conversation when we were filming. Megan’s choice to have the younger self encourage that was alway so striking. I also related to the family dynamic. I moved out when I was freshly 17, and I was 18 when I went to film My Old Ass. And just because of the content and things that the movie talks about, I already regretted wasting that last year that I should have been at home. So a lot of the family messaging really spoke to me as well. Megan hit so many marks with what she wanted to say with this movie, and while it’s so hard to choose, those were what hit me the most.
Maddie Ziegler was the co-lead of Megan’s last movie, The Fallout, and Megan told me that you bowled her over when you revealed that you’re longtime friends. You then helped cast her as Elliott’s friend. Did the two of you always dream of playing friends in a movie?
Genuinely, yes. We manifested this from the ground up. We have always talked about it. We’ve been friends since I was 9 or 10 and she was 10 or 11. We grew up very, very closely, and we always talked about this dream. I actually auditioned for The Fallout, and then Maddie got it. But I knew I wasn’t going to get that dancer role. Her casting made so much more sense [since she’s a professional dancer].
So when My Old Ass came along, it was so perfect, because she had already worked with Megan and loved her. Megan also cares so much about chemistry and genuine connection. She has no interest in filming people that don’t actually have real chemistry with each other, and so she was so excited to have genuine friends on camera. You can’t really fake what it looks like when people have grown up together. So we were so excited that we got to do this together.
Even though Maddie got the role, your Fallout tape clearly made an impression on Megan.
Yeah, we stayed in touch through that, and we ended up writing some music together for Fallout. So we stayed in touch until My Old Ass.
Elliott is not an accomplished singer like you are. On top of that, magic mushrooms probably don’t help people sing in key.
(Laughs.)
But because she’s hallucinating, you didn’t have to purposefully weaken your performance of Justin Bieber’s “One Less Lonely Girl.” Elliott is just imagining herself to be a great singer, right?
That’s so funny. I never thought about it like that, but yeah, you’re right. I’m such a Bieber girl, and Megan originally had a Disney song in the script [that she couldn’t clear due to the mushroom use]. So Megan asked me, “What song from your generation would everyone freak out over?” And I immediately knew it was “One Less Lonely Girl.” It was so fun to do, and Maddie and Kerrice [Brooks] are both professional dancers. So they taught me the whole dance, and it couldn’t have been better. When I was recording the song, I had him in my ears. I was literally singing along to him. I wanted to sound as much like him as possible, so I don’t even sound like myself at all. I genuinely sound like baby Bieber. I was trying so hard to channel him.
As you touched on earlier, instead of the clichéd notion of our older selves passing on a key piece of advice to our younger selves, this movie is about what our younger selves can teach our older selves. Thus, if your 39-year-old self revisits this interview, what pearl of wisdom would your current self like to offer her?
I tell this to my mom a lot because she always has this feeling of like, “Oh, I’m too old to do this or wear this,” or, “It’s too late for me to start doing this.” So I would tell my future self to stay creative and stay creating. You’re not too old to do anything or to wear anything. It kills me when my mom says that. It physically makes me hurt. I look at her and I’m like, “You’re so full of life and so young and so beautiful.” So that’s probably what I’d tell my older self.
Lastly, you are, in fact, focused on acting, as you’ve already shot a couple more movies with David Robert Mitchell (Flowervale Street) and Maude Apatow (Poetic Licence). Were those enjoyable experiences?
So enjoyable. I hope I get to film more things this year, but last year was so incredible. I got to film two movies in one year, which was beyond my wildest dreams. I had a great experience on both of those sets, and I’m so excited for them to come out.
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My Old Ass is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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