Gen Z can be particularly hard to please, but 38-year-old Megan Park may have cracked the code.
The director behind “The Fallout” tackled a new coming-of-age story in “My Old Ass,” one that took her back to her roots in Canada on Lake Joseph.
The film follows Elliott (Maisy Stella) as she tries cherishing her last summer before heading to college, but happens to encounter her 39-year-old self, played by Aubrey Plaza. Park’s sophomore film centers Gen Z in a way that feels genuine to this era, something she noticed was missing as a young actress.
“I, for many years, was an actor in front of the camera when I was a teenager, and telling stories that didn’t always feel authentic to what my generation was experiencing or wearing or saying, and nobody ever asked me my opinion,” Park told TheWrap. She wanted to change that when she took a seat in the director’s chair, Park added. “Just opening the door to ask people’s opinion, I think, is step one.”
Park’s directorial debut, “The Fallout,” covered a story that’s become more relevant for Gen Z story but that many had avoided: school shootings. When asked what piqued her interest in telling stories for young people, Park responded that at the heart of it, she just wants to tell a human story.
“When I’m trying to write younger characters or stories around this generation, I’m not necessarily trying to make that at the forefront of my mind. I’m just trying to write a human story first,” Park said. “Talking to actual Gen Zers – they hate that phrase,” she said with a laugh as her lead Stella interjected, “Hated that.”
Stella, now 20, complimented Park on her receptiveness to Gen Z’s point of view, seeking to understand them rather than create a caricature. The rising star, best known for her role on “Nashville” and her viral 2012 “Call Your Girlfriend” cover cup song, said Park encouraged collaboration on set — specifically when discussing the characters’ fluid expressions of gender and sexuality.
“It felt really exciting as actors,” Stella told TheWrap. “Being given the room that you [Park] probably weren’t.”
Park made clear that though the film explores queerness as a theme, it wasn’t the central message of “My Old Ass” — just as for many Gen Zers it’s just one piece of their identity.
“I think coming out stories are really important, but this wasn’t that story,” Park said. “In ‘Fallout,’ it was like, if you’re talking about going to high school in America as Gen Z, school shootings and being afraid to go to school is a part of that conversation organically. And, it kind of felt the same around the queer conversations with this movie.”
In “My Old Ass,” Elliott spends her final summer at home on a lake in Canada. After doing celebratory shrooms with two of her high school best friends, Elliott encounters her older self. Elliott tries taking her older self’s advice to heart while acknowledging that she will make mistakes along the way. Navigating crushes and leaving behind her childhood, Elliott takes an emotional and funny journey out of adolescence.
The film taps into Gen Z nostalgia, even getting “Dance Moms” star Maddie Ziegler to dance and Stella to sing in one sequence. On her second mushroom trip in the film, Elliott lives out every girl who grew up in the 2000s’ fantasy: becoming Justin Bieber’s “One Less Lonely Girl.” The director put a twist on the iconic moment from Bieber’s “My World Tour,” turning the gender dynamics on their head.
“It was originally written as a different sequence that we couldn’t get the rights for, and so I went to Maisy, and I was like, ‘What is like that defining moment from your childhood or teenagehood?’” Park said.
“It was a gut response,” Stella said. “‘One Less Lonely Girl’ was super important to me. I was the prime audience for that. I had a literal pillow with [Bieber’s] face on it and a speech bubble that said, ‘Sweet dreams. Maisy.’ So I was, it was actually a bit much.”
“My Old Ass” is available in select theaters now and debuts nationwide this Friday, Sept. 27.
