Amazon’s Prime Video has debuted its newest sci-fi show, Paper Girls, based on an Image Comics series of the same name from creators Brian K. Vaughn and Cliff Chiang. The series stars Camryn Jones, Riley Lai Nelet, Fina Strazza, and Sofia Rosinsky as a group of paper girls from the ’80s who inadvertently wind up traveling roughly 40 years into the future and landing right in the middle of a time-war. Ahead of the series premiere, PopCulture.com had a chance to catch up with the cast to talk about the show as they tease details from the first season, and what their favorite time-travel flicks are.
“I’d probably have to say the Back to the Future franchise because it’s a classic. You can’t go wrong,” Jones shared. “I love Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” Strazza said, proposing a deeply compelling time-travel movie question… “Or would Austin Powers: International [Man of Mystery] count? Because they get frozen, and then they go to the future,” she offered, noting that it is “technically” time traveling. “The time has passed, but to them, they’ve kind of traveled, because they haven’t experienced the 30 years.” Jones seemed to be on board for this, but pointed out that if Austin Powers gets a pass, “then Captain America would count.”
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Nelet threw a further curveball into the conversation by asking, “If you’re talking about being frozen in time, does Avatar: The Last Airbender count?” Strazza joked, “I love how we’re all just bending.” Nelet, standing by her point, added, “I know, because, at the time, he was frozen in a ball.” She then praised another comic-based time-traveling streaming series, saying, ‘Oh yeah, also, I think The Umbrella Academy is also really cool.’”
Unlike the frozen-in-time characters that dominated the discussion, the papers girls — Mac Coyle (Rosinsky), Tiffany Quilkin (Jones), Erin Tieng (Nelet), and KJ Brandman (Strazza) — travel to the future in a machine designed to move through time, but then they get stranded. Once there, they encounter adult Erin, played by comedian and actress Ali Wong, who does her best to help them under increasingly bizarre circumstances. Speaking about what it was like to work with Wong as her fictional grown-up self, Nelet said, “I learned a lot from Ali. It was just a pleasure being able to work with her, and we bonded a lot on set, mostly about food, because we both love to eat, and I had so much fun playing off of her, and being able to craft this character, Erin.”
Teasing a little of what’s to come on the show, when asked about her favorite part of Paper Girls, Strazza enthusiastically replied how she loves Episode 5. “[It’s] incredible. You get a taste of everything in Episode 5. You get the big action scenes, you get the heartfelt moments, you get the drama, you get the comedy, and there are just a lot of unique moments that shine from Episode 5.”
Nelet chimed in: “I think Episode 5 was fun to watch, and overall, just fun to film,” later adding how audiences would laugh and cry. Strazza reiterated that “it was so fun to film that one,” with Jones responding, “I think [Episode 5] was amazing. I’m torn between [Episodes] 5 and 6 because 6 was so much fun to film for me, and I think for all of us, really, because I loved filming with these guys, of course, but six was so cool because there were a lot of elements in it that were visually and aesthetically pleasing to me, and five was just really, really cool, and well-rounded as a whole, I feel.”
Paper Girls premiered Friday, July 29, on Amazon Prime Video. All eight episodes of Season 1 are now streaming. Keep it locked to Pop Culture.com for more Paper Girls exclusives and interviews!
