ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to My Old Ass director Megan Park and star Maisy Stella about the hilarious coming-of-age movie. The duo discussed the film’s R rating, working with Aubrey Plaza, and more. The film will open in limited theaters on September 13, 2024, and expand wide on September 27.
“In this fresh coming-of-age story, an 18th birthday mushroom trip brings free-spirited Elliott (Maisy Stella) face-to-face with her wisecracking 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza). But when Elliott’s “old ass” starts handing out warnings about what her younger self should and shouldn’t do, Elliott realizes she has to rethink everything about family, love, and what’s becoming a transformative summer,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Megan, I really enjoyed My Old Ass, and this wound up getting an R rating. It’s really, at its core, this really sweet movie, and it just uses the f-word naturally in conversation, like people do. I feel like everybody can relate to it and take something away from it. Was the rating ever factored in while filming, or did you just set out to make what was true to your vision?
Megan Park: It’s funny that you say that because, yeah, the movie’s not really that edgy in that sense. It’s just there is an insane amount of f-bombs that happened organically, just in a lot of the dialogue. I think I do write a lot of f-bombs also, and in my real life I use it a lot. So that’s really what tipped us into the R category. I think it was not necessarily the content.
Maisy Stella: It was really just the words.
Park: It wasn’t intentional.
Maisy, I love the scene with Justin Bieber’s “One Less Lonely Girl.” First off, it’s classic Biebs, great song choice, but how was it doing that dance number? It is fantastic.
Stella: My God. It changed my life. It was literally one of the best days of my life. I had been waiting for that moment my entire life. Yeah, it was so fun. I mean, Maddie and Kerrice are literally both professional dancers, so we went into a studio, and they taught me how. It was as fun as it looks. It was truly the best.
I think that moment’s gonna go viral once it hits streaming later on.
Stella: Oh God. [laughs]
Megan, Aubrey Plaza plays the Future Elliott. There are only a few scenes where both Aubrey and Maisie are together, but you really make the most out of them. What stood out about seeing those two interact with each other?
Park: I just somehow felt like their chemistry was gonna be so good, and it was. They’re weirdly similar. Like you guys are so different, but so similar and a very similar sense of humor as well. But it was really special all being together and you guys clicked really quickly.
Aubrey was only up in Canada shooting with us for like a week, so we all really had to get to know each other really fast. But yeah, it just worked, and she was really down and open to just jump right in and play and experiment with us. It really paid off. The chemistry just pops off the screen between the two of them, I think.
Maisy, did you and Aubrey try to get any specific behavior patterns down to mimic each other playing the same character or how did that go?
Stella: Well, I was filming for like a week or two before Aubrey was attached. So my baby Elliott was already established, and in any normal situation, in any other project, I would be matching Aubrey wherever she’s standing. Then she kind of had to match me. The first time I met her, I definitely was like, “Oh my God, Aubrey Plaza is really staring me down.” I think she was definitely trying to take notes of mannerisms and stuff.
I think that was probably what we focused on the most. The physicality of it. But I think that energetic-wise, I think we kind of embraced the differences. That’s like my favorite part of it is that an 18 to 39-year-old, she’s kind of like the hardened version of baby Elliott, which I literally love. So I liked our differences a lot.
