moviemakermag: @plazadeaubrey @elizabetholsenig @hellomattspicer Did working on @ingridgoeswest change the way you relate to social media? #LoveTheGram
elizabetholsenig: I wasn’t a part of any social media until recently. I think I had an extreme judgment and was on a pedestal and looked down on it, and thought it was [only used by] a bunch of narcissists. But I also understood people who do it in a clever way, and I don’t think they’re narcissists, but I just thought, “Why would I do that? I don’t want people to talk to me. I don’t want to engage with a bunch of strangers.” But then being a part of this film, and having a “Taylor Sloan” Instagram and following all of these influencers, I realized it’s just another marketing tool. It’s people who are clever, it’s people who have a good eye and take nice photographs, it’s people who do have nice taste and it’s also a marketing tool. I think I started to see it in a more corporate, business way, as opposed to me just assuming that it’s just a bunch of people taking selfies all the time.
plazadeaubrey: I got a public Instagram in January, after we shot the movie. I actually think, in a way, it made me more engaged with it, because we had to be. As our characters on set, we were on actual Instagram. Our phones were real and we were really doing it when we were shooting. So I became more comfortable with it, but I think it also made me more aware of all sides of it, and how it can be bad too. I’m still figuring it out.
hellomattspicer: I’m on it! I’m on it all the time now, promoting the film and stuff. That’s the irony of it. We made a film about Instagram that we’re now promoting on Instagram and social media, but I guess that’s what you have to do nowadays to get people to go see movies.
moviemakermag: @hellomattspicer How have you used social media to promote the film specifically? #Meta
hellomattspicer: I’ve been really careful about it and Neon has been great about this too, wanting to put stuff out that I genuinely think is good content, cool and funny, and not just putting stuff out for the sake of putting it out. I really like all the stuff they’ve been doing. It’s hard to sell a movie. You don’t want to show everyone everything in the movie. You want there to be some surprises. But you also don’t want to sell it as this silly comedy that it’s not. It’s a hard thing to tightrope walk, but I’m happy with how it has come out. I have more followers now, so people are actually interacting with me, which is fun. I guess it helps that people are liking the film. If people were hating it, it would be pretty terrible to go on and hear people shit-talking your movie all day.
Plaza and co-star O’Shea Jackson, Jr. build buzz for Ingrid Goes West in a post on Plaza’s Instagram account
moviemakermag: @hellomattspicer @elizabetholsenig @plazadeaubrey How fun or how dreadful was it to shoot in L.A.? #StayingHomeForThisOne
hellomattspicer: It definitely posed its own set of challenges. The thing about L.A. is that it’s an industry town, so you can’t pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. If you want to shoot in a convenience store, they’re like, “I just had a commercial shoot here the other day, and they paid us 20 grand to shoot here,” whereas if you were shooting in Alabama or something, they might be so excited that we’re shooting a movie there that they’d be like, “Yeah, just shoot here for free!” So definitely, for an independent film like ours, with a lower budget, it posed some challenges in that regard. But I think it allowed us to get a better cast, because they don’t have to fly to the middle of nowhere. They can just go home and sleep in their own bed at night, and they work on other stuff, so it’s super-convenient. There are pluses and minuses to it, for sure.
elizabetholsenig: I don’t think I’ve ever worked in L.A. before. It was my first time.
plazadeaubrey: I have before, but this one was really unique. We didn’t have a day off and we shot in really interesting locations. We actually shot in Venice, which I loved, that part was really great. We got both: We got fun in Venice and we got dreadful in the desert, with 110-degree heat. We got to see all parts of L.A. We got to see the fires, the dirty shacks in Los Feliz… lots of things.
elizabetholsenig: Working in L.A., I need to figure out how to get used to it, because I would like to do television, I would like to work here. If I was to have a really long-term job, I would like to be in L.A. I don’t want to be somewhere else, but I like being isolated on location. I like that loneliness. You don’t have other responsibilities, you’re only there to do one thing. Then I come home and I embrace being home and embrace seeing my friends and my family, and hosting. Having to work, like filming a movie, while having to maintain those responsibilities, I find stressful. But I think you eventually find balance if you do a T.V. show.
plazadeaubrey: A T.V. show is different, because you can kind of carve out a life for yourself that’s a little more consistent, but doing a movie you just never know—even when shooting in L.A. But I like being isolated too. It’s tricky.
Olsen and Plaza in a still from Ingrid Goes West, featured on the film’s official Instagram account
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