After time away from acting, Stella makes her movie debut
“Who’s that girl?” was a common refrain from Sundance Film Festival audiences walking out of “My Old Ass” in Park City, Utah, in January.
Its star Maisy Stella, 20, will be a familiar name to some, for her years on “Nashville” playing Daphne Conrad, for her viral video singing Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” with her sister Lennon Stella (31 million views and counting), and for being someone Billie Eilish has said inspired her to start singing. But to a certain subset of cinephiles, Stella is a complete discovery and an exciting one at that.
Both designations work, in a way. Stella is reintroducing herself in her first film role after taking a few years off to just be a normal teen. She started on “Nashville” when she was 8 years old. At 15, she took a break from acting.
“I went back to school and made sure my head was like nice and screwed on and just went to prom and did all that stuff,”
Stella said in an interview with director Megan Park. “The second I turned 18, I was just like, I missed it so much and found such a new appreciation for it.”
Her turn in “My Old Ass,” the sophomore feature from Park, is about a girl heading off to college who finds herself in contact with her 39-yearold self (played by Aubrey Plaza). The film is a funny and emotional charmer that has left more than a few moviegoers wiping tears away for the last 30 minutes. Much of that has to do with Stella’s authenticity as Elliott, who is figuring out how she wants to be in the world.
“I think the best thing she ever did was take a break for a second after
‘Nashville’ and just, like, be a normal human,” Park said. “A lot of kids that have been acting from such a young age, that’s the only thing they know, and they don’t have as much life experience. And Elliot is just like a normal girl. Maisy has that perfect mix … she is one in a million.”
Park met Stella through their mutual friend
Maddie Ziegler, who plays one of Elliott’s friends in the film. Ziegler and Stella have been close since they were children.
“I think about her and Maddie, and I’m like so it was like two 8-year-old prodigies just hanging out,” Park laughed. “You singing and her just chaîné-ing across the floor.”
Stella downplays this, as she does many things. She and Ziegler, the Dance Moms alum and Sia music video star, are just best friends. Their extracurricular talents don’t come up very often. But they do get to perform together in this movie, alongside Kerrice Brooks. Without spoiling too much, there is a bit of a dream sequence in which Elliott performs Justin Bieber’s “One Less Lonely Girl,” a song she suggested and that Bieber and his camp had to approve.
“It was a big deal for our
generation,” said Stella.
“It like changed who I am today as a person.”
The film as a whole was a dream reentry for Stella to work on material that she loved with a supportive group, including “Wednesday” actor Percy Hynes White and Plaza, who was only there for a few days but made a big impression.
“She’s the most legit and the most genuinely profound actor,” Stella said. “She genuinely taught me so much about how to be a good scene partner.”
Plaza would ask what she needed from the day and then afterward make sure to text and give her a boost, saying how well she had done.
“In future projects like I will take that with me and like always try to give other people what she gave to me,” Stella said. “It literally made the biggest difference.”
Both Park and Stella are overwhelmed by the response to the film.
“It has been like the most surreal couple days of my life,” Stella said. “My eyes well every 10 seconds when I talk about it. I’ve definitely felt the genuine excitement.”
“A star is born,” Park said.