Maisy Stella and Megan Park on their wisecracking comedy “My Old Ass”

I did not imply to make the duo behind the coming-of-age comedy “My Old Ass” cry once we met for espresso one August morning in New York. But, to be honest, they made me cry first.

In “My Old Ass,” written and directed by Megan Park, which premiered on the Sundance Film Festival earlier this yr, teenager Elliott (Maisy Stella) is getting ready to depart her hometown in rural Canada for faculty when she decides to take a mushroom journey together with her greatest pals into the woods. While extraordinarily excessive, she is visited by her future self, performed by Aubrey Plaza. “Old Ass,” as Plaza’s elder Elliott is cheekily referred to as, places her quantity in his youthful self’s telephone they usually quickly talk throughout many years. The results of Elliott’s try to observe Old Ass’s recommendation is an emotional punch to the intestine that had me in tears.

“You know, the title and stuff, perhaps individuals are anticipating one factor after which they’re type of shocked,” Park says, including that even older males have reported being “fucked by this film in a great way.” Stella chimes in to substantiate that she’s seen critiques on the social media web site Letterboxd that she says quantity to “Me and this 65-year-old man sobbing.”

Chatting with Park, 38, and Stella, 20, it’s clear they hit that nerve, partly as a result of it appears like two variations of the identical individual. Both arrive in informal stylish, carrying outsized tops (Park in a big classic T-shirt and Stella in a big bomber jacket) that complement their two blonde curls, Park’s unfastened and Stella’s up. When I ask them what they’ve discovered from one another towards the top of our hour-long dialog, my mouth waters.

“Maisy has actually introduced a lot pleasure into my life and refreshed it,” Park says by means of tears. “And she’s so loving and sort to me as an artist and so beneficiant and supportive.” Stella smiles at her.

“It was a very lovely a part of my progress,” Stella says of her years as a baby star. “I used to be very fortunate. I do know that not all childhood experiences are as lovely as ours.”

(Kate Dockeray / For the Times)

Park and Stella have had eerily parallel lives within the leisure trade. They each grew up in Canada: Park in Lindsay, Ontario, and Stella, an hour’s drive from Oshawa.

Park’s mother and father did not need her to get too concerned in skilled performing at a younger age, although, as she says, “All my pals had been regulars on ‘Degrassi.'” After highschool, she deferred to varsity, at which level she was forged within the ABC Family cleaning soap opera “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” enjoying a Christian woman making an attempt to stay a virgin reverse future star Shailene Woodley within the title function who will get pregnant earlier than her freshman yr.

Watching Woodley rise by means of the ranks in Hollywood, Park realized that whereas she cherished being on set, she wasn’t enthusiastic about being an actress. While filming the 2013 romantic comedy “The F Word,” co-star Zoe Kazan inspired her to jot down for herself.

Park made her directorial debut with the 2021 drama “The Fallout,” about a teen (Jenna Ortega) coping after a taking pictures at her highschool. While casting for the critically acclaimed movie, she met Stella, who was being thought-about for one of many roles.

“I bear in mind being so shocked as a result of there was simply no half for her,” Park remembers. “But I bear in mind pondering, ‘Let’s work collectively on one thing else.’ ”

Maisy Stella within the film “My Old Ass”.

(Amazon Studies)

At the time, Stella, who had began performing professionally when she was 8, was re-entering the world after taking a break to complete highschool and do all of the issues she had idealized, like “having a locker and a backpack,” she says. Stella did not have these issues when she starred within the nation TV collection “Nashville” together with her sister Lennon, because the daughters of a diva performed by Connie Britton. Soon after the Stellas had been forged within the present, they achieved Internet fame when a video of them singing concord on a canopy Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” Has Gone Viral.

“It was a very lovely a part of rising up,” she says, trying again on her years as a baby star. “I used to be very fortunate. I do know that not all childhood experiences are as lovely as ours.”

But time away from the enterprise renewed her ardour for it. While her sister gravitated towards music, Stella fell in love with performing.

That led her to Park. The concept for “My Old Ass” got here to Park, a mom of two, whereas she was residing in her childhood bed room in the course of the pandemic. “It made me actually emotional, desirous about what I might say to my youthful self,” she says. “It’s such a common and fleeting thought that for some purpose I believed I’d wish to be in that mind-set extra.”

