Plaza: We didn’t overthink it, and that was one thing about the director, Megan Park, that was so awesome. She was not caught up in the literal details of you have to look the same or whatever. It was more about capturing each other’s essence and spirit and the spirit of Elliott. Before I came to set, they sent me some dailies of Maisy, because she had already started shooting, so I got a preview. I got a first look, and I got to see some of what she was doing on camera, and I was like, Oh, my God, she’s amazing. She’s incredible. The work is so good. And so I kind of came in with a little bit of an idea, and then when we met, it was just instant fun. We were having fun with each other.
Maisy, I would love to know how you approached embodying Justin Bieber in the movie’s extremely fun musical number.
Stella: I am such a Bieber fan, and as a kid, “One Less Lonely Girl” was so significant to me.
Plaza: That’s why it’s in the movie. It was her idea.
Stella: It’s a real thing for me. There wasn’t too much getting into character. I just had to call upon his spirit. It was so fun. I watched the video so many times when I was younger, and Maddie [Ziegler] and Kerrice Brooks are both dancers, so they taught me the full dance and helped me get into it. The outfit really helped; like, the purple hat and little mic were my armor.
The generational divide between young and old(er) Elliott leads to some great and prescient jokes about climate anxiety and the future of the planet. How did those come about?
Stella: There were little jokes written, but I feel like that kind of escalated in ADR.
Plaza: I think Megan was very, very smart about picking and choosing those moments, because she felt like, if you go too far with it, then it starts to beg a lot more questions. It had to be handled in the right way. I think on the set, maybe we improvised a couple things, like around the campfire or something, and some of it made it in and some of it didn’t. And then in the voiceover part, Megan pitched me some weird stuff. She was like, “I think you should just yell, like, ‘basement’ three times, because, I don’t know, it just feels like something happening in the future.” And I was like, “All right.” It was weirdly specific but also restrained, which I think was smart.