Alia Shawkat Has Thoughts About Actors Who Don’t Work With Female Filmmakers

Alia Shawkat has been trying to star in a stoner comedy for years. She signed on to Dylan Meyer ‘s The Wrong Girls during the pandemic, giving a near-instant yes after her first coffee meeting with the writer-director and with the knowledge that the project would reunite her with her The Runaways costar Kristen Stewart . The group put on a table read for investors, and secured the financing to move forward. Then Shawkat got pregnant. The actress isn’t one to let anything get in the way of a job — she points out that she shot both the second season of The Old Man and the movie Atropia during her pregnancy — but The Wrong Girls requires some specific considerations. Related Stories Movies 'End of Oak Street' Chomps $2.5M in Box Office Previews Movies 'End of Oak Street' Box Office Aims to Take Bite Out of 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day'

“There is so much weed smoking in this movie,” she says with a laugh. “Even if we could hide my pregnancy, and even though we’re not smoking real weed, you just really can’t do that.”

Shawkat paused her commitment to the film, and — fickle as the indie film industry is — the financing disappeared. “And then I had my kid, and was like, I’m back, and I look normal,” she says. “And they were able to find more money.”

Now, the long-awaited film has finally hit theaters, offering moviegoers an utter rarity: A stoner comedy about women, starring women, and helmed by a first-time female director. Here, the actress tells THR why it was worth the way.

To start, I have to imagine this is one of the more fun press tours you’ve been doing…

We’ve been doing really chill stuff. We were just hanging out with a bodega cat for awhile. All these internet shows are so funny. They’re like, say whatever you want and we’ll edit it into what we need. We did this one called, I think, Natasha Gets the Munchies, and she takes edibles and wears Google glasses and films her meals. Kristen and I met up with her at Korean barbecue, and we all just ate. She didn’t even ask us questions. It was like, do you guys like acting? It was so low-key. I was like, wow, journalism has changed.

Kristen and I trip out on it so much, because we spent our lives making film and television and we’re like, this has nothing to do with it. I feel like an old person. I’ve been looking up these formats because I’ve never heard of any of these internet shows and it’s like, they have Oprah Winfrey on.

I used to get invited to a lot of kid premieres when I was a child actor. I was at like the Inspector Gadget premiere. I remember being on a red carpet and everyone screaming my name, and I was really shocked. They were probably pronouncing my name wrong too. I looked like a little adult, with a purse and my hand on my hip. I was like, I’m a woman. I also did a TV Guide blurb when I was nine and my mom still has it at our house. I think I talked about having a cat.

Tell me about getting started on The Wrong Girls ; it’s had a really long path to the screen.

Dylan wrote it 13 years ago. She always had Kristen in mind, and then years later they met and got married. Dylan was like, I sent you a script a long time ago, and Kristen was like, no you didn’t.