Dylan Meyer has been building her career as a screenwriter with spirited movies like XOXO and Moxie. Now, she makes her directorial debut with The Wrong Girls, a stoner comedy that co-stars her wife, Kristen Stewart, and Arrested Development’s Alia Shawkat.
The pair play “nimrod” besties Frankie and Molly, who are bumbling around Los Angeles while high on psychedelic drugs made from giant squid fluids. This deep-sea dose has given them the ability to speak telepathically to each other and to their two cats, Dio and GG, voiced by Seth Rogen and Kumail Nanjiani.
To celebrate the film’s release, Meyer sat down for a virtual interview with Mashable Entertainment Editor Kristy Puchko.
Together, they dug into the personal origins of The Wrong Girls, as well as inspiration points like The Blue Planet, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, and Empire Records. Plus, they got into casting cats and how Meyer’s collaboration with Stewart reveals a new — and more true to life — side to the critically heralded performer
Mashable: Congratulations on the movie. It’s very, very fun. I know it came from a personal space for you. Can you tell me a little bit about the origins of The Wrong Girls?
Dylan Meyer: Yeah, I lived with my best friend Maggie McLean, who’s now my producing partner, for five years. But it was definitely like the happiest and most, like, safe five years of my whole life. It was the first time I ever really felt like I had a home. Our little life together was very dysfunctional and very broke and very chaotic, but I really thought it was so sweet and funny in its own way. Like, the things that happened to us were deserving of the same kind of care and treatment that I see a lot of men’s movies about their friendships get. I realized that there weren’t movies like that really for women.
Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat star in “The Wrong Girls.”
Credit: NEON
Like, when I was scraping my mind at the time, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion was almost the only girl-buddy movie that I could think of that was that straightforward. And we were such nimrods. I remember thinking, like, “God, I’m also an idiot.” We could have our own movie, and, like, why isn’t there one? You know, like, why isn’t there a great Dumb and Dumber that’s about girls? Girls are also Dumb and Dumber.
That’s something I love about The Wrong Girls. It’s a movie where women get to be dumb, and that’s part of the joy and the freedom of it. I think like in Romy and Michele, like in Dumb and Dumber, there’s a sense of defiance in it, like: These are the rules of being an adult. But what if I say no?
I agree. There are so many more ways to cut this cake than we’ve been led to believe. This is a 14-year journey to make this movie. I wrote the original draft of this in 2012, when we still lived together, and you know, it’s really grown with me over the years. But like, I remember the [COVID] pandemic happening and me thinking, “Oh God, like, how will we ever tell stories normally again?” And then I was like, “Well, the one story I’m not really worried about is The Wrong Girls, because they probably barely even noticed there was a pandemic. They were just getting high in their house, as they were already before then.” You know?
It’s a very good point. Speaking to that, how did psychedelics derived from deep-sea creatures come into play?
I’ve been obsessed with giant squids since I saw 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea when I was five. Like, I think that giant squids have occupied a cosmic question mark in my brain. This idea that we’ve never really seen one, but they’re massive, and they’re down there? It’s just this thing about how we know more about outer space than we know about the bottom of the ocean floor. Like, I’m really convinced that it’s a psychedelic place down there, like, in the truest sense of mystery, imagination, possibility, freak-show stuff. It’s all going down down there. We know it.
Like, if you spend time watching Blue Planet or any other like deep-sea explorative programming, you will see that there is freaky stuff going on down there. So, it felt like a really natural fit to me that, like, if there’s something mysterious and inexplicable and cosmic that we might be able to distill its origin point, [it’s] that. Also, this is such a California movie, so the ocean being a part of it is, like, a key ingredient. So, it sort of all factors in. This is such a freak-flag movie for the two girls, and so I think the giant squids are, like, the natural other freak-flag contender.
I’ve spent so much time watching Blue Planet and just sort of, like, truly immersing [myself] in what kind of chaos is going on under the sea, and I think it’s bottomlessly inspirational.
Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat star in “The Wrong Girls.”
Credit: NEON
Are you the kind of person who’s like, “I’m good watching it on the screen,” or if you had the chance to go into a submersible and check those depths out, would you be the Steve Zissou?
