After 14 years in film and TV, the in-demand actor chose My Sister Jill for her main-stage theatre debut.

Melbourne is in the final throes of winter when I meet Angourie Rice on a rain-soaked footpath outside the MTC’s headquarters in Southbank. We’ve both arrived 10 minutes early, and I have already read enough about this hardworking and ambitious young veteran of film and TV to know that her punctuality is not entirely surprising.

At 22, Rice has been acting for 14 years, podcasting for four and is about to add published author to her CV. There is, it seems, no time to waste. When I ask her later why she’s so driven, she laughs and suggests that her star sign is to blame: Google the list of Capricorn traits and you’ll see where she’s coming from.

We’re here to talk about her upcoming appearance in the MTC premiere of My Sister Jill, the latest project from playwright Patricia Cornelius and director Susie Dee. There’s also a novel co-written with her mother, Kate, and The Community Library podcast to discuss, but any mention of her film and TV projects – either previous or upcoming – is off-limits in the midst of the SAG strike. Suffice to say that there’s a long roll-call of reasons why Rice made Variety’s list of actors to watch in 2021.

There’s no Hollywood-style hubris, though, as we await instructions on where our interview will take place; Rice shows me a photo of her whippet/kelpie cross and chats about how much she’s loving being back in Melbourne, after years (barring lockdowns) of travelling between LA and home. It was just one of the reasons she signed on for the part of Christine in My Sister Jill.

“I wanted to do more theatre work, and so I began receiving more theatre scripts to read,” she says. “This one really stood out because it’s exceptionally well written. I loved the family dynamics in it, I loved that it was a true ensemble piece; each person gets their own story line, their own arc. Practically, for me, it felt safer and easier to start doing theatre again with something that felt very much like a group.”

The play, based on Cornelius’ semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, takes place over several years, in a family caught between the shadow of World War II and the looming threat of the Vietnam draft. Father Jack, an ex-POW suffering PTSD, is haunted by his experiences and ill-equipped for family life. Christine, the youngest of his five children, clings doggedly to her belief that Jack is a war hero, not the alcoholic bully that her siblings fear and loathe.

At the start of the play, in her role as narrator, she tells the audience: “Look at him, would you? Would you look? He’s huge, he’s mighty, he’s magnificent. He’s about eight-foot tall, he can crush stone with his bare hands, he can lift a car off the ground, he can pull a tree out by the roots. He can. I know, it’s hard to believe but that’s the truth. And he’s brave. Incredibly brave. He’s a survivor, mum says, a survivor. He lasted. He did. He came out the other side. He’s a remarkable man. Look at him. What a man my dad is. What a man.”

Cornelius’ father, Leo, spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war and was on a Japanese ship transporting POWs to Japan when it was torpedoed by a US submarine. He spent six days drifting on a liferaft, watching his comrades die, and came home from the war a damaged man.

“The impact on my family was enormous, as I think it was on any family,” Cornelius says. “Someone has gone to war a young, fresh man and returned a totally different man, a very damaged one … that’s definitely my father.”

One of the central themes of the play is the yearning for parental love, expressed most poignantly in the thwarted endeavours of oldest boy Johnnie, who is rebuffed by Jack at every turn.

“We all yearned, and yearn still, some of us, for the love of our parents,” Cornelius says. “As corny as that sounds on some level, there is something that hits you in the guts about that and it’s so simple and so universally recognised: this yearning to just be loved.”

For Rice’s Christine, the yearning manifests as a desire to be just like Jack. Her imaginary play evokes the derring-do of the battlefield: she has lives to save, messages to pass on, dangerous journeys to make.

“She wants to be like him when she grows up, she wants to be a hero, she wants to fight in battles,” says Rice. “She doesn’t want to realise the real battle that’s happening around her.”

On this domestic battlefront, Jack’s main combatant is his oldest child, the smart and steely Jill, who steers her siblings – Johnnie, Christine and twins Mouse and Door – away from his line of fire.

A month out from opening, the family dynamics are playing out inside a large rehearsal room scattered with props: beds are lined up at the rear, makeshift walls conjure a working-class home, and costume drawings decorate a corner of the room. Dee, whose long-running creative partnership with Cornelius has delivered some of Australian theatre’s most powerful moments, joins her seven actors – the children are all played by adults – in a circle, as they limber up with physical and vocal exercises, tossing an imaginary ball to one another and reciting, with increasing speed, a passage that is filled with tongue-tripping words: “Trinidad”, “Mississippi”, “Lake Titicaca”.

In a run-through of the opening scene, Ian Bliss, as Jack, is playful but menacing, holding a bucket of water, and calling, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” as the children scatter. His wife, Martha, played by Maude Davey, is described in the script notes as “mid to late 40s. Worn out. Full of sighs.” Dealing with a traumatised, abusive husband and the impact on her children has hollowed her out. When her boisterous youngest child climbs into her lap, begging to be held, she snaps: “Christine, you’re too old for this … give me a break.”

When we chat later, Dee agrees that even at this early stage, there’s a sense that something special is unfolding inside the rehearsal room.

“I think all the actors in the room feel that this is a special new work,” she says. “It’s close to a writer’s heart and head … She’s so lean, Patricia, because she knows the world so well. It could have been a much longer play, but she cuts to the quick, takes no prisoners … There’s a vitality in the work, which is so great for actors and for a director. I feel really blessed.”

