Megan Park was in the car leaving the Sundance premiere of her new film, My Old Ass, when one of her producers, Tom Ackerly, made an observation: “The stories you tell get inside people’s hearts.”
Ackerly, a co-founder of LuckyChap Entertainment with wife Margot Robbie, knows about getting into people’s hearts — he’s one of the executive producers of Barbie.
“It meant so much to me that he thought that, but it also struck me as something I really wanted to do as a filmmaker,” she says. “Get inside people’s hearts, regardless of the story or genre.”
My Old Ass, which Park wrote and directed, is the story of Elliott (Maisy Stella) who meets her older self (Aubrey Plaza). After raves at Sundance, it was quickly acquired by Amazon MGM Studios. The film follows her feature writing-directing debut, 2022’s The Fallout, and the 2017 short film “Lucy In My Eyes,” winner of the Austin Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short.
She learned filmmaking on the job as an actor: She started at 18, earning credits including Dog Days, Young Sheldon, Jane the Virgin, Happy Endings, Entourage, and The Secret Life of the American Teenager.
In our latest Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker, she shares advice about learning, feeling, and believing.—M.M.
1. Everyone has something to say. If you have the desire to tell it in the format of a film… do it. I wish they let more kids and people with zero filmmaking experience make movies because I think the industry needs some fresh takes. If you’re old enough to write a script and hold a camera and you have something you want to say, that’s enough life experience.
2. People fall into filmmaking from all different areas of “training.” I certainly felt like, being an actor, I wasn’t qualified to become a writer or a director — but I think I had learned more than I had realized just being on sets and reading so many scripts and working with so many different actors and directors.
But I felt embarrassed that I didn’t know everything about cameras or lenses or cinema history or lighting. So, I just try to surround myself with people who are collaborative and do know what they’re talking about in their area of expertise and trust them and work as a team.
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Megan Park on My Old Ass and Making Something You Love
3. Don’t overthink. Trust your gut. Don’t try to be like anyone else. Just make something you love and see what happens.
4. A lot of incredible artists I’ve worked with have influenced me, as well as many I have never met, but I think I’m most influenced by emotions: Feelings. Worries. Fears. Joys. Whenever I’m feeling a strong emotion, my imagination kind of goes wild and that’s when stories and characters begin to emerge.
5. I probably spend the most time editing. Which is funny. For My Old Ass we spent five or six weeks shooting, but then twice that editing. The movie is truly three things. The script. Shooting it on set. And what you do with what you shot on set in the edit. It evolves so much and I always say I learn way more about filmmaking in the edit than anywhere else.
As grueling as the edit can be, it’s also a really magical, creative process with the right collaborators.
6. Eat. People laugh because I eat so much when I’m on set. It’s the only way I can survive a shoot. So if you see me on set I am absolutely snacking or drinking coffee, all day long.
7. You don’t have to be a cinephile and know all the cool old movies and directors. I grew up in a house without a TV. I just saw Forrest Gump. (Loved it.) But you don’t need to be super well versed in cinema history to make a great movie.
My Old Ass arrives in theaters Friday from Amazon MGM Studios.
Main image: Megan Park directs Maisy Stella in My Old Ass. Photo by Marni Grossman. Photos courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.