My Old Ass is a casually Canadian, casually sci-fi movie that conjures up Aubrey Plaza with mushrooms

Shot in Muskoka Lakes, Ontario, My Old Ass takes place during the summer before Elliott (Maisy Stella) moves to Toronto to start her first semester at U of T. Like many teens, she splits her time between her friends and lovers; she fights with her mom and rolls her eyes at her brothers. One evening, though, under the influence of mushrooms, an apparition taking the form of Elliott’s future self (played by Aubrey Plaza) offers some advice and warnings: spend more time with your brothers, be kinder to your mother and, at all costs, avoid Chad. More than just a hallucination, future-Elliott can be texted and even summoned, and so the rest of Elliott’s summer plays out under the guidance of her older (but maybe not so wiser) self.

My Old Ass is anything but a typical coming of age film. Throwing a touch of fantasy into the mix widens the film’s message, broadening its insights in a clever and funny way that subverts a more typical structure of “adults reflecting on their youth” that we see in bookends or narration. Director Megan Park, whose previous film was the critically acclaimed The Fallout (about the aftermath of a high school shooting) revisits adolescence with a lighter but no less powerful punch. Funny, raw and heart-wrenching, My Old Ass is a surprising and exciting new take on familiar territory.

In an interview with writer/director Megan Park and star Maisy Stella via Zoom, we spoke about on-set chemistry and collaboration, the film’s casual and not so casual Canadian identity, shooting outdoors in Ontario and channelling Justin Bieber.

Justine Smith: I’d like to know, Megan, how did you come up with the concept for My Old Ass?

Megan Park: I was home during the pandemic. I just had my first daughter, and I was staying in my childhood bedroom and feeling really nostalgic and thinking about this idea that it was the last time my whole family stayed under the same roof. I was just looking around where I grew up and I was like, “It’s so beautiful here. Why did I ever want to leave?” So it’s sort of that feeling. But I also just came off the heels of making my first movie, The Fallout, which was very heavy subject matter. It’s about the aftermath of a high school shooting. You spend years in the headspace of the film you’re making. You kind of live and breathe it. That story was so important for me to tell and I really wanted to do it justice, but it was really heavy. I purposefully wanted to be in a lighter mindset and headspace from the writing process to the making of it. It was an intentional approach to some of these bigger emotional themes, but ultimately through a lighter, more heartfelt lens. 

JS: At what point did you come on board, Maisy? I’m also curious about the process of building your character, particularly as you’re going into this role knowing you will be interacting with an older version of yourself.

Maisy Stella: I was the first person attached. In the casting process, we did a lot of chemistry reads. I didn’t actually meet Aubrey until she was literally in Muskoka. We built it together. I was already filming for like two weeks when Aubrey came on, so I had already established my younger character and there was literally footage (Aubrey could watch). So she came and matched me. We obviously met in the middle, though she had to come a little bit more to where I was, but Aubrey’s energy definitely played a huge part in the character of Elliott. I fell into that. I feel like the character was written to be very lovable and bright and I was honestly so flattered to even be considered to play a character written with so much love.

JS: Megan, this is your second film about adolescence. What is it about that age that you find so rich in terms of storytelling?

Megan Park: It wasn’t really intentional, to be honest. My first movie, again, was about a high school shooting. I’m a millennial and I grew up in Canada, and when I moved down to the States, I couldn’t believe that was just the daily reality for teenagers. I actually personally could not go to school every day. I would be too anxious. I’d be too scared. How do young people deal with this? I was sickened by it. I wanted to explore that feeling. Maybe it was good that I had this perspective of shock because I never felt scared a day in my life walking into school, which is such a gift. 

With this story, I just wanted to explore themes of time and regret. I think I do relate more to the mom character and older Elliott. I was a new mom and suddenly seeing everything through a different lens. I liked the idea of it being from the perspective of the younger, brighter and less jaded version of this character. 

It wasn’t that I set out to specifically make two stories that were coming of age or set in the YA space, per se, but it was a happy accident. I love coming of age stories — those are the ones I always go back and watch.

JS: What was it like shooting in Ontario, especially since you’re shooting so many outdoor scenes. I imagine that brought some challenges but it also must have been quite beautiful.

Megan Park: It was nuts.

Maisy Stella: It was so beautiful. It looks like a green screen.

Megan Park: There were some shots we couldn’t use because it looked cheesy because it’s just so beautiful. Many times, I was looking at something and just laughing because I cannot believe what my eyes are looking at. 

Maisy Stella: It was very special but definitely came with challenges, like filming on a boat. 

Megan Park: Kristen Correll, our DP, told us that filming on boats doubles your time. It quadruples your time. It’s really tricky. Everything moves and continuity is really hard; the light is always changing. But it was worth it because it just had such a raw feel. 

Maisy Stella: There were bears and bugs and kids. 

Megan Park: It added to the drama.

JS: What was it like writing for a younger generation? The movie is set now, so the characters are younger. How did you go about capturing the language and reference points? 

Megan Park: I wasn’t really trying to write the character as a young person. I was really just inside Elliott’s head. It was just a human story at its core. Once I know who the character is, the voice comes to me a bit, and then I try to just crosscheck it along the way with people young and old. I had a lot of millennial friends read the script and I had a lot of younger people read the script just to get a people’s perspective. This isn’t my real life story, nor was The Fallout, so you kind of have to know what you know and also what you don’t, and get people’s opinion and just be open-minded and egoless. I certainly relied on Maisy with a lot of cultural touchstones and references. 

JS: Are there specific things that you can think of that emerged out of your collaboration?

Maisy Stella: Bieber! The Bieber scene was originally a different song, a Disney song. Obviously, in that scene, the characters are clearly doing drugs so we couldn’t get that cleared. Megan was like, what’s the performance for your generation that everyone would know? That everyone would be like, “Oh my God, this is my experience too,” and I immediately knew it had to be “One Less Lonely Girl.” Megan would text us all the time and you’d update and change things a lot as we were filming. I feel like Megan really loves people and likes personality to be brought into it, so there would be times, if anything didn’t feel right, she’d just scratch it and literally be like, “How would you say it?”

JS: What was it like shooting the Bieber scene? It looked so fun.

Maisy Stella: It was just as fun as it looked. Maddie (Ziegler) and Kerrice (Brooks) are literally professional dancers, so they taught me the whole dance. I’m obviously a huge fan of Bieber so I didn’t have to do much research, he was already within me. It was the best. I drank like three Red Bulls that day and was like, wired. 

JS: I feel like, in the past 10 years, we’re seeing a really big shift in English-Canadian film, like it’s finally hit its stride. What I love about this film is that it’s so Canadian without this being a “Canadian Film” in a derogatory way.

Megan Park: That was intentional. I wanted to see more films that were just like, “I made a movie.” I acted in this movie called What if? and it was one of the first films I’d ever seen where it was just people living in Toronto. That wasn’t the whole point of the story, it was just casual. Why can’t it just be a subtle coming of age film where she subtly drops that she’s Canadian?

JS: I don’t normally ask this type of question, as it feels very “marketing,” but I’m curious who you envision as the audience for this film?

Megan Park: I think, because of the title and because it stars two younger women, there’s initially a perception that that’s the only people this movie is for, but it’s been really amazing to see the response of people of all ages. 

Maisy Stella: There were old men who were sobbing. There’s so many ways you can watch it, like the young actors, the old asses, or the mom or the brothers. It hits people from their own experience. ■

My Old Ass opens in Montreal theatres on Friday, Sept. 27.

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