For Rice, her mainstage debut has brought its surprises, from the courage of her fellow cast members – “everyone just jumped into it with no fear or inhibitions” – to the sheer physicality required.

“I knew that I would have to work on my breathing and my voice,” she says. “I didn’t fully think that I would be sore after the first day of rehearsals. Christine is a really physical character, she’s constantly moving, running, jumping, rolling around – she’s really active and I want to embody that fully. I feel very connected to the character and the story when you feel it in every part of your body.

The stage, for Rice, represents something of a homecoming; both her parents are involved in the theatre, Jeremy as a director and Kate as a writer.

“I was constantly in theatres as a kid,” she recalls. “My dad worked at a theatre company right next to my primary school, so I would go there after school and I would sit in on rehearsals … my sister and I would just sit in the corner and colour in or draw. And because my dad mainly works in theatre for young people, we were often the test audiences, so we would sit there and give suggestions, or say no, we didn’t like that, it wasn’t funny, or yes, that was funny, keep that in.”

This connection to family is a recurring theme in Rice’s screen work, particularly the relationship between mothers and daughters. While her characters often chafe against the maternal bond, her own relationship with her mother is such that, even during the process of writing a novel together, not a single door was slammed.

The result, Stuck Up & Stupid, updates one of Rice’s favourite books, Pride and Prejudice. After re-reading the Jane Austen classic during COVID lockdowns, she asked her mother to write a modern retelling of the story. Kate, who’d had the same idea years earlier, suggested they write it together.

“She dug up her old idea from, I think, 2008, and came up with a whole table and chart of the chapters in the original book and how we were going to write it, character comparisons, and all that kind of stuff,” Rice recalls. “In the summer of 2020-21, we wrote the first draft by hand over a month or six weeks … what was really fun is that we had something to talk about that was shared … something that we did together.

“There was never any fighting … We disagreed on some things but we’re both willing to a) listen to what the other person says and b) back up our ideas. If we disagreed it was never a hard fight.”

The publisher’s notes refer to the novel as a modern tale that “captures the spirit and energy of Austen’s original satire of manners”. Set in a coastal town in NSW, it recasts Mr Darcy and his uppity cronies as Hollywood stars and influencers. Very modern indeed.

Rice’s foray into fiction seems like a logical move for the self-described “big book nerd” and host of The Community Library – “a podcast about stories and how and why we tell them”. Rice writes and delivers fortnightly episodes promoting the joy of reading in a way that is as playful as it is informative (in one episode, her sister, Kalliope, rates, in a less than scientific manner, the opening lines of a series of novels). Her listeners, mostly aged between 18 and 25, are part of a growing community of readers who swap recommendations on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

“I feel really happy that I’m part of the book community online,” Rice says. “Before TikTok blew up, I had been watching YouTube videos about people talking about books for a long time and also Instagram and blogs … I think the internet has been so wonderful for so many communities … people who might not have a reading community in real life find it online and it is how I find out about half of the books I read.”

As podcast host, Rice revisits her childhood favourites, including Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series, The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner, and L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. She talks about wanting to be more like those fearless girls who were always heading off on thrilling adventures. The feistiness of Montgomery’s heroine was something to aspire to but, in truth, Rice was more like Anne’s friend, Diana: bookish, sensible, and, frankly, “a bit meek”.

So has acting allowed her to explore these longed-for traits?

“I think it is always interesting to me to choose roles that have character traits that I want and not necessarily that I have because it’s great to explore that in a safe, contained setting,” Rice says. “When I was a kid I sort of wanted to be everything and acting gave me the opportunity to do that – I could be everything I wanted to be.”

For now, inside a Southbank rehearsal room, she’s a young Melbourne girl trying hard not to see the pain that surrounds her, but she could be any daughter, in any family, anywhere in the world, doing her best to love the imperfect people with whom she shares her life. Look at them, would you? They’re trying to survive, yearning for love and dreaming of better days to come. Look at them. They’re a lot like you and me.

My Sister Jill is at Southbank Theatre from September 23; mtc.com.au. Stuck Up & Stupid, by Angourie and Kate Rice, will be published by Walker Books on November 1.

Source: theage.com.au

For Angourie Rice, everything comes back to stories.

Since making her film debut before even becoming a teen, Rice has worked on projects like the recent Spider-Man trilogy, Mare of Easttown, and now The Last Thing He Told Me where she stars opposite Jennifer Garner. The AppleTV+ and Hello Sunshine production is based on the #1 New York Times bestselling novel of the same name and tells the story of a step-mother, played by Garner, who develops an unexpected relationship with her step-daughter Bailey, played by Rice, after Bailey’s father suddenly disappears without a trace.

For Rice, it’s a project that merges a mix of her interests in one: books, storytelling, and projects that empower women to come together to create something special. Capturing Bailey’s teen angst and balancing her fraught mental state is something Rice does with ease; showcasing her ability to tap into the inner psyches of her characters to embody them fully rather than turning them into a caricature.

