Get ready for a twisty, mystical journey with Paper Girls on Prime Video, an adaptation sure to delight fans of the source material.
Based on the best-selling graphic novels written by Brian K. Vaughan, Paper Girls is a high-stakes personal journey depicted through the eyes of four girls. The series begins in the early morning hours after Halloween 1988. Four paper girls—Erin, Mac, Tiffany, and KJ—are out on their delivery route when they become caught in the crossfire between warring time-travelers, changing the course of their lives forever. Transported into the future, these girls must figure out a way to get back home to the past, a journey that will bring them face-to-face with the grown-up versions of themselves. While reconciling that their futures are far different than their 12-year-old selves imagined, they are being hunted by a militant faction of time-travelers known as the Old Watch, who have outlawed time travel so that they can stay in power. In order to survive, the girls will need to overcome their differences and learn to trust each other, and themselves.
Viewers are introduced to breakout leads Camryn Jones as Tiffany Quilkin, Riley Lai Nelet as Erin Tieng, Sofia Rosinsky as Mac Coyle, and Fina Strazza as KJ Brandman. Ali Wong also stars as the grown-up version of Erin, with Nate Corddry as Larry, and Adina Porter as Prioress.
Jones, Lai Nelet, Rosinsky and Strazza spoke to Shadow and Act about their familiarity with the novels prior to filming, bonding with each other on set, playing characters in a role set in the 1980s and more.
None of the girls read the comic book series prior to their audition but became fans while filming
The first science fiction novel was released in 2015, with the final in 2019. The books were an instant hit, winning various awards, including two Eisner Awards in 2016 for Best New Series and Best Penciller/Inker. But before learning of the project, no one on the cast had the books in their personal collection.
“I am a newcomer to the comic book and the graphic novel world, so I can’t say that I had heard of Paper Girls, but now that I’ve read Paper Girls, this was a perfect introduction to the comic book world,” said Rosinksy admitted.
Her co-stars had nearly identical experiences.
“I haven’t heard of the comic books at all, but when I received the audition was when I started to get into it, and I fell in love with the story and the characters and the uniqueness of the story,” Lai Nelet added. “And I became a fan of the comics myself, and I think the fans will be satisfied and pleasantly surprised.”
“I didn’t know about it before I had heard of Brian K. Vaughan, but I hadn’t read Paper Girls before I got the audition, and it was during the audition process, like Riley, when I delved into the books, and I got obsessed with them, and now I own every copy there is,” Jones said with a smile.
Strazza was intrigued by the characters, noting, “I started reading the books also during the audition process, and the moment I finished them, I was like, ‘I need to be a part of this project.’ The characters were just so real and relatable, and I really wanted to bring it to life.”
Their favorite part of the film was traveling back in time
Barely teenagers now, the cast all agree that their favorite part of filming was being in an era they never personally experienced in their lives. Rosinsky had a front-row seat in the time period thanks to her family. “I was raised around eighties culture. So I didn’t have to do a whole lot of research just because I had grown up with talking heads and a whole bunch of eighties stuff,” she said.
For her co-stars, it was a bit different but equally as exciting. “Our crew did a really good job with transporting us to the eighties,” Lai Nelet explained. “None of us were born in the eighties, but for some reason, it just felt really nostalgic.”
Strazza and Jones were impressed by the small and intricate details of the set that made her feel like she was part of an old-school world.
“We had like jam jars and peanut butter that was like from the eighties and the packaging was from the eighties and we would walk on set and it was immediately felt like you were like transported to another time,” Stazza said.
Jones added: “And I thought it was really cool how they would change the street signs. I just thought it was really cool because you’d go to the next block over and it would be normal and modern, and then you’d go back and we’d be in the eighties again.”
The entire first season of Paper Girls is now streaming on Prime Video.
Watch the full interview below:
