How Maisy Stella’s Own Queerness Enriches Her Performance in ‘My Old Ass’

The actor on challenging labels and being her character Elliott's style inspiration

Myoldass3 — Maisy Stella in "My Old Ass." Photo: Marni Grossman / Amazon

Published: September 30, 2024 | Last Updated: October 1, 2024

Our older selves might have a lot to say about how we live our lives now. What can we learn from them? And what might they learn from us?

Elliott’s dilemma in "My Old Ass," a film by writer-director Megan Park (“The Fallout”), revolves around the challenge of knowing the unknowable. The story unfolds during a mushroom trip in the woods as Elliott celebrates her 18th birthday with friends, marking the end of an era. As she looks forward to a big-city life in Toronto, far removed from the familiar cranberry farm in rural Ontario she grew up on, she enters a hallucinatory state where an older, jaded version of herself (played by Aubrey Plaza) at 39 appears to offer a glimpse of what lies ahead — not all of it good.

In her star-making film debut, 20-year-old Stella, who became a child star on the ABC show “Nashville,” captures Elliott's punkish spirit, portraying a character whose freedom is defined not only by her journey to create her own destiny but also by her exploration of identity. At the start of the film, she has a crush on a girl, a reflection of her previous attractions. But when Chad enters the picture — the very person her older self warns her to avoid — Elliott begins to question her own understanding of love and attraction. Throughout, there’s a sense that no matter who Elliott becomes as an adult, she will love whomever she chooses.

In a recent video call with Stella, the actor discussed her relationship with labels as a queer person and how she incorporated aspects of her own identity into Elliott.

I'm going to cry just talking about this film, because I cried so much during this movie.

Cry. I'll cry too just for fun. Let's do it.

How do you hope that young queer people respond to Elliott and her identity evolution?

Elliott was always very moving to me, the way that she was written. I think that I was lucky enough to grow up in a way where labels weren't really pushed on me, and I know that's not everyone's experience and not everyone is lucky enough to be given the room to explore and be truly open. I feel like the confusion and stress over queerness didn't come until much later in my life, and so I really related to Elliot in a lot of ways. I also didn't relate in a lot of ways, but I found that part of her to be really safe and comfy, and I wanted it to be done well and done right, and I hope that it was. I hope what people take from it is you're allowed to change and grow, and queerness is complicated and it's wide [and] to just exist and to not put so much pressure on yourself to know exactly what you are when you're 18. It's OK if you put a label on [one] day and it ends up changing.

Myoldass2 — Kerrice Brooks as Ro, Maisy Stella as Elliott and Maddie Ziegler as Ruthie in "My Old Ass." Photo: Amazon Studios

Was Elliott's queerness all on the page when you got the script, or was there room for shaping that part of her as you went along?

Things changed from the script a little, but she was there. She was definitely written as who she was. I think Megan is super open in terms of writing and changing things. But she's pretty spot-on with her writing. She's just a very genuine person, which I think comes across in the way that she writes for people.

In what ways were you able to influence the character? Did you have a say in the styling?

Yeah, with the styling, our costume designer used a lot of my Instagram and what I wear in real life as inspiration for Elliott, which I thought was so cool. I was so confident and comfortable in her clothes, which really played a huge part as to why I was just comfortable in general. It matters a lot more than you think it does, but I think that every person in this movie shaped their character. Megan wants that and is so open to that and actually really encourages it to just have real personality and not just be written. And so yeah, I think I shaped Elliott with personality; so did everyone else in the movie. That's just Megan's style of directing, honestly.

Were there any other themes of self-discovery that felt very familiar to you as somebody who was the age of the character you were playing when you played her?

Yeah. The most relatable aspect of Elliott was how, at the start, she was just kind of self-centered and self-absorbed and accidentally harmful to her mom and dad and her family, and I really related to that. It's just the feeling when you look at your mom and you just are rushed with sadness and you just feel bad and you're just like, "Wait, oh my god, you're literally just trying your best. This is your first life. We're all figuring it out, and I am sorry."

That's just the feeling, and so I related to Elliott a lot in the ways that I think Elliott gets very caught up in life and excitement and all these things. Leaving home, it's all so exciting to her, and in that, she's accidentally kind of just being harmful to the people that she loves and that love her. That was probably what I related to the most about Elliott. That felt tender to me. It was such a reminder for me.

Myoldass1 — Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza in "My Old Ass." Photo: Marni Grossman / Amazon

Your co-star Aubrey Plaza is considered by many to be a queer icon. On behalf of all queer women, did you happen to let Aubrey know how much they follow her career and that they wanted Aubrey and Kristen Stewart's character to be together in “Happiest Season” and we're still kind of mad about that?

Yeah, no, I didn't go into detail about that [laughs], but I do agree! I mean, I've always loved Aubrey. I've always been a massive fan. I think she's just such a genius artist and getting to know her as a person and getting to work with her has been one of the greatest things I'll ever get to do. I'll never get over it. I feel genuinely so grateful to have gotten to do that and gotten to be around her. She's just a very special person to get to experience, so yeah.

The ideal older you.

The ideal! If I was asked, I'm not kidding, she would have been my absolute number one pick. I just love her.

The film acknowledges a topic that film doesn’t often explore and one that, in fact, is rarely discussed openly: how queerness is still valid even when someone is dating a person of the opposite sex. Can you talk about the significance of that aspect of the movie in relation to Elliott and the way that she comes out as gay to Chad?

I mean, that's a real thing that a lot of people — a lot of women, a lot of bisexual women — struggle with. It's a real thing where they fall in love with a man, and they're bisexual. It means they like men and women and then [it’s] like, "Oh, you're not bisexual anymore." It doesn't really make sense to me. I think that bisexual women, if they're in a relationship with a man, it doesn't make them any less queer if they are still attracted to women. It's a weird thing. I know a lot of people that experience that and struggle with that, and so I think it's a cool thing to acknowledge. I am always searching for queer movies and a lot of times it's just a little bit too much. It's just like the only focus of the character is that they're queer, and so I really love that Elliott has so much more to her and that that's just part of her; it feels really special to me. It feels so human and real and not overdone.

Given that “My Old Ass” will shape a lot of young queer people, I’m wondering what queer movies were there for you growing up.

“Blue Is the Warmest Color” was the first movie that I'd watched that knocked me off my chair. I was like, "All right, things are turning." “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” is also so beautiful. I would say those are probably the two that live the highest in my head.