Storytelling doesn’t just drive her as an actress as she deftly selects roles that open up her own worldview, but also as an avid reader and writer herself. Her podcast The Community Library and her upcoming book — a collaboration with her mum, inspired by Pride and Prejudice called Stuck Up and Stupid — deepens her connection to storytelling, showing her the importance of highlighting the tales that aren’t told as often as they should be.

Sitting down with 1883 Magazine, Angourie Rice chats about her role in Apple TV+’s The Last Thing He Told Me, the process behind creating backstories for her characters, gravitating towards projects with women at the helm, and more.

This conversation does contain light spoilers.

It’s been two years since we last spoke and last time we talked about Mare of Easttown, the ending of Spider-Man, and starting adulthood. You started acting so young and it brought you “fame” at such a young age. When you look back at where you started, how would you describe the way you’ve grown and developed as an actress from then to now?

I think more about things now; I wonder if that’s for better or for worse. The older you get, the more you notice patterns in stories, in people, and in communities. Now that I’m older, I think more about what stories mean, how often we tell certain stories, how other ones get ignored, and what those stories mean to us as a culture. When I was younger, I didn’t think about that as much because you’re a kid and you don’t have to. I feel like that’s the difference now and that informs how I play characters as well while also informing what project I go for and what stories I find interesting.

I think you’re at such an interesting point in your career where you’ve been involved in a big blockbuster, you’ve starred in critically acclaimed shows, and you’ve had this really beautiful career progression. Do you spend a lot of time reflecting on your career so far?

Do I spend time reflecting? I don’t know [laughs]. I kind of forget things and I will be reminded of something and won’t believe that I did it or that I worked with a certain person. I think because each project that I’ve done is in its own bubble and its own place. I mean, when you travel, you usually film in cities that you’ve never been to before. You stay at a hotel and then you leave and never go back there again. They all kind of exist as little tiny points in time. Sometimes I think about it and it feels like a dream, like it didn’t really happen.

Do you look at them like chapters in a book?

Absolutely. It’s how I measure time as well because it all correlates or corresponds to high school or the pandemic or my years out of high school. I remember what I was doing in life, like high school or the pandemic, by remembering what project I was working on at the time.

Yeah, I remember we talked about you living in Philly while you were filming Mare of Easttown in the pandemic.

Yeah, we were in Philadelphia. We started filming late 2019 and then we were shut down in March of 2020. And then went back in September of 2020.

Back then, because of the pandemic, you had to sit with the character for nine months. With Bailey in The Last Thing He Told Me, was there anything that you did differently to flesh her out? There are similarities between the two.

Yeah, there are similarities. With Siobhan [Mare of Easttown] she had to become an adult really young. With Bailey, we see her still being treated like a child and asking everyone to treat her like an adult and to tell her the truth. They’re both young people who have gone through a traumatic event.

What’s different with Bailey, which was so intriguing to me, is that we see her go through it in real time. That was a different process to kind of live in that anxiety and nervousness of the unknown because that is where Bailey is for so much of the show. Since the show takes place over five days, everything feels so immediate and so present which is what I really liked about it and felt like I could do a lot to work with as an actor. What I liked about the process of creating that character was really breaking down every single scene and moment that she has to have this immediate reaction or response because she hasn’t had time to think things over. She hasn’t had time to sit with it, it’s all about that fight or flight response that she’s in the whole time.

You see her going through the motions when she’s watching those home movies at her Aunt’s house, it’s the first time she has a moment to process and you can see her mind going a million miles a minute.

That scene was really hard because it was difficult to just imagine someone experiencing that whole sequence because Bailey gains a family and loses them all over again. It was really tricky to have this sense of belonging and seeing yourself as a child with all these people who loved you and these people you called family, but then also at the same time having this really deep sadness because you don’t have that anymore. That was really hard, but it’s a moment that, for me, really defines who Bailey is for the rest of the show. There is a bittersweet pain of finally getting to know the truth and finally getting to the bottom of it, but it still doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t make everything better and it really hurts.

I know it’s the most recent thing you watched, so how has your perception of it changed as a viewer vs. acting in it?

What’s always strange about watching something that you’ve done is that it’s an edited version of it, it’s an edited collage of your life over the past five months. We did all of the location shoots at the end, so seeing what we filmed on the last day slotted into some scenes that we shot at the beginning was strange to watch back. When seeing it for the first time as a viewer, I felt sorry for Hannah in a way that I didn’t when I was playing Bailey. Bailey doesn’t feel sorry for Hannah, she disregards her completely. So watching it and seeing Jen’s beautiful performance and seeing her performance in scenes that I wasn’t there for, I really felt for her. That was funny as an audience member to feel that because I didn’t before when I was playing the character.

Although the series centres around the disappearance of Bailey’s father, its focus is on the connection and relationship of Bailey and her step-mother. Between this and Mare of Easttown, it seems like you gravitate to projects that explore the workings of close female relationships.

Absolutely. That’s my whole life. My whole life is relationships with women in my life, friends, family. So, it’s something that has always been there in the media, but you just have to look for it a little bit more. Women have been writing about their thoughts and feelings for a very long time. It just depends on how many people were listening at the time. So, because it’s just such a big part of my life, that’s what I want to tell stories about. That’s what I find really interesting and intriguing. Reese Witherspoon has built her whole production company around that idea of telling stories about women which I think is so fantastic and wonderful and I feel so fortunate to have worked with Hello Sunshine on this. It’s really inspiring to see women behind the camera as well. We had four female directors, a bunch of female producers, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It meant a lot to me.

