Emily Hagins is a bit of a local legend. She broke out onto the scene with My Sucky Teen Romance, but she’s been a young director making waves and grabbing attention in the Austin area for a while. Her latest film, Grow Up, Tony Phillips, touches on an adolescent that has never quite grown out of his love of Halloween. He’s a high schooler now, and his friends start to grow and mature while he continues to be himself, never relenting on his passions. Everyone tells him to grow up and become responsible, but when his cousin comes to town they realize together that everything isn’t quite so bad. Before the premiere I had a chance to sit down with Hagins and star AJ Bowen, who plays the cousin of Tony Phillips. Together we talked about what SXSW means to them, the short shorts AJ had to sport, how it was originally a short film, and how they casted adults for high schoolers.
This is your fourth film. A lot of people have said that you’re maturing as you make each individual film. They say you’re taking a big jump with this one. You’ve been in the Austin scene for a while How big is SXSW to you being in the area, versus someone else? Is it a pinnacle?
Emily Hagins: Yeah, I guess we were very much hoping that SXSW would be interested in the film, even from early on. We were hoping that the movie would be done in time; we had to shoot it in the fall. It’s such a great festival; everyone’s very supportive of each other here. I guess even though I’m from Austin, during South By time it doesn’t feel like that Austin anymore. There are so many people from all over the place and so many interesting people to meet. It’s a very big deal to me even though I’m from here. I feel so very honored and lucky that they chose the film and liked it. I guess I’m very open to trying, you know, new cities, new experiences, new festivals, and all that kind of thing because I think it’s important. If you’re going to make movies you got to know what’s out there and everything but for this movie I’m very happy that it’s here. It’s a very cool experience.
AJ, I know you’ve been at Fantastic Fest and you’ve had some films there. You’ve had You’re Next and things like that. [Emily] this is the first time you’ve worked with him right? How did you all come together? Was it pretty seamless or was it out of the blue?
EH: We knew each other.
AJ Bowen: We’ve been friends for a few years. When I was first getting started we had the good fortune of, my friends and I, having a movie called The Signal at Sundance and then SXSW (gosh, maybe six years ago now). When I got to Austin it was instantly sort of home for me. In the film community there are a lot of like-minded people that work like Emily, like Eric Vespe (Tony’s older brother); and it’s just very comfortable. We can talk about movies; we can think about maybe making some together. So I had the good fortune of Austin sort of becoming my second home, other than Los Angeles, because I would get to come here with Fantastic Fest movies and I’d get to come here with SX movies. So I guess about a year and a half ago (really early on) one of the producers of Grow Up, Tony Phillips called me and said, “Emily was thinking about writing a script. She might be interested in you working on it, if you’d be willing to”. She started trying to tell me about what they were going to do with it and I stopped them and said, “No, Emily is writing a script and has a part for me, I’m in. That’s it,” because I’m a fan of Emily’s and it’s been fascinating to watch. I mean slightly frustrating for me who’s 35 to see somebody getting so much more accomplished when I was still really stoned all the time back then, at that age.
I loved, for me selfishly in terms of the work that I’ve done that people have seen up to this film, it was a great opportunity to get into a different type of story that I was very interested in telling (or collaborating on telling) because I love horror and that’s primarily what I’ve done. But beyond that my favorite type of movies are probably a decade of film: 80’s cinema, and when Emily told me the story (even though it was a modern story) a lot of the vibe in terms of the things that people were talking about back then and this sort of subtleties of humanity, were very present in Emily’s script. So it was great for me to have an opportunity to work with people and tell a slightly different kind of story that I’d done. It was a no brainer and I was very happy to do it. It was more the other way around, [you] make it sound like, “How did you get AJ to be involved?” But it was more like, “Oh that would be fun. Yes, can I audition? I’ll play any part.”
EH: I guess, when I had written, I wrote a short film. A handful of characters are actually in this feature film.
It’s funny that a lot of short films end up turning into features. I don’t know what it is about going ahead and making a short film that just gives you enough push to, “Hey! This would be good as a feature. I could draw it out.”
EH: We never even made it as a short. I was all about just making this very simple story and one of our producers says, “I’ll make this if you want to make it but I don’t like it as a short film and I think you should turn it into a feature,” and immediately when I started to brainstorm I understood where he was coming from and I really liked how blunt he was about it. Just immediately what came to mind was there should be these characters. One younger than Tony is at the right age of growing up and doing all the things Tony’s doing but at the right time in his life, and Tony’s too old for it. At the same time there would be an older character who you may think is who Tony is going to become but instead (based on his level of maturity) shows these three different stages of growing up. So when I was starting to pitch to the producers in that way, in my head I was like, “Man I wish we could get AJ to do this,” and I’d only written a little bit. Then Paul, our producer, was like, “You know who would be really great? AJ,” and I was like, “You don’t say! Really? You think he would do it because that would be really cool”. He said “Yea, yea I know it,” and I was like, “I don’t know. I’m afraid; I’m very intimidated.”
AB: The only person that’s ever said that. Ever.
EH: When AJ wanted to do it, then Tony Vespe (who plays Tony Phillips) wanted to do it, that’s the whole reassurance I needed to keep writing the script and write it for their voices. To have their input on the characters was just a really fun experience, and it really helped us make the characters more whole and real.
