Cinema Scholars interviews Eden Grace Redfield, Sanai Victoria, and Lia Barnett from the new coming of age charmer Summering. Directed by James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now), the film was a 2022 Sundance Film Festival official selection. The film also stars Megan Mullally, Lake Bell, Sarah Cooper, and Ashley Madekwe. Bleecker Street will release Summering in theaters on August 12, 2022.
Introduction
Remember when summer vacation meant endless days of running around the neighborhood without a care in the world? With no alarm clocks, no homework, and less supervision, even the most boring breaks could feel pretty magical. Soon, however, the waning days of summer gradually shift, and before you know it school is in full swing all over again. Like the transition to Autumn, kiddos experience their gradual evolution from the innocence of childhood to the realization of grown-up responsibilities. While some children get to continue their blissful existence into their teen years, many more unfortunately learn about life’s hard knocks early on.
In James Ponsoldt’s new coming of age film, Summering, four young girls go about their usual summertime business, biking and exploring with the occasional check-in with their parents. When the crew checks in at one of their favorite spots deep in the woods, they are surprised to find a dead man occupying their secret hideout. Rather than going straight to the cops, the girls decide to start investigating the identity of their John Doe themselves. As clues about their mystery man begin to unfold, details and revelations about the young ladies’ lives also come into better focus culminating in a poignant story about friendship and growing up.
Sanai Victoria, Madalen Mills, Lia Barnett, and Eden Grace Redfield in “Summering.” Courtesy of Bleecker Street.
Though obvious comparisons with films like Stand By Me (1986) are sure to be made, Summering is a wonderfully original story all its own. The focus stays firmly on the girls’ adventure, but each of their moms also subtly enters the narrative. This nod to the adults helps anchor the film while also hinting at the beginning of the girls’ transition to adulthood themselves. But not before some adventuring, sleuthing, and the kind of sincere camaraderie only children can achieve.
Cinema Scholars’ Rebecca Elliott recently sat down for a chat with Lia Barnett, Sanai Victoria, and Eden Grace Redfield, three of the young actresses from Summering. They discuss what it’s like working with other kids their age, advice from their older co-stars, and whether they fall into either the “CSI” or “Ghost Hunter” camps.
Interview
Elliott: Hi, ladies. Thank you so much for chatting with me today.
Eden Grace Redfield: Thank you for having me.
Sanai Victoria: Hi. Thank you.
Lia Barnett: Yes, thank you.
Elliott: I really enjoyed Summering. It’s a really perfect movie for the end of summer. And each of you girls has such unique characters with different personalities. I was wondering, are you guys at all like your characters, and what do you think each character brings to the dynamic of the film?
Madalen Mills, Lia Barnett, Sanai Victoria, and Eden Grace Redfield in “Summering.” Courtesy of Bleecker Street.
Eden Grace Redfield: I would say I am like Mari because in the movie she’s stressed a lot of the time. She’s like, “What if this goes wrong? We can’t do that.” And in this situation, she’s the voice of reason. Like, “We can’t break into the school, guys.” The other girls are going at it, and then Mari’s like, “Eh, let’s pull it back a little bit. Let’s just chill out a little.”
Sanai Victoria: I personally think that I am similar to Lola in some ways. I’m very confident in myself. I’m very headstrong. I am spiritual as well. As far as the group dynamic, she probably brings a little bit more sense. I feel like the girls are very young and naive, so they tend to lead with their hearts rather than their heads. So I think Lola provides that older standpoint that gets everybody back in check.
Lia Barnett: So yeah, I’m pretty similar to Daisy. I can be really quiet and reserved. I think she brings a dynamic of practicality to the group. But she sometimes has to listen to her heart like with the dead man in the beginning… Well, I don’t want to give spoilers.
Elliott: Don’t worry. I’ll make sure it’s free of major spoilers.
Lia Barnett: Okay. So, in the beginning, she’s just very hesitant to do it, but then she realizes that they have to do it. And even though she’s really quiet, she blossoms and she takes it upon herself to make sure that they see this through because what you start, you have to finish.
Elliott: For me, Summering definitely harkens back to some favorites from my ’80s childhood like Stand By Me. Did the director [James Ponsoldt] give you any reference material or any movies to watch?
Sanai Victoria: He did reference Stand By Me and Now and Then and The Goonies. So I watched those before we started shooting, but I did it on my own. I like to do my own character development. So I see ways that I can authentically play out the character in my own individual way.
