My Old Ass: Megan Park and Maisie Stella on capturing movie’s special ‘feeling’

Filmmaker Megan Park never set out to make a “Gen Z” movie.

The main character of My Old Ass is 18-year-old Elliott (Maisy Stella) in a story set in the present day, but the film doesn’t feel that firmly rooted to now. There are no TikTok dances and no one says “slay”.

Perhaps that’s due to its central conceit – during the summer between high school and university, Elliott meets her 39-year-old future self (Aubrey Plaza), who offers some curious advice – which spans one character across two life stages.

Usually, when a young filmmaker tells the story of a teen character, there’s a tendency to set the film during the era in which they grew up. Think Greta Gerwig and Lady Bird, Richard Linklater and Dazed and Confused and Sean Wang and Didi.

In those cases, the films become a time capsule, an evocation of a particular moment and a particular set of personal memories.

At 38 years old, Park is only a year younger than older Elliott at 39, and My Old Ass has strong Gen Z and Millennial vibes.

“Even though it’s very much older Elliott’s story as well, I always knew I wanted it to be set now, and I wanted it to be told from younger Elliott’s point-of-view,” Park told The Nightly. “I wanted it to be really filled with joy and a kind of youthful ignorance.

“It’s a love letter and a mix of both being a Millennial and being a Gen Z-er. Even the music choices in the film, the needle drops, half of them are really current songs and then half of them are from when I was in high school. There are subtle nods to both generations.”

Park’s ability to balance the vibes of both imbues the film with both freshness and nostalgia. It taps into the specific emotional touchpoints of being on the cusp of adulthood and the excitement of new possibilities, and approaching middle age, with some regrets but also the wisdom of life experience.

In her lead actor Stella, Park found not just a fellow Ontario native but a young artist who could embody both tones.

“Maisie has this unique quality where I forget I’m hanging out with somebody (so young). (She) can hold her own (when) we’ve gone to dinner with a group of late thirtysomethings and she can slide right in there, and it is not a big difference, which I could not have done when I was 18 or 19,” Park said.

Stella, 20 now, jumped in and added, “I would take a table of 30-year-olds over people my age any day,” but then admits that she can tag along to a frat house party with her friends and still have the time of her life - “I can totally do both!”.

Stella’s ability to convey the guileless optimism of youth with the emotional maturity of someone older is essential to her performance in My Old Ass.

She was eight years old when she made her screen in the TV series Nashville, which she stayed on for six seasons. At the same time, she and her sister Lennon formed a country music duo.

But when Nashville ended when she was 14, Stella made the decision to step back and have a normal kid life.

“I went back to public school, I just wanted a locker and a backpack, that was all I cared about. I went to prom, I did everything,” she said.

When the call came to play Elliott in My Old Ass, that’s exactly where Stella was as well – 18 years old and just finished high school. “If I was consistently working (before that), I don’t think I would’ve done My Old Ass.”

She understood Elliott because she was a kid who was making those life choices in that liminal moment. Looking back, Stella considered those four years out of the business as “the greatest gift you could give yourself as a human and as an actor”.

It might be wild to consider that at the age of 20, Stella is already looking back, and even feeling nostalgic. Working on the film has changed her perspective. “I felt I was actively living with the My Old Ass message,” she said.

To an extent, Park’s film challenges its audiences to slow down, appreciate the now and reflect on the past, expressed through a character who’s at an age when every moment feels like rushing to the next in the eagerness to be grown up, to be fully formed.

But as 39-year-old Elliott knows, you don’t really become, you’re forever becoming.

Park wrote the film after she was triggered by being in her childhood home in Canada following the birth of her first child. “I was feeling really nostalgic and that made me want to write this story, and I think that’s maybe why the movie is resonating with people”.

It is a universal experience even if its specificities of it vary. Everyone remembers being 18.

Sometimes, nostalgia is what an audience brings to the viewing, but in the case of My Old Ass, it was baked in from the beginning.

The writer and director believe that people are seeking that feeling, the rush of those strong emotions. She said, “The movie allows you to relax into it and be OK with it. I wish there were more things that felt that way out there.

“More art that allows you to be nostalgic and reflective and just feel what you’re feeling. It was the vibe on set.”

My Old Ass is streaming on Prime Video from November 7