You’re talking about casting AJ and then casting Tony as well. The age of the characters in real life versus the film, how much did you worry about that? Did you maybe cast Tony and then say, “Ok let’s build around that, let’s cast people around that same similar age. If you have a baby face that would work for me.”
EH: I guess all of the teenagers are very close to teenagers. Tony just last week turned 22. He was 21 at the time we filmed. Devin, who plays his friend, was 21. Katie was 20. So everyone would be college age, yea pretty close. Caleb is supposed to be 10 (but he’s 12) but he was a baby face. So we were within two or three years of the actual ages and that was ok for me. I didn’t want to cast anybody 25 or older as teenagers because that would be really silly. You see that stuff on TV and you’re like, “What are you doing in this high school? This is scary!”
Yeah, nobody looked like that when I was in high school.
EH: Yea he has facial hair! But yea, I met Katie in the auditioning process. A lot of these characters were kind of written for kids. Devin Bonnée plays Tony’s friend who doesn’t want to trick-or-treat with him. I asked Devin in real life (he’s a good friend of mine) if he would wear matching Halloween costumes with me and he said no it was stupid. So I channeled that into the character in the script and he took it very personally. But he knew when I told him and he said well as long as I can play the part. I saw his chemistry with Tony and it really worked out well. It became easy at a certain point when I knew people were interested in being involved with the project, to write these characters with their voices in mind. It was just a very fun movie to make in that way.
Your premiere is in a couple of days. Being familiar with the Austin area, I mean are you all nervous? Is it always being nervous? You said it feels like it’s your second home [AJ] and I mean obviously it’s your home [Emily]. Do you feel you nervous or is it kind of easy going for now?
EH: I’m kind of worried about like, “Are 30-year-old bloggers liking this teen movie”? I don’t know because I feel like that’s who’s going to see it and I don’t know if they’re going to connect with it. That’s where my nerves are coming from I guess. I just really hope people will like our very simple, sweet movie that we tried to make and can connect with these characters in a transitional period of their lives. It’s nothing crazy happening.
AB: I’m not nervous at all. The reason that I’m not nervous is maybe because I’m getting a little bit older and I’ve made enough movies at this point that I know that the only thing that I can really go on as an actor, as a filmmaker, as a person that’s collaborated on the story, is whether or not we made what we were trying to make. So for me, it’s an integrity question and if we pass (in my mind) my sincerity threshold for wealth, that’s what we were trying to do and I don’t worry about anything else because it will speak to some people and I can’t concern myself with what the number value of that is. If it’s five, great, 50 great, 500 great but there’s no real difference for me. I’ve already seen this movie, and in that regard I’m really happy with it.
So I’m excited for people to see it. I want people to see it. Something that I was talking to Emily about earlier today is that, until this point when people talked about Emily’s work, the very first thing they mention is her age and its remarkable what she’s done for the point in her life for where she’s at. But this film, for me, once people see it, that conversation’s going to go away. There’s a very firm identity and it has a very firm narrative tone and that’s all Emily. So it’s exciting for me as an actor, and someone who’s had the good fortune of working a few years, to get to be a part of telling a story that is very clearly identifiable through the sensibilities of the filmmaker. So for me there’s nothing to be nervous about, it’s just her. But it’s pure and it’s got a lot of heart and its heart’s in the right place. I just want people to see it. I don’t have to stress the same way about worrying if anyone’s going to positively or negatively view the film because I don’t care. But I like it. And I’m a jerk and that’s all I care about. People seem happy with it.
EH: I hope so. I just want to tell people it’s sweet and it’s not very long. So come!
AB: You get to see me in a really small pair of girl shorts.
EH: Yeah, there we go!
AB: Which is not a selling point, but I figured that I should be honest with people and let them know in case they needed to avoid it.
Almost a warning but maybe to entice, “You kind of want to see this don’t you?”
AB: Yeah, you guys I apologize in advance. They put me in some ladies shorts.
EH: It’s comedic.
AB: Yeah, that’s great, Emily that makes me feel so much better. It would be hilarious, not sexy, if AJ was in some girl shorts. People will laugh at that. I can’t wait to do the Q&A — after the premiere, I’m going to talk about that. I want to take back the nice things I said about Emily and say that working for her was terrible and I’m never going to do it again. It was awful.
Did she hold up the shorts before you had to get in them?
AB: No, she didn’t want to talk about it with me actually. It was an awkward situation for everyone. It was not my finest, proudest hour.
EH: He is 100, 1,000% right because in the script it was always written that he would come in and sit between the two characters and make it awkward. And then our producer was like, “He should be wearing something stupid to make it even more awkward,” and I’m like, “I’m afraid to do that.” And Paul’s said, “No, it would be funny.” We kind of adjusted it when we got to set.
AB: “We adjusted it.” Nice choice of words Emily. It was fun.
EH: The outfit change, that’s what I was trying to say. This is an awkward topic to everybody.
AB: [laughs] Yeah, I’m trying to figure a way out of it.
Grow Up, Tony Phillips screens again tonight at 6:45 PM and the Rollins Theater at the Long Center.