This is a big question. No, I don’t think I’m a submersible guy. My knee-jerk reaction is like, no, probably not. I mean, I am obsessed with sharks and terrified of sharks. Like, I would put sharks at the top of my fear and love list. So, I think that the ocean is kind of a complicated place for me. I don’t think submersibles are for me. And I’m not even particularly claustrophobic in my life, but I do think that’s not natural. I don’t think we’re supposed to go down there like that.
I do want to talk about the other key animals in this movie: the cats. Tell me about writing for cats.
So, obviously, I’m a cat guy. I currently have two. And when Maggie and I lived together, there was always some random cat living with us that didn’t belong to us. Like just a cycle of never-ending —
Squatter cats?
Yeah. I’ve had a lot of different cats over the years. Not all of them are your soulmate. Some of them are terrible roommates. [In writing for Dio and GG,] I was looking for the perfect foil for people who, like, can’t get it together. And cats are that.
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Cats have it absolutely together. Nothing has it more together than they do in certain ways. We all know cats are judgmental, but, like, these guys [Frankie and Molly] specifically are so dysfunctional that I wanted the cat voices to really be almost stand-ins for the rest of the world, filtered through the really limited experience they have. I also wanted to write cats that have just been absorbing everything all the time. So they’re familiar with pop culture.
I wrote them as just shitty roommates, judgmental shitty roommates, and then as we, like, filmed it and went back with Seth and Kumail [for additional dialogue recording sessions), then I was sort of working with like, “Okay, what is the thing that most complements like this expression [on the cat’s face]?” And it was something that was able to evolve over the course of making the whole movie and wasn’t like one static thing.
“The character was already very close to Kristen, which is sort of like a dirtbaggy skater punk type from the suburbs of Los Angeles that smokes a lot of weed. That’s like Kristen in life and Kristen in art.”
Tell me about casting both the physical cats and the human voices of them.
I looked through a lot of different cats that were available, which was a very challenging decision for me. It felt like the biggest decision I was ever going to make, in some ways. And I wanted cats that their physicality brought me a comedic experience, even if, like, they were refusing to perform comedically. Like, I was sort of hedging my bets on, “Okay, cats are not actors. We know this. What can I sort of get that will buffer the experience of looking at them and bring me comedic joy every time I look at them?” So I chose their faces for these exact reasons.
I have never had a purebred cat, and I think those might be purebred cats. There’s two per cat. They come in pairs. But I guess my feeling is that all kinds of cats wind up in shelters, and you don’t know why they’re there.
Like my cat now, Cozy, he looks like he could have been designed in a lab in Korea. But he’s just from the streets of Van Nuys, you know? He’s just a Valley boy. I got his DNA tested, 82% American domestic cat. So, these cats, I chose them because they looked so funny, and especially that brown one’s little wall-eyed thing. I burst into hysterics every time I even see him do anything.
Then, Seth is a producer on the movie. And again, sort of in the shitty roommate category, Seth’s voice to me just brings up like some dude you live with [who’s] kind of a judgmental bro.
Kumail I targeted as a cat fan. This whole movie was really brought together as, like, a labor of love by the people that made it. We were not, like, dangling fat paychecks in front of anyone. [The pitch to Kumail was basically,] “Do you really like cats, and would [you] like to be a cat?”
One of them was more frightened, and one of them was sassier. Kumail was just this frightened cat guy; it just made me laugh so hard. Kumail actually lost his cat of, like, 15 years during the process of making this movie. And I was having to ask him for voice notes as we were temping in, like trying out new dialogue along the way. And we only got to bring them in for official recording so many times, and I remember feeling like really worried about poking —
The bruise?
Yeah, I was like, “Does it make you feel better to be a cat now, or does it make it worse?” He can always say no if he doesn’t want to, but he’s such an incredible team player. And everyone was so good to me in that way, so yeah, those are the cats.
Incredible. Then, you’ve got two incredible leading ladies. For Kristen in particular, she’s a heralded actress. But she’s not necessarily known for comedy, and I really enjoyed The Wrong Girls because it felt like watching her let go in a way I haven’t seen in the other comedic work. So I’m curious for you, how did it come about that you were like, Kristen’s the right pick for this?