Lia Barnett: Well, mostly not. He didn’t tell us to do anything, but he did tell us that the movie is based on Stand By Me. Not based on Stand By Me, but it’s a little similar. So, I did watch StandBy Me. I got what he was looking for. But I don’t think we really needed to watch it because you just get it when you read the script. You get the whole feeling and the coming-of-age stuff.
Eden Grace Redfield: Yeah. He didn’t really give me any reference material, like a movie to watch or other scenes. But he really let us interpret the script. And even sometimes change the script a little bit depending on how either we were feeling, how we thought the characters were feeling, how maybe other people would think the characters are feeling, or just things that we thought might sound a little better. So it was really up to our own interpretation of the story. And that was one of the parts of the filming that I really loved.
Elliott: That’s so cool. So you could be like, “Nah, girls would not say it like this,” or like, “This would not be a reference that we would make?” And then they would let you sort of change that or ad lib that a little?
Eden Grace Redfield: Yeah. They would. If someone would be like, “I don’t feel like this would be said realistically in this situation.” They’d be like, “Okay, then change it. What do you think would be said?” And some of those little changed lines are still in the movie. So that’s really cool.
Lia Barnett, Sanai Victoria, Eden Grace Barnett, and Madalen Mills in Summering. Courtesy of Bleecker Street.
Elliott: Obviously, the film deals with dark subject matter, but there’s also some legit horror themes throughout Summering. What was that like for you as far as handling the horror aspect and are you a fan of that genre? Or a fan of true crime or mysteries?
Sanai Victoria: Horror is my favorite genre to do so this was really exciting for me to embark on because ever since I was younger, I like loved watching paranormal things like that. So yeah, it was really fun to do.
Lia Barnett: I’m a big fan of true crime. I love watching all those series and stuff. And I’m also a big fan of horror. But the horror scenes in the film, they were pretty fun because you get to be scared and stuff and scream. I know it sounds weird to say it’s fun to scream, but it kind of is. You don’t have to cry all the time, you get to scream. And I also think it’s really true for every kid because when you’re a kid, the smallest thing can be really scary. And I think they show that in a really good way in the movie.
Eden Grace Redfield: I really didn’t do anything specific. I mean, I just treated it as part of the story because that’s what it was. I mean they discovered a dead body. So I was expecting a little bit of spooks. And I would say that I really love horror, particularly. I really love psychological horror and true crime and all of that, video games. And I’m a big fan of Junji Ito so I really love the scary stuff.
Elliott: The majority of the film is you four girls. There are not a lot of adults in the film. What was it like working on a film like this, where your co-stars are predominantly people your own age and how was it different from the stuff you’ve worked on in the past?
Eden Grace Redfield: I would say that working with mostly people that were women and my age, it was really fun. I felt like we got to connect more as a cast and as a team. Because when you’re working mostly adults and you’re the only kid, which is a lot of my experiences, it feels like you can’t really talk to anyone. You can’t relate to anyone. You just do the work and then you go back to whatever hotel you’re staying at. So this was really fun because I hung out with a lot of the girls offset and that really helped with our onset chemistry if that makes any sense.
Sanai Victoria: Honestly, it was normal. I go to a public school. So it was basically the same just with shooting because my friend group is me and the girls and stuff like that. So it was fun. We got to talk about really girly things and stuff like that.
Elliott: So you guys actually did have a chance to hang out off set.
Sanai Victoria: Yeah, we did. Well, we had six-day work days, so we didn’t have that much time offset. So we only had one day. But sometimes we did go- me and my mom and Madalen [Mills] and her mom, we went and got massages. And with Lia and her mom, we went and did lots of things. We had lunch and we all hung out.
Lia Barnett: Oh yeah, we did. We did have a lot of chances to hang out off-set. We went to an escape room together and that was really fun. And it was fun working with just kids because it felt like a story that was really for us. We were making a movie that was meant for kids our age. And so it was just really great.
Lake Bell and Megan Mullally in “Summering.” Courtesy of Bleecker Street.
Elliott: You also got to work with some incredible grown-up actresses like Megan Mullally, Lake Bell, Sarah Cooper, and Ashley Madekwe who played your moms. You guys are pretty young, so did you know about these amazing performers before you were cast with them? And did they give you any advice?
Lia Barnett: Well, I did know about Megan Mullally because my mother told me she was on Will andGrace. So I did know about her. The other ones I didn’t know about. But they were all amazing actresses, and it was an amazing experience working with them. And Lake Bell did give me some advice. In one of the scenes we’re in, she started improvising. And I just bounced stuff off of her, and we had a great moment in that scene. So I thought it was good.
Sