Maisy Stella couldn’t have guessed that the thing that would prepare her for her first major film role would be … being a regular teenager.
In 2012, when she was 8, a video of her and her older sister, Lennon, singing Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” took off online — a narrower era of the internet when harmonized covers and cup percussion could charm millions of strangers. The duet, which now has more than 31 million views, landed the pair a segment on “Good Morning America.” Soon after, they were cast in the soapy country music drama, “Nashville.”
But it was a four-year pause from acting Ms. Stella took after six years on “Nashville” to attend high school that laid the groundwork for her return to the screen. Now, she stars in “My Old Ass,” where she plays Elliott, a restless teenager whose mushroom trip conjures her 39-year-old future self (played by Aubrey Plaza). The film, written and directed by Megan Park, plays with the buoyant idealism of youth, face-to-face with the hard-earned wisdom of adulthood.
Ms. Stella’s high school sojourn of backpacks and lockers and prom — all the things she had romanticized from watching movies — turned out to be just the dose of adolescence she needed to play a starry-eyed Elliott.
“My prep for ‘My Old Ass’ was those four years,” Ms. Stella, 20, said. “I can’t imagine how different I would have been in the movie if I had been working consistently since the time I was eight.”
“Sometimes your growth can be a little stunted when you’re working so much as a kid,” she added. “I think it made me feel like a real 18-year-old that wasn’t acting like an 18-year-old.”
At a restaurant near Central Park, Ms. Stella wore an oversized green vest and silver hoop earrings, her left hand studded with silver rings. Over a cookie plate, the actress discussed her early rise to fame, her qualms with Gen Z’s portrayal onscreen and the power of manifestation.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
The New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson called your performance “authentic and lived-in.” Did it feel as natural as it’s been perceived?
Where we were, I think, lends such a hand in it feeling natural. We were just in the most beautiful nature, two hours away from my hometown, where my family of a million people live — like, I have such a huge family — so it felt really grounding. It felt natural because all the other actors were so natural, and the writing was so natural.
Did you bring your Canadian-ness to it?
I moved when I was young so I’m not like the most Canadian person. I’ve lived in America for a long time, so I’m very proud of my Canadian-ness, and I wish I was even more Canadian. But I’ll never wash it off. It’ll always be a big part of who I am. The second I’m in Canada, it feels like that is where I’m from. It feels very familiar and very cozy and I think it made the biggest difference that it was filmed there.
What was your first reaction to the script?
It was a perfect script. I had gotten bummed over some of the things that were made around Gen Z and was just getting a little bit like, “Oh, we don’t all only speak in slang. We’re not all obsessed with TikTok. We don’t all hate our moms.” There are many stereotypes and I think there’s a way to do it where young people are still smart. You don’t have to write them to be stupid. Megan [Park, the film’s writer and director] gives young people a lot of credit for being smart.
What was it like to watch the film and see yourself?
I’ve never been more nervous for anything in my life. It had been two years since I filmed it, and I had no memory of what I had done. I was so nervous to watch it back. So much growing happens in those years — 18 to 20 felt like a big gap. And so I was like, “Oh my God, I hope I’m not embarrassed of my 18-year-old self.”
When I watched it the second time, I was able to kind of forget that it was me and just watch it as a film. I was like, “I would like this movie if I wasn’t in it.” And yeah, I mean, Megan is such a freak talent.
Did you say freak talent?
Yes! She’s an absolute freak talent. It’s insane.
Tell me about your roots and how you got here.
I come from a very large, musical family. We’re from Oshawa, Ontario, just outside of Toronto. I grew up to Huey Lewis and the News playing on vinyl every single morning. We didn’t have cable TV. We got a TV when we got on TV. Music was really our source of entertainment, our toy.
We moved to Nashville when I was six or seven, so I was really young. But I didn’t feel like we were, like, working child actors. At all. It never felt like that a day of it.
What was it like going viral at such a young age? Did you have a sense of how big it was?
YouTube was so much more limited. Now, on TikTok, a million things go viral a day. It wasn’t like that on YouTube. There were very specific things that went viral. It was really rapid. We posted it and within 48 hours we were on “Good Morning America” in New York.
We were living in Nashville, and we had already booked the show “Nashville” but we were told that we couldn’t do the show because we didn’t have visas. They filmed a pilot with two different girls; we had kind of moved on from it. And then Lennon and I sang the song at a school talent show. My mom took a video of us singing to post for our family back home. And it just skyrocketed. And then, because we did “Good Morning America,” we got our visas, and we were able to do “Nashville.” It’s the craziest thing ever, because it was just so meant to be.
You’ve described your family as “little witches.” Say more.
We are little witches. My mom drilled in our head very witchy things as kids. She was very big on manifestation and on the power of your mind and how thinking can alter your life. It’s the anchor of my entire existence. My mom always said to us, whatever you feed grows and it is so true. If you’re feeding the stresses and the fears, they literally will just grow. And if you’re feeding things that you want and things that you love, that will grow. I still actively manifest.
What are you actively manifesting now?
I’ve been manifesting being connected with the right people. Career-wise, I’m always manifesting any projects that are truly for me, and that are on my path and meant to happen. Right now, I’ve been very intentionally wanting to keep good people around me.
I’m such a sponge. I can find inspiration in a lot of places. My eyes well up, probably, like 50 times a day. I’m very, very moved by people. I think anybody that’s … this is going to sound so cringe, and really, I’m risking a lot saying this, but … I will love anyone that’s just completely being them.
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