I actually wanted Kristen to be in this movie long before we were ever together. We met a very long time ago. And when I met her, who she actually is in life is quite close to this character [Frankie]. It’s not who we’re used to seeing her perform in role[s]. But Kristen is from the Valley, and she’s actually really funny.
Like in my life with her, I have experienced her own comedic timing enough to know that I’m like, “This is a missed opportunity in terms of this performer.” And comedy is very vulnerable in a different way than what I think she’s been used to doing.
All of the comedy is an extension of the regular performances. So the character was already very close to Kristen, which is sort of like a dirtbaggy skater punk type from the suburbs of Los Angeles that smokes a lot of weed. That’s, like, Kristen in life and Kristen in art.
And then to me, in the next era of whatever movies are, you should just hire a really good actor because a really good actor is a good actor. And I knew she’s funny because I live with her and she makes me laugh all the time. But she’s a really brilliant performer and just not given the right set of circumstances to really showcase that [sense of humor]. So, I think the part being right allowed her to showcase some other stuff that people don’t see from her as often.
I love that, and I love the final dance number. You mentioned Romy and Michele, and The Wrong Girls‘ climax did remind me of the “Time After Time” number or like Barb and Star, where you have this like musical moment amid the comedy. But I also enjoy that your approach to it is a little more grounded, I think because it doesn’t create a gloss for these girls. Can you tell me a little bit about how you approached that final dance number?
There’s a couple of components. Like, one thing is that I really wanted it to be… It’s not a musical number in that, like, a song descends from nowhere. It is very much playing internally in their shared brain. I thought that was such a funny use of that kind of set piece that we’ve seen in other capacities. But, it was really paying off the premise of the telepathy, which is the wish fulfillment of having it with your best friend; you could effectively share earbuds or whatever and listen to a song that no one else can hear. Like [you can] have an experience that no one else is a part of, that’s so private and so shared.
So, narratively, it really was the final extension of everything else we’d been working on in the film. And then there’s this question of like, “Can you suddenly know a choreographed dance number, or are you still, like, yourself?” And I think in asking myself that, I was like, “It would leave the reality of this movie for these girls to suddenly become incredible dancers that, like, have a routine. So, it needs to be more like in the spirit of you’re eight, and you’re making up a dance with your best friend.”
LaKeith Stanfield and Kate McKinnon co-star in “The Wrong Girls.”
Credit: NEON
There’s just enough coordination between the two of them that they feel like they’re in the same space, but also that no one is magically a professional dancer. It’s born from just, like, the freedom of self-expression and the joy of self-expression, which is what it should be coming from. And as I said, this is such a freak-flag movie. So, to me, it was like the culmination of joy, connection, and private moments.
And Céline [Dion], who’s, you know, obviously the patron saint of feelings, as far as I’m concerned, a big operatic feeling…
And patron saint of also dancing to the beat of your own drum —
Yes, like, dude, that is a freak-flag lady. You know what I mean? She is like on her own vibe, absolutely in the same way. And I think it was important to use Céline for me, because I wanted someone who felt a little like underrated in the way that the girls feel underrated. Céline Dion in the scope of the universe, not underrated. But by like arty punk guys [that Frankie and Molly are around] —
Céline is not considered cool.
Right. Underrated, not cool. This movie’s got a lot of earnestness. And so her being the patriot saint of feelings, and like allowing the girls to have this just true joy finale that’s totally private and shared, and then you get this like fun comedic button with it being witnessed by people, who cannot hear that song — it felt like the exact right ending.
But that dance sequence didn’t become a part of this movie until maybe a year before we actually made it. I was driving around in Albuquerque, listening to the radio when Love Lies Bleeding was happening. And suddenly, like, I think Justin Timberlake’s “Mirrors” came on. And I was like, “Oh, the movie wants it. Absolutely. What am I doing? Like, it needs this. It needs this, like, big feeling.” Empire Records is such an influence on this movie. And I I wanted it to feel as good as it could possibly feel, and so that’s how I feel when I watch them do that. I just feel such pure joy.
The Wrong Girls opens in theaters Aug. 14.
