Not all that long ago Sara Waisglass cursed the fact she looked younger than her years.
Now, at 27, the star of Ginny & Georgia and the upcoming Tubi teen romance How to Lose a Popularity Contest is grateful for her age-defying looks.
“Honestly, it’s super fun because there’s like so much content for high school aged kids,” she says of still playing teens while approaching 30.
“We’re always just so interested in stories about high school kids, because high school kids make mistakes, and that’s exciting to watch on screen.
“Growing up, I hated that I had a young face, because all my friends were, getting treated like adults, and people were still like ‘Do you want a cookie?’ to me, thinking that I was 10.
“But now it’s really helping me, because I get to keep working in a genre that I really, really love.”
Playing teens has meant Waisglass has spent an extra decade in the classroom, laughing: “I still get heart palpitations when I sit at a school desk or I see a row of lockers, but at the end of the day, I know that those chapters are closed for me, and I’ll never have to write another exam, thank God!”
Somewhat less triggering has been getting to revisit all the excitement and heartache of exploring young love on screen like it is the first time.
Like a lot of the best teen movies, Waisglass’ character in How to Lose a Popularity Contest, Ellie, embarks on a steep personal learning curve when she helps the school jock (Chase Hudson) with his school council election campaign and finds herself in an opposites’ attract romance.
Think She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You and To All the Boys I Loved Before. Just like those movies, the chemistry between the two leads is integral to the story and so Waisglass and Hudson had that put that to the test before filming began – via Zoom.
Big on “reading energy” Waisglass wasn’t sure she would be able to hit it off with Hudson over a screen.
Thankfully – despite the physical distance between them – Waisglass and Hudson found an instant rapport, bonding over their shared love of hamburgers that translated into a believable romantic chemistry.
For Waisglass teen romance films aren’t just for kids. Good ones appeal to all ages no matter what decade they were made.
“Everyone remembers their first love, so that’s a very nostalgic and hard-hitting theme that people connect to,” she explains.
“And I think that’s a huge reason why people love rom coms. I also think that there are really beautiful lessons that are weaved through these movies about not judging a book by its cover, and that you have to go through adversity sometimes with the people you love. And if you love each other enough, you can make it through.”
Likewise, Ginny & Georgia might be about a mother and daughter navigating life and love (while covering up a murder), but its fan base comes from all walks of life.
“I have 12-year-olds coming up to me saying they love it,” she smiles. “I have 50-year-olds coming up and saying they watch it with their daughters.
“I even have finance district bros coming up to me saying they watch it with their girlfriends, but I know that means they just watch it when they’re home alone.”
Waisglass credits the Netflix drama with opening doors to new opportunities like How to Lose a Popularity Contest and Into the Blue, a film that she starts shooting once the fourth season of Ginny & Georgia has wrapped production.
Based on Jennifer E Archer’s novel, Into the Blue will see Waisglass play the 20-something Fiona who finds love while grieving the death of her mother.
“Booking work in this day and age is like winning a lottery because there are so many people trying to do this, and so many people who are so talented,” she says.
“And so, I 100 per cent think my role on Ginny & Georgia had a lot to do with this. I hope it also had to do with me fitting the character. But I’m not naive, and I know that it’s a huge plus to have the Ginny & Georgia fandom flow into the Tubi fandom, and I hope that they love it, because I really loved filming it.”
Unlike Ginny & Georgia’s volatile and fiercely loyal Max, How to Lose a Popularity Contest’s Ellie (aka Max) is straitlaced and controlling.
“With most of the scripts I read, I really relate to the characters, and I innately want to play them,” she explains.
“I did not have that with this film. I truly thought Ellie was irredeemable. I thought she was super mean, and I didn’t like that. And then I thought about it more, and I was like, how great a challenge would it be to try and find compassion for someone I really don’t like?”
Although she has been working as an actor since she was nine years old, How to Lose a Popularity Contest is Waisglass’ first lead role.
And that brought with it a whole new set of pressures than as a supporting player on Ginny & Georgia for the past seven years.
“The first scene in this film is one shot, and it starts with me and I lead the camera down the stairs into the principal’s office, out of the principal’s office into the cafeteria, through the cafeteria line,” she says.
“It’s one eight minute take, and I had to do that perfectly, because if you mess up, you’ve got to start at the beginning.
“I didn’t want to let anyone down. I met the writers. They’re so lovely. I wanted to make sure that I brought their work to light in the way that they wanted. So it was very stressful. But I really did love every second of it.”
With just two days to prepare for the film, Waisglass said the fact her character Ellie is teasingly called “Max” in How to Lose a Popularity Contest, made settling into her role and the set a lot easier.
Far from being a fun Easter egg for Ginny & Georgia fans, Waisglass insists the name calling is completely coincidental.
“I was so used to responding to Max, because I respond to Max on the street and I respond to Max on Ginny & Georgia, so I felt like I was always ready to go,” she laughs.
HOW TO LOSE A POPULARITY CONTEST, STREAMING JANUARY 16, TUBI.
Originally published as Former Ginny & Georgia star Sara Waisglass can still play teen roles at 27 as she debuts new Tubi series