Yeah, you’ve worked with incredibly esteemed actresses like Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, and now Jennifer Garner, and the set being full of female creatives behind-the-scenes must’ve been really empowering for you.

It was very inspiring. I think because it’s just the simplest thing of seeing things like that actually happening. You can believe in theory that things can happen but once you are on set and seeing all these women in roles of power and department heads, that made me feel like it’s possible. It’s not just some crazy idea. It can happen and it can work.

It’s very much a love story between Hannah and Owen, Owen and his daughter, and how both those stories — and the subsequent disappearance of Owen, the thing they shared — creates the space for Hannah and Bailey to connect. Obviously Owen trusts Hannah and sees something in her that eventually gets Bailey to break her walls down. What was it like first reading that in the script and then acting it out?

We were able to go through the scripts with Laura Dave and her husband, Josh Singer, who’s the showrunner and producer. We read through it together and made notes and talked through the dialogue. I think breaking it down scene by scene was really helpful. I annotate my scripts and pinpoint moments that I felt that Bailey opened up a bit. What was really exciting for me was building that journey. Bailey is so closed off and harsh in the first two episodes, but what’s exciting is that it gives us the foundation so that, when you get to the final episode, you see how far they’ve come. It’s really impactful and it really hits you. It really impacted me a lot, too. That transformation and that change was something that was so exciting for me and that was created by just combing through the script.

The scene in the finale where Hannah’s hand and you can see her ring and Bailey grabs it was so touching. It’s such a stark difference to the first episode where Bailey says “you taught me that if I didn’t have anything nice to say don’t say it at all” in regards to her step mother. Is there a scene in particular that, when looking back, really sticks out to you?

I really loved that airplane scene. I think it was strange though, because we only had one day at the airport set. We were filming the end of the show in the middle of our filming schedule and it took a lot to get into that headspace. There was something so precious about it when I think back. Another scene that I love is the whole sequence of me and Jen running through Austin just because it was so hot. It was just sweltering. But to see it all cut together with the exciting music is so rewarding because when you’re doing it, it feels exhausting. It’s so hard and physically challenging. To see it come together was really rewarding.

What was your approach like fleshing out Bailey’s character? I know you had the book to reference, but was there anything else you did, read, or watched?

I didn’t make a playlist, but I did listen to a lot of Fleetwood Mac because it was mentioned in the script that she’s wearing a Fleetwood Mac shirt. I do wear one in the show. I also got into musicals because that is what she’s doing at school.

I saw a performance you did from Waitress that got cut!

Yeah, She Used To Be Mine which is really fun! I’m never sad when they cut things because there’s a reason why it didn’t fit, but that was so fun to do.

I love that you’re having these little musical moments in every project. You had one in Mare of Easttown and obviously there’s going to be tons in the Mean Girls musical film.

Right! It’s weird, these musical things just keep coming to me without me thinking about it. For The Last Thing He Told Me I did audition with a song. I sang Second Hand White Baby Grand from Smash, which I haven’t seen the show but my singing teacher put it on a Spotify playlist. If I’d known when I was doing The Last Thing He Told Me that the next project I’d be doing was musical, I probably would have approached it a little differently! [Laughs] I’m proud of my performance and my singing in The Last Thing He Told Me but it’s very different from an actual musical movie.

Now, just like last time, I need to discuss books with you. I love that you still run your podcast, The Community Library. What are you reading at the moment?

Let me grab it! I haven’t unpacked anything yet, it’s a mess in here. I just started reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I’m only 26 pages in but I’ve already found something to underline. This is my third Zadie Smith novel; I’ve read White Teeth and Swing Time. I also read her little essay collection about the pandemic which was amazing. So this is my third Zadie. I think she is already a favourite author but I don’t know how many books you have to read from one person [laughs]. I feel like three is like a good number.

What was the last book you loved?

I just bought it because I borrowed it from the library to read it — Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

Was that a movie?

They turned it into a TV show. This is the best book I’ve read all year. I can’t stop thinking about it. I bought a copy yesterday and went back and underlined and dug up all the things that I loved. It’s one of those books that as soon as I finished it, I went back to the first chapter and reread it and saw so many things that I just didn’t see. I wish I’d read it sooner, although maybe I wouldn’t have been able to. It was written in 2014. It’s about a pandemic that’s quite similar to Coronavirus, but it’s more deadly. It wipes out 98% of the population and it follows multiple characters before the “collapse” as they call it. It’s about how people survive in this post-pandemic world in communities without electricity and the same resources. Surprisingly, it’s mostly about actors and theatre.

Wow, close to home.

Yeah. I didn’t expect that going in. I knew it was kind of about that, but I just can’t stop thinking about it and talking about it.

I know you said you wish you read it sooner, but I’m one of those weird people that believe books find you when you need it.

That’s fair, honestly, because I don’t think I could have read something about the pandemic any earlier. To know that it was written before Coronavirus… So much of the stuff she got right.

If there was one book you wish you could re-read again for the first time with brand new eyes, what would it be?

