SABRINA AT HOME ON ROAD
Coming-of-age ‘History’ tells an unusual tale
Sabrina Carpenter is carving out a new path for herself.
In “The Short History of the Long Road,” out Tuesday, the former Disney Channel darling stars as teenager Nola, a lifelong nomad who finds herself going in a new direction following a monumental loss.
“I was definitely at a place where I was searching for really, really honest stories and characters with like, I think just complex emotions and something that felt really different from what I was doing,” Carpenter, 21, told the Daily News over the phone Monday.
Following her role in 2018’s “The Hate U Give,” about racial injustice and police brutality, which she hoped would “help a lot of people,” the “Girl Meets World” alum was “searching for that in other movies and other roles.”
Throughout “Short History,” Nola’s desire for normalcy is often at odds with the unbridled freedom she’s more accustomed to.
“I think she longed for life not on the road,” Carpenter said. “And when she had a taste of that, in a few different formats, I think it wasn’t so much like, ‘Ah, I just feel comfortable here so I’m just gonna keep going as I was,’ but more so like, ‘I’m choosing that this was the life that was kind of set out for me, and I want to take in every bit of it that I can.’”
The ”Horns” actress added that Nola just happens to be “really good at” life on the road, also known in her circumstances as “van dwelling.”
“It does definitely take a very specific type of person to be able to always keep going and feel complete and feel fulfilled,” she noted. “And I think that that’s a beautiful thing that such a young girl, who’s kind of figuring all this out on her own, can feel comfortable enough with herself and trust herself enough that she knows that she’s gonna be OK.”
Throughout her journey, both physical and existential, Nola, who grew up with just her father, also strives to find answers to the more uncertain parts of her past.
“I don’t think [life] ever is as simple as like, ‘Once I meet this person’ or ‘Once I go to this place, all my problems are gonna go away,’ ” Carpenter told The News of Nola’s search for her estranged mother. “If anything, it was going to leave her with the knowledge and a little bit more of the confirmation that she doesn’t need anybody. She can want people, but she doesn’t necessarily need anybody. I mean, her father left her with a wealth of knowledge and … a lot of memories and a lot of protection, in a lot of ways.”
Such realizations, Carpenter notes, aren’t exactly commonplace in femaledriven coming-of-age films.
“It’s [usually] about finding her love or finding her best friend or finding, you know, whatever’s missing,” she said. “And for her, it was just about realizing that it was herself that she needed, which I think is really powerful.”
“The Short History of the Long Road” is now available on Video on Demand.