Maisy Stella hadn’t heard the word “action” in years.
The 20-year-old actor grew up on the set of the ABC drama “Nashville,” in which she and her older sister, Lennon, played the daughters of Connie Britton’s country music superstar. After the show ended, Stella, then 15, took a break from Hollywood to attend high school. (“I romanticized it for so long,” she says. “All I cared about was having a backpack and locker.”)
Having graduated, she’s returning to the screen in Megan Park’s “My Old Ass,” a coming-of-age comedy that premiered at Sundance. That’s where Amazon MGM bought the film, which opens in theaters nationwide on Sept. 19. But after all that time away, Stella was nervous about her first day back on set.
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“I remember thinking I did a horrible job,” she recalls of the scene, which required her to storm into a lake fully clothed. “There was a little piece of wood underneath me. If I went two steps to my right or two steps to my left, I’d plummet. And there were only four pairs of pants I could change into. So I had to nail it.”
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Eventually, those early jitters wore off. “I just kept at it,” she says. “I got more and more comfy as we went on.”
In “My Old Ass,” Stella plays 18-year-old Elliott, who is spending the summer with her friends before heading to college in Toronto. While tripping on mushrooms in the woods, she comes face-to- face with the middle-aged version of herself (Aubrey Plaza). The 39-year-old Elliott doles out sage advice to be nicer to Mom, spend more time with her brothers … and stay away from anyone named Chad. (Easy enough, right?) At first, young Elliott doesn’t believe what she’s seeing — and it’s not like they share any resemblance.
Stella is aware that she and Plaza aren’t exactly mirror images of each other. Stella is blonde and Canadian; Plaza is a half-Puerto Rican brunette. But their dissimilarities aren’t the point. “We know we don’t look alike, but Megan was like, ‘Who do we want to see beside Elliott?’ Every time, it was Aubrey,” Stella says. The film’s makeup artist did match Stella’s tattoos – she has seven, including the number 74 for her parents’ birthyear on her arm and a deer on her shoulder — to Plaza before filming. “When I saw that on Aubrey’s back,” Stella marvels, “I truly lost my mind.”
It’s also best not to think too much about the time-travel elements, which allow Elliott’s two selves to text and talk on the phone. “Megan and I joke about this a lot,” Stella says with a laugh. “If you’re going to analyze the technical parts, don’t even watch it. It’s not meant to be, like, realism in any way.”
Though “My Old Ass” is her first major film role, Stella started working in entertainment more than a decade ago. She and Lennon went viral in 2012 thanks to a YouTube video of the sisters singing Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend.” Stella, then 8, says people still express surprise when they realize she’s the young girl from the “cup song.”
“I’ll forever love that video. It’s the reason my sister and I were able to get our visas to do ‘Nashville,’” says Stella, who was born in Ontario. “Also, I was young enough where it’s still cute. I got away with it. My sister was 12 or 13, so it’s a little embarrassing.”
Moments from the “My Old Ass” shoot also inspire a bit of pensiveness, particularly those that took Stella out of her comfort zone. Elliott lives on her family’s lakeside cranberry farm, which called for Stella to drive a boat and a tractor. (Like her character, Stella owns a small tin boat but no boating license.)
“I had to be taught how to do all of that. My 18-year-old self was like, ‘I got this,’ but now, I’d be so scared to do that,” she says.
Park, who acted on “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” before pivoting to directing, refers to Stella as an old soul. “Hanging out with her, I feel like I’m talking to somebody who’s 38 — my age,” says the director. “But then she’ll say something Gen Z, and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, you’re so young.’”
Stella admits that she’s always been nostalgically inclined, but filming “My Old Ass” put that penchant into overdrive. In the movie, Elliott gets reflective about the fleetingness of time as she meets the boy she was warned about, sparking a funny journey of self-discovery.
“When I went to film, I was like, ‘I’ve had these epiphanies. I know I’m not taking my family for granted,’” she says. “Actually doing it really opened me up, and the entire concept of the movie, every beat of it, I definitely took into my own life.”