Would it be Station Eleven? It’s hard because I just read it. My other thought was Virginia Woolf but reading Virginia for the first time feels like I’m not really reading it. I have to read it for a second time to fully understand it. So maybe not bad either. Maybe Pride and Prejudice, because I read that. I’ve known that story for such a long time and it’s one of my favourites. I read it with a friend recently who had never read it before. It was so cool to see her reactions and her predictions as well because she didn’t know the story. I want that experience again.

Yes! And you’re releasing your first book, Stuck Up and Stupid, with your mum and it’s a modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Obviously as an actress so much of what you make is someone else’s creative vision, so did you find this to be a fun playground to explore?
It was so much fun. It was so much problem solving, especially because we’re basing it on a text that already exists. The framework was already there for us which is great, but putting it into a modern world requires problem solving of things that don’t make sense anymore because of technology, politics, societal attitudes, and things like that. We had to figure out what event would elicit the same emotions or the same sort of reactions from people in a modern context. I loved writing it. I loved having the creative freedom. I just can’t wait for people to read it.

We gushed about folklore and evermore last time so now it’s time to gush over Midnights — favourite songs?

As I’ve been talking to you I’ve realized you have the All Too Well movie poster behind you! [Laughs] I can’t pick just one.

It depends on the mood.

It really does! I will say, from the first listen and continuously after, Mastermind has been one of my favourites. A favourite that has grown on me from the first listen that I didn’t love but now is one of my favourite songs is Bejeweled.

It’s a very freeing song.

I think because you can hear Jack Antonoff behind it. I also love his version of Anti-Hero. Bejewelled is just like, “No one can touch me, I’m awesome.” I just love that. It’s an uplifting bop. I also love Sweet Nothing.

I love Sweet Nothing. My friends call it my song because I can’t stop talking about it.

Do you like It’s Nice To Have A Friend?

I do! It sounds like a little love poem.

Yeah and that’s why I love it! It’s underrated. Those two songs are like sister songs.

Well, in two years time we can hopefully talk about more books, more Taylor Swift songs, and your next project.

Yes! It’s always a pleasure. Hopefully it’s sooner this time!

Source: 1883magazine.com

IN CONVERSATION WITH ANGOURIE RICE

Angourie Rice is quickly on her way to becoming a major Hollywood starlet garnering hit success across both film and television. She can be currently seen opposite Jennifer Garner in AppleTV+ and Hello Sunshine’s highly anticipated miniseries ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’, based on Laura Dave’s #1 New York Times bestselling novel of the same name, which premiered on 14th April.

Angourie, you’re starring in AppleTV+ and Hello Sunshine’s miniseries ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’, that follows Hannah, a woman who forms an unexpected relationship with her sixteen-year-old stepdaughter Bailey while searching for the truth about why her husband Owen has mysteriously disappeared. Tell us more about what can we expect to see in the remaining episodes of the series.

You can expect Hannah and Bailey to go on more adventures, separately and together. In the last few episodes you really see their relationship change and evolve into something more caring and supportive. They learn to lean on each other when they need it most.

This miniseries is based on Laura Dave’s #1 New York Times bestselling novel. Have you read the book when you got cast on the project? How does the series differ from the novel?

I read the episode scripts first and then I read the book. Both hooked me and were such quick reads. In the book we’re always with Hannah’s perspective, and what I love about the series adaptation is that we get to see more from other characters. We get more insight from Bailey’s perspective into her relationship with her dad and her experience at school. The book and series are both so compelling and thrilling, but they each tell the story in a slightly different way.

In ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’ you portray Bailey, the 16-year old dayghter of Hannah. What do you love the most about your character Bailey? What was Bailey’s most exciting storyline for you to film?

What excited me about Bailey was the emotional journey she takes. Olivia Newman, one of our directors and producers, pitched the show to me as a love story between Hannah and Bailey. We see a woman who doesn’t know how to be a mother and a girl who doesn’t know how to have a mother. Tracking their journey from adversaries to mother and daughter was so exciting to play.

You’re currently also in production on Paramount’s ‘Mean Girls’, a film adaptation of the Tony-nominated Broadway musical. What will make the fans of the Broadway musical and also the fans of the original film want to see this and love it just as much?

I wish I could say more about it, but I’m sworn to secrecy. All I can say is that ‘Mean Girls’ is an iconic film and I’m so excited to be a part of the musical movie adaptation. It’s a dream come true to be in a musical.

2022 marked your first leading role in the Paramount+ original movie ‘Honor Society’. How has the experience of being in a leading role helped you grow in your career? What have you learned from the experience for the future?

What struck me was how I felt a sense of responsibility. It was a big task and I didn’t want to let anyone down. I think it pushed me to want to be a better actor and scene partner. My favourite thing about the experience was being on set every day. I really got to know the crew and felt part of a community.

In your career so far, you’ve gotten the chance to work alongside some major names in the industry, like Kate Winslet, Jean Smart, Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. Do you get nervous when being cast alongside such iconic artists?

Yes, always. But it goes away as soon as I properly meet them and talk to them. We’re all actors who love our job.

You began your acting career young and had your breakout role in the short film ‘Transmission’ when you were 11. Having been in the business since such a young age, how have you evolved as an actress since then?

I’d have to go back and watch that short film to give you an answer. I remember that I learnt all my lines for the entire film before we even started shooting. Now I know that’s not always practical because they often change the lines.

