All of a sudden, Kiernan Shipka is everywhere. This year alone, the actor has had prominent roles in the Nicolas Cage horror film Longlegs, the box office-breaking reboot Twisters, and the action-adventure epic Red One. In September, at the San Sebastian Film Festival, she won a special jury prize alongside her castmates – including Pamela Anderson – in Gia Coppola’s upcoming The Last Showgirl.
“It’s been a wild year,” says Shipka. “I mean, I’ve been doing this for almost 19 years now, and it doesn’t get old. In fact, I like it more every year. When I didn’t think it was possible to love it more, it happens.”
Right now, she’s promoting Sweethearts, a light-but-raunchy coming-of-age romcom about two first-year college students who make a pact to break up with their high-school sweethearts over the Thanksgiving holiday. In her oversized black bomber jacket, Shipka’s spent the day doing Zoom interviews alongside her energetic co-stars Nico Hiraga and Caleb Hearon, but this interview’s a solo event.
“I’ve been flanked by Nico and Caleb all day, and I could basically stay there forever. Me alone with myself, I don’t know how much time I want with that,” Shipka jokes.
Shipka with Sweethearts co-star, Nico Hiraga.Credit: HBO Max/Binge
Written and directed by Jordan Weiss (Dollface), the film gives space to some of the romcom genre’s more ignored conventions: first break-ups, queer awakenings, platonic friendship. It also lets Shipka use the comedy chops she honed at Second City LA, the Hollywood outpost of the famous Chicago improv school that launched the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Amy Sedaris and countless others. Shipka studied there from 13 to 18 until she scored the witchy lead on Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
Oddly enough, her first comedy school was on the set of Mad Men, where she starred as young Sally Draper, the rebellious eldest child of the twisted union that was Don and Betty’s marriage. “As much as it was a drama, everyone on it was very funny and I spent so much time around those people,” Shipka says. “I remember being in table reads and, like, John Slattery would say something, and the entire room would double over laughing. I think that’s where I learnt to love comedy.”
At 25, Shipka’s already a screen veteran. She started on Mad Men when she was six; when the show ended, she was 15. “I remember all of it,” she says. “I remember auditioning for it, I remember getting it, I remember my first day. I mean, I don’t know where I’d be without it. By the time the show ended, I’d been on it for more of my life than I hadn’t, which was wild.”
With its smoking, womanising, boozing, and ruthless excavation of the empty soul of American enterprise and ambition, some might say Mad Men was probably not the best environment for an impressionable child. In a recent interview, Shipka said the cast was cognisant of protecting her innocence throughout its heavy run.
Shipka (second from left) with Mad Men cast during the show’s sixth season.
The plight of child actors is notorious in Hollywood. Shipka has read Jennette McCurdy’s book and “absolutely loved it”. How come she never succumbed to the classic child star cautionary tale?
“I mean, I feel super lucky that my circumstances were what they were,” she says. “I love what I do, and I got to come into this line of work just from a place of joy and love, and I never felt pressure to keep doing it. I think because I never really felt pressure that I had to do it, my love for it grew stronger and I was able to sort of take my time.
‘This is not an easy business as an adult, let alone as a child.’
“And my family is pretty wonderful,” she adds. “They’re my rocks. I was pretty adamant about having a childhood outside of my job as well, which helped me stay on the ground. I was doing so many sports and things, all normal kid stuff besides the one completely not normal thing. This is not an easy business as an adult, let alone as a child.”
She thinks she was maybe even too cautious at the time. “I kind of went in the opposite direction, where I was really scared and really protective and really reserved, so I almost didn’t go out into the world enough. I think I swung the pendulum the other direction.”
Is she saying she regrets not going wilder in her teen years? “There’s still time!” Shipka jokes. “I could always do it now. And my frontal lobe is properly developed now, so I’ll probably make better decisions.”
Shipka at a photo call for Sweethearts in Los Angeles earlier this month.Credit: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
If the tabloid rumours romantically linking her to musician John Mayer, 47, are to be believed, she’s giving it a go. But even as a child star, Shipka always seemed sensible in an “old soul” kind of way. I’m holding in front of me an interview she did in Tavi Gevinson’s always-relevant Rookie magazine at 15 where Shipka excitedly discussed Sylvia Plath and Tao Lin.
“Oh my gosh, I loved Rookie mag!” Shipka laughs. “But yes, I was around a lot of adults growing up. I look back and I think, yeah, I probably was one of those kids with an old soul, but I really think it was also the fact that I felt very trusted at a young age with my emotions and my work. That was such a blessing because I learnt that people around me believed in me, and that obviously gets in your brain in one way or another.
“I guess I felt like I was around people who saw me and were able to maybe illuminate parts of myself and my self-expression as a kid, which was abundant,” she adds. “I really knew who I was when I was a kid and people around me let me be that, and for that, I’m very lucky.”
Shipka’s current run looks likely to continue into the new year. The Last Showgirl, which has been lighting up festivals and earning awards buzz for Pamela Anderson, is due out in the US in January and Australia in February. Shipka says it felt like a special shoot.
“I mean, Pam is so good in this film and she’s so vulnerable and raw and stripped down the whole time; I’m just in awe of what she does in this movie. Every single day she did something super brave, and it was addictive – everyone around her was just ready to rally. I grew a lot as an actor [and] as a person. And also I’ve been such a Gia Coppola fan since she made Palo Alto. She was like a bucket list director for me.”
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She’s even taken home a lasting souvenir from the shoot: a WhatsApp group chat featuring Pamela Anderson. “I think I might’ve started it,” Shipka laughs. “It’s called ‘The Last Showgirl’, and it started during TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) when we were all trying to figure out what to wear.”
Sweethearts premieres on Binge on Friday.
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