Megan Park’s “My Old Ass” isn’t the first film to ask whether it would be better to have a warning about what life has in store. But the borderline-sci-fi film set in an Ontario lake town, which stars Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza alongside a multigenerational cast of veteran and first-time actors, may be the first to do it via a kiss between a protagonist’s younger and older selves.
The Sundance hit, which releases in theaters nationwide Friday, appears to be a somewhat formulaic coming-of-age story about the summer after high school, until its 18-year-old protagonist (Stella) is visited by her 39-year-old self (Plaza) during a mushroom trip. The encounter and kiss lead to a surreal series of phone calls during which the older Elliott tries to help her younger self avoid a defining, early-life trauma — a subject Park also explored in her 2021 debut feature, “The Fallout,” starring Jenna Ortega as a teenager whose life is transformed by a school shooting.
“It wasn’t actually intentional for them to both be centered around that, but it’s definitely a theme in both,” Park told NBC News in a joint interview with the stars of “My Old Ass,” referring to her films’ framing tragedy as a core adolescent experience.
“When I was writing ‘The Fallout,’ I was just flabbergasted as a millennial who grew up in Canada. I was, like, ‘I can’t believe this is actually happening in America — this is a fear that you have to face,’” she said of gun violence in schools. “With [‘My Old Ass’], it actually didn’t start with the idea of loss; it was more this feeling of nostalgia.”
Park, a former actor who developed an interest in writing and directing on set, was inspired to pen the script for her second feature after moving back home during the pandemic and having her first baby. As a new mother who was sleeping in her childhood bed, she said, she was struck for the first time by the feeling of “time being your greatest enemy” and wanted to capture that in a film that married humor with heaviness, to make it more digestible for audiences. That led her to the story of a soon-to-be college student whose summer of saying goodbye to her best friends (Maddie Ziegler and Kerrice Brooks) and wooing the cute dock girl is hijacked by unexpectedly falling for a boy (Percy Hynes White), making an effort to get to know her family and having weighty conversations with her older self.
“I was hoping that I could make people laugh and cry with this movie. With both ‘The Fallout’ and this, I wanted to approach pretty heavy subject matter but make it as palatable as possible,” she said of addressing topics like school shootings and grief and loss.
To execute that vision, Park needed a young actor with a comedic edge who could channel the complexities of being a teenager on the precipice of adulthood into a time-travel scenario. And Stella, who was a child actor on the TV series “Nashville” and met Park while co-writing a song for “The Fallout,” proved to be an ideal fit. In addition to lending humor and a timelessness to the portrayal of Elliott by blending her Gen Z sensibility with Park’s millennial perspective, the first-time feature actor also shared her director’s sense of nostalgia for adolescence, despite still being in it herself.
“I’m a very nostalgic person. I was experiencing nostalgia when I was still in the things you’re supposed to be nostalgic about,” Stella, who had just graduated high school when she filmed the part, told NBC News, poking fun at her younger self.
Gesturing to Park and Plaza, she said, “When I read the script, I read it as if I was one of you guys looking back on my life. I didn’t really read it from an 18-year-old’s perspective.”
After Stella signed on, Park searched for an older Elliott who could pair well with her young star and make both a comedic and dramatic impact on the film, despite hardly having any screen time. And Plaza — who’s made a name for herself as a sardonic screen presence in projects like “Parks and Recreation” the second season of Mike White’s “White Lotus” — was a dream choice who proved to be less of a long shot than the director imagined.
“First of all, I cried when I read [the script], which doesn’t really happen a lot,” Plaza told NBC News of taking the role, despite her high profile and being an off-screen voice for almost the entire film. “It’s the exact kind of movie I like, because it’s got this high-concept element that transports you and forces you to use your imagination. But then, it also has this really grounded, human story. And it does both really well.”
Both Plaza, 40, and Stella, 20, describe the wholesome coming-of-age dramedy as being unlike any other projects they’ve worked on before, thanks to Park’s competency with the subject matter and her willingness to collaborate. Despite some reservations, they even trusted the young director when it came to including the cringey, partly improvised scene in which 18-year-old Elliott, tripping on mushrooms while camping out with her friends, asks to kiss her older self because she wants to know what it’s like.
“The kiss was half-improv, half-not-improv. For a second, you can see me really ask in the scene,” Stella said, explaining that the characters only talked about kissing in the script, but she decided to give it a try once the cameras were rolling.
“Every time I watch it back, it makes me so happy, because I can really see me in you for a second,” Stella said, looking at Plaza as the veteran actor and director joked back and forth about the likelihood that someone would actually want to kiss their older self. “I did not think that it was gonna make it in, but I love that there’s proof of that moment.”
Despite being a somewhat ridiculous scene, thanks to the two Elliotts incessantly and awkwardly mocking each other, the intimate moment is also a nod to various themes that Park plays around with in the film through the dynamic between her leads. Beyond time being precious, one that comes up repeatedly is the idea of learning to trust yourself, as well as giving some leeway for trying things out and making mistakes. While those are lessons that both Stella’s and Plaza’s characters learn the hard way — since, in Park’s films, navigating trauma is often an essential part of growing up — at least for one summer night, things feel easier as they share a laugh and a very weird kiss.
For more from NBC Out, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