You come from a creative family. What other creative passions have you developed aside from acting?

I love to knit. And I love writing. My mom’s a writer and we’ve written a book together. It’s a modern adaptation of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ called ‘Stuck Up and Stupid’.

Besides acting, you also have a podcast called ‘The Community Library’, which encourages readers and listeners of all ages to think more critically about the media we consume. What made you decide to start this podcast and especially to do it about this topic?

I wanted to create a project that was completely mine, while sharing my love of stories. After high school, a lot of my friends and I felt burnt out from reading books for English class. I wanted to reignite my love of reading through the podcast and continue to talk about books and stories and reading habits in an accessible way. It’s given me so much joy to connect with other readers on the internet.

After ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’ and ‘Mean Girls’, what’s coming up next for you? What are some of your biggest goals and dreams?

Our book ‘Stuck Up and Stupid’ will be out this year, which is very exciting. I’ve always loved writing and it’s so wonderful to finally share it with the world. I’ll also be doing a play in Australia later this year with Melbourne Theatre Company. It’s called ‘My Sister Jill’. I’m looking forward to exploring the theatre making process, something new for me.

numeromag.nl

“The Last Thing He Told Me”‘s Angourie Rice Is the Queen of Teenage Angst

Angourie Rice is an expert at playing a teenager, even though she turned 22 this past January. Last year, the actor starred as the teenage version of Rebel Wilson in Netflix’s “Senior Year,” as well as a hilariously driven student in the irreverent comedy “Honour Society.” Rice also appeared in the MCU’s Spider-Man movies as Betty Brant, and in 2021’s “Mare of Easttown” she played Siobhan, Mare’s stubborn daughter. Now, in Apple TV+ series “The Last Thing He Told Me,” based on Laura Dave’s bestselling novel of the same name, Rice stars as reeling high schooler Bailey opposite of Jennifer Garner, who plays her stepmom, Hannah, whom she can’t connect with, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays her missing dad, Owen.

“What I really liked about Bailey is that she had such a clear idea of what she loved and what she wanted to do,” Rice tells POPSUGAR. “I really love that Bailey has this really strong idea of who she is and what she wants, but it’s so shattered when her dad disappears because her idea of who she is is intrinsically, inextricably linked with her dad.”

The main relationship in “The Last Thing He Told Me” is between Bailey and Hannah; Bailey doesn’t accept Hannah as her stepmom, but after Owen goes missing they have no choice but to come together. “Olivia Newman, who directed three of the episodes and is an executive producer as well, pitched it to me as a mother-daughter love story, which I really loved,” Rice says of her audition process. “It’s about two women who don’t know how to be in each other’s lives. And throughout the course of the story, they learn how to do that.”

Garner, Rice says, was “an incredible person to work with.” Before shooting even started, they sat down with Dave and Josh Singer (who wrote the series together) to talk through all the scripts, which she says was “so rare” and “such a treat.”

Something Rice has in common with her “The Last Thing He Told Me” character is a love of musical theatre. The day Owen goes missing, Hannah has to pick Bailey up from play rehearsal. Plus, the latter’s bedroom at home is filled with posters for her favourite musicals. In real life, Rice is currently in production for the movie adaptation of the “Mean Girls” musical. In her Apple TV+ series, the actor uses her musical theatre chops as her character sings “Anyone Can Whistle” at school. But she also performed another song that was cut from the show: “She Used to Be Mine” from “Waitress.” Rice explains, “Both [songs] really connect with Bailey as a character, and it’s so beautiful for Bailey as this moody teenager, she is able to say and express how she’s feeling through musical theatre rather than through words.”

“Musical theatre and art, it gives you something to hold onto,” she continues. “It gives you stories when you might not have stories.” Bailey, she says, doesn’t have a lot of stories in her life. “She has her entire life with her dad, but how much does she know about her mom? How much does she know about her life before her mom died? Probably not much at all,” Rice notes. “I liked the idea that Bailey loves musical theatre so much because it allows her to enact stories that she might not have in her real life.”

One of Rice’s favourite days of filming “The Last Thing He Told Me” was when she and the cast filmed a flashback scene where Bailey, Hannah, and Owen all get dinner together. “That was really fun because Jen and I both love Nikolaj and we missed him so much,” she explains. After Coster-Waldau’s character goes missing in the first episode, he’s only seen briefly in the series through flashbacks. “For that scene, we were so excited to see him again, and he’s so lovely and a bundle of energy and just always brings something fun,” Rice adds.

Rice was the youngest cast member on the set of “The Last Thing He Told Me,” but for the “Mean Girls” movie musical, she’s among fellow rising Gen Z stars like Auli’i Cravalho, Reneé Rapp, “The Summer I Turned Pretty”‘s Christopher Briney, and “Senior Year”‘s Avantika Vandanapu. “They told me I can’t say anything about it,” she warns of the film’s production. However, she is allowed to dish about her costars. “Everyone is so incredibly talented, but also I think everyone has an energy that matches each other,” Rice says. “We all really, really get along, so that’s been really nice, just that we’re all on the same page with the way we work and all of that.”

