“Sara and I had become obsessed with Seazynn and Railey,” Teagen Quin said about casting two unknowns to play younger versions of themselves in High School, a Freevee original that premieres October 14th. Based on the memoir of the same name, Teagen and Sara serve as executive producers and recently participated in a TCA press conference about adapting their story as a series. “One day, I just opened TikTok, and the algorithm just knows me so well, and I saw a video of Railey, and she was giving a tour of her car, and there was just a sweetness and a vulnerability, and there was just something very watchable about both Railey and Seazynn.”
(Michelle Faye/Amazon Freevee)
Railey and Seazynn Gilliland weren’t even actors when Teagen saw them on TikTok, and despite having auditioned many duos for the role, nobody seemed as natural a fit. “To Railey and Seazynn's credit, they worked so hard,” co-writer, co-showrunner, and director Clea DuVall explained. “They were just living their lives, and then we came knocking on their door, and they sent in an audition, and it was really good. But still, you're just like, well, making a TV show is a very weird process. It's a lot of work and especially if you're not seeking it out. And then they came and they worked with an acting coach that our casting directors found for them… There is just something undeniable about them, this special quality that you can't teach… They were in acting lessons for three months. They were doing music lessons. It was not by accident that they became as incredible as they are on the show. They really put in the work and they really did it.”
“The help that we had from everybody made it a lot easier,” admitted Railey Gilliand. “It wasn't easy in the slightest, but getting to hang out with Tegan and Sara and getting to know them and just that their stories are relatable to Seazynn and I made that just slightly easier. And we just had a lot of fun.” Seazynn Gilliand agreed and felt the weight of bringing Teagan and Sara’s stories to life. “There was a responsibility, but it was only the best kind of responsibility that there is. I've never seen anything like this on screen before. And when I was 15 myself, I would have loved to see something like this on screen.”
“I'm really proud of the queer romance that we have,” co-showrunner, co-writer, and executive producer Laura Kittrell shared. “I'm proud of the queer friendships that we have that I don't think that you see a lot in television. I feel like you get kind of the one character and their love interest, and you rarely really get all of these different shades of the queer experience. And I'm proud of that.” Making the show made Laura wish she had something like this as a teenager, but also grateful to be a part of making it now. “It's a show that queer 15-year-old me really needed and wanted in her life, and it's also a show that 36-year-old queer me really needs and wants in her life.”
For diehard Teagan and Sara fans, the series also incorporates some of the earliest songs they wrote (the demos are included in the audiobook version of High School). “I don't think that Tegan and I thought very much about the music that we wrote as adolescents,” Sara admitted about the happy surprise of putting it out into the world. “We had decided that all of the music was bad. So, it's actually been the support of people around us who've reassured us that the music is strong enough to be a focal point on the show. And it's wonderful to have the first song that we ever wrote put into the show because I think it just sort of shows that young people can do amazing things, right even out of the gate before they've had years of training and experience. Sometimes, our first instinct is our best instinct.”
You can stream High School beginning Friday, October 14th on Freevee.
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