He needed to make a movie just like the traditional tearjerkers he nonetheless loves, like “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Stepmom.” But “My Old Ass” has an edge, and never simply in its title. Old Ass tries to persuade Elliott to understand his household earlier than leaving them behind, however she’s maybe not so smart in a few of her recommendation.

“It made me actually emotional to consider what I might inform my youthful self,” Park says of the genesis of her unique screenplay.

(Kate Dockeray / For the Times)

Park determined to name it “My Old Ass” earlier than writing the movie, naming Elliott’s household, the Labrants, after the gynecologist who delivered her first daughter. The physician was “a little bit shocked and perhaps offended” by the title, the director says. “I hope he sees it and understands it,” Park provides.

Once Stella formally despatched in an audition tape, Park’s hunch about her was confirmed. Throughout the method, Park despatched the actress bits of the script as he labored on it, asking the younger lady how she would phrase sure issues.

“Not solely has[Stella]been in a position to take all of her particular qualities and play them out, however she’s not even enjoying herself,” Park says. “She’s change into a greater Elliott than I might have ever imagined.”

For Stella, it was the primary time in her life {that a} director had trusted her to direct a movie. “No one had ever actually dared me since I used to be a cute little 8-year-old,” Stella says.

Park additionally made Stella, who identifies as pansexual, really feel comfortable as she thinks about her sexuality in relation to her profession. “It’s at all times been a tense factor for me since I used to be very younger: If I’m homosexual, can I act?” she says. “Because then they received’t imagine me after I kiss a boy.”

Her sister and fogeys have at all times been supportive, Stella tells me, however Park (who’s married to musician and “My Old Ass” co-writer Tyler Hilton) additionally reassured her throughout filming in Muskoka, Ontario, throughout a Canadian summer time. In the movie, Elliott, who has at all times thought she was homosexual, finds herself confused when she begins to fall for a boy named Chad (Percy Hynes White) who works on her household’s blueberry farm. The incontrovertible fact that Old Ass warns her towards getting concerned with Chad additional complicates issues.

Park says he did not need Elliott’s preferences to change into a “big factor,” however he additionally “cherished the thought of ​​a reverse popping out.”

“It was actually essential to us, at all times, that the narrative not be like, She identifies as one factor and says, ‘I’m straight now,’” Park says. “I’ve talked to lots of people who determine as bi they usually’ve mentioned, ‘Thank you.’”

The movie additionally has enjoyable with gender roles. When Elliott takes mushrooms for the second time, she imagines herself as Justin Bieber singing “One Less Lonely Girl” to Chad. Park needed a musical sequence, and Stella selected Bieber. “Megan was mainly like, ‘What’s the one efficiency out of your era that might make everybody shake?’” Stella says. It was a staple of slumber events and a second of hope for numerous Gen-Z women: At the pop idol’s live shows, she would invite a fortunate fan to serenade her in the course of the track.

Although they needed to get Bieber’s approval, Stella cannot wrap her head round the concept that he really watched her efficiency. “In my head, his supervisor watched it and he by no means has and he by no means will so long as he lives and we’re all cool,” she says nervously.

“No one had ever given me an opportunity after I was a cute little 8-year-old,” says Stella, left, photographed with Park in New York in August.

(Kate Dockeray / For the Times)

It’s moments like these after I acknowledge the era hole between Park and me (we’re each in our 30s) and Stella, who will be disarmingly mature. “I really feel like I’m speaking to somebody my very own age after which typically I’m simply thrown again into actuality,” Parks tells Stella.

However, making “My Old Ass” made Stella acknowledge her youth.

“When I learn the script, I used to be desirous about it like I used to be certainly one of you,” she says, addressing Park and me just like the previous donkeys within the room. “I used to be like, ‘Oh, I’ve had all these epiphanies earlier than, like, you recognize, don’t take my household with no consideration. I’m nice. I obtained all of it.’ And I completely did one hundred pc.” Not I understood it at that time.”

Stella says that within the two years for the reason that movie was accomplished, she has actively put into observe the sincerely conveyed teachings on settle for the chaos of existence.

“I believe lots of people who watched it actually did the identical factor,” he says. “Which is my favourite half about making it. It’s so humorous and lighthearted and it’s a comedy and all that stuff, nevertheless it feels heavy.”

And that is why it is more likely to make audiences cry, no matter their age.