Rice never actually got to see the “Mean Girls” musical since it hasn’t gone to Australia yet and the Broadway production was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. But she says she’s seen the movie innumerable times. “I called my mom yesterday. She was like, ‘I can’t believe you are there. I would just remember watching that movie with you over and over and over again,'” Rice shares.

The 22-year-old actor admits that there are some odd parts of playing a teenager on screen during her actual teenage years and into her early 20s. She filmed “Spider-Man: Homecoming” in 2016 when she was just 15. “It’s very weird to see your coming of age captured and frozen in time in a movie franchise,” Rice says. Though she hasn’t watched the movies since they were released, she jokes that she might watch “Spider-Man: Homecoming” on a plane one day.

To this day, Rice still keeps in touch with her Spider-Man castmate Tony Revolori, who helped round out the group of teens at the high school attended by Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and Zendaya’s MJ. “We text every so often, asking about each other’s families, and that’s really nice,” Rice says. “We’ve known each other for seven years now, and when we met I was halfway through high school and now I’m an adult.”

As Rice leaves her onscreen adolescence behind and looks to the future, she admits she’d love to do a Jane Austen adaptation. “Clueless” and the 1995 BBC “Pride and Prejudice” miniseries are her favourites, and she’d love to play the title hero in “Emma” one day. “But also to play Elizabeth Bennet is also a dream. I feel like she’s one of the greatest literary characters,” she says. But first, Rice is putting her own foot in the adaptation game. She and her mom, Kate Rice, have written a modern adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” called “Stuck Up and Stupid.” It’ll hit bookstores in Australia this fall, and she’s hoping for a US release date soon.

The actor and her mom, she says, are a perfect creative pair. “I can’t imagine writing alone, and I can’t imagine writing with anyone else,” says Rice. “It was so good to share the work, and we know each other so well, and we both have the same sort of sense of humour and the same ideas and same style of storytelling.”

For now, though, Rice is excited for fans to get wrapped up in the “intriguing mystery” of “The Last Thing He Told Me.” When she got the scripts, she stayed up late in the middle of production to keep reading about what happens in the show, and she thinks fans will be hooked, too.

Source: popsugar.co.uk

One to Watch: Angourie Rice Is Telling Her Own Origin Story

She’s yourself in a former life, the rebellious daughter navigating grief, the high school overachiever who learns to have fun—Angourie Rice is tackling archetypes left and right, all while making her way onto streaming platforms everywhere.

In 2021, the Aussie-born actress quickly turned heads her way thanks to juicy roles in HBO Max‘s Mare of Easttown (the Kate Winslet-led thriller from peak lockdown binge watching) and as Daily Bugle reporter Betty Brant in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Okay, NBD! But with back-to-back 2022 bookings like Netflix’s Senior Year with Rebel Wilson and the titular role in Honor Society (now streaming on Paramount+), alongside Gaten Matarazzo of Stranger Things, we’re seeing Angourie take a much-deserved step to center stage—and our Spidey senses tell us this is just the beginning.

Behind the scenes, she’s all-in on her craft: diving into scripts, devouring stories, and exploring new mediums (she’s a podcaster, too!) to build a foundation that will surely serve her for years to come. So to capture her icon-in-the-making essence, we brought the star-studded glam team of hairstylist Kat Thompson (don’t miss the step-by-step style breakdowns), makeup artist Katrina Klein, and wardrobe stylist Rebecca Grice to Fairfax High School to channel entertainment idols from the ‘90s to now—with Grice’s epic vintage collection to set the mood. But first, we went tête-à-tête with Angourie to get the scoop on life, style, and everything in between.

Mane Addicts: Growing up with a family in entertainment, did you always know you wanted to pursue a career in the arts?
Angourie Rice: I always wanted to do something creative, though I didn’t know what exactly. I wanted to be an author, a singer, a dancer, an astronaut at one point! Eventually, I figured that being an actor meant I could be anything.

MA: Honor Society is officially out on Paramount+…congratulations! How did you prepare for the role of Honor and her rivalry with Gaten Matarrazo’s character, Michael?
AR: Thank you so much! I’m so excited that it’s finally out there in the world. Gaten and I had a few rehearsals before we began filming, which was a great help. We spoke about the characters’ dynamic and their relationship. I’m a huge fan of Fleabag, and I found a lot of inspiration from Fleabag’s relationship with The Priest in season two. He’s the first person who really sees her—and that’s what happens with Honor and Michael, too. She feels so vulnerable around him because he sees right through her façade.

MA: It seems you’ve been initiated into American high school life through your roles in Honor Society, Senior Year, and Spider-Man: No Way Home—what was your real life high school experience like?
AR: My real life high school experience was pretty standard. It was interrupted by me traveling for work, but when I was at home, I went to my local public high school in Melbourne. It was great to make friends separate from film work.

MA: Those roles must also feel so larger-than-life compared to the heavier themes and realism of Mare of Easttown. What was it like working with such a stark contrast in subject matter?
AR: I knew Mare of Easttown was going to be a challenge, and it was. The show is dark and the characters are healing from so much trauma. But I really connected to Siobhan as a character when I first read the script, and I wanted to be a part of telling her story. What was great about Mare was that everyone was so invested in it. So even though the story was heavy, everyone’s dedication made the process comfortable.

MA: Let’s also talk about that Mare of Easttown hair! Was that chop a mutual idea between you and the makeup/hair department?
AR: It was my suggestion! In the script, Siobhan’s hair was long and auburn and shaved on one side. I’d had long hair for such a long time, I was ready for a change. I sent them pictures of Kristen Stewart’s short blonde hair, and they said they’d think about it. I thought they hadn’t gone for it, but when I showed up on my first day of pre-production, they said: “We’re cutting your hair!” That day, I came home with all my hair gone.

MA: Did it take a minute to embrace the hairstyle for yourself?
AR: Definitely. My long hair was such a big part of my femininity and sense of self. I had to reframe my own style and the way I present myself to the world. It was strange, because the short hair felt like a part of Siobhan, rather than myself. I had to take extra care to separate myself from the character and find my own style with the short hair.

MA: It looks like there are a lot of exciting projects in the works for you which probably means tons of travel…what are your must-haves for life-on-the-go?
AR: Always my journal, and a little sketchbook and pen. I like having something to write on or draw with when I’m waiting or traveling. It’s nicer than looking at my phone.

MA: You’ve been the host of The Community Library for a few years now. Can you tell us more about how it came to be and why it’s such a passion project for you?
AR: I started The Community Library when I graduated high school, because I missed reading and discussing books. I also wanted to focus on the accessibility of discussing books using critical thinking. Talking about stories is for everyone—you don’t need a degree or fancy vocabulary. All you need is some ideas, and some evidence to back it up. My hope is that The Community Library is for anyone interested in how and why we tell stories.

MA: Who is your dream guest for your podcast?
AR: I’d love to have Jacqueline Wilson on the podcast! She’s one of my favorite children’s authors and I grew up reading and loving her books.

MA: As a voracious reader, have there been any stories you’ve read that have influenced your personal style?
AR: I grew up with the Charlie and Lola books by Lauren Child—they’re children’s picture books about a little girl called Lola and her big brother Charlie. I always loved the brightly patterned collage style of the illustrations. I still love bright patterns and colors—I think that sense of fun is important to my style and how I want to present to the world.

MA: Have any characters helped you explore different facets of yourself?
AR: Yes, many! Emma Woodhouse from Jane Austen’s Emma is the first one who comes to mind. She’s a very flawed main character, but that’s what I love about her. She has a very strong arc of learning and growing, but she doesn’t completely change who she is. She holds on to the unique qualities that make her herself, while still learning from her mistakes.

MA: Are there any characters from the books you’ve read that you would love to play?
AR: Playing a Jane Austen heroine has always been a dream of mine. But I also recently read In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes. It’s a 1947 noir crime novel set in L.A. The female lead in that book would be great to play—I love the cool demeanor of the femme fatale, but Hughes gives her much more depth.

MA: Tell us about your time as a literature student. How has that helped formulate your podcast?
AR: I took literature in my senior year of high school and loved it. It pushed me to think deeper about the media I consume, but it also taught me many practical skills, too. I learned how to write an essay very quickly! And that’s stuck with me while creating the podcast.

MA: Do you have any plans to ever write your own book one day?
AR: Maybe! I always wrote stories as a kid. It’s so much fun, but also a lot of work! A very different skill and craft to acting.

MA: Have you ever been able to have any influence over script changes for some of the characters you’ve played?
AR: I think understanding story conventions and historical storytelling patterns is very helpful in analyzing a script or a character. But I think, more than anything, creating The Community Library has taught me to ask “why”. Why is this character behaving in this way? Why is the story told this way? If the reason isn’t justifiable, then we can suggest changes. But it all starts with curiosity and an openness to listen to others.

MA: You channeled a few ‘90s icons for our One to Watch shoot—who are your personal icons (for style or whatever!) and why?
AR: Cher in Clueless is definitely a style icon for me, and I was very excited to wear some Cher-inspired looks in the photoshoot! I love how she keeps classic silhouettes, but adds fun patterns and layers. Kristen Stewart is also a fashion and hairstyle icon for me. Her personal style is so distinctive, but I think she really blends into the characters she plays, too.

MA: How would you describe your style right now? How has it evolved over the years?
AR: My current style, summed up in one word, is: “comfort”. This summer I’m wearing long dresses, denim overalls, and jumpsuits. I like anything in one piece—it’s often comfier, and I don’t have to stress about putting together a whole outfit.

MA: We’re sure working in film means there’s some limitation in what you can/can’t do hair-wise—do you ever have the urge to make a drastic change?
AR: Yes! I’ve always been blonde, so it would be cool to dye my hair a different color for a role. I also constantly want bangs, and I still miss my short hair. Every time I start a new job, I beg them to do something different with my hair.

MA: What (or who) inspires you?
AR: I’m inspired by the books I read, the movies I watch, and the people I love. My friends and family constantly inspire me to be curious, open-minded, and to take care of myself and others.

MA: And because we obviously need to know, how do you keep your signature blonde so vibrant?
AR: This is a very annoying answer, but most of it is my natural hair color! Sometimes the hair department adds highlights for a role. But then I just let it grow out. I leave it to do its own thing.

MA: Finally…describe your perfect day off.
AR: Pancakes and tea outside on a sunny day, reading a book, and seeing friends in the afternoon.

Source: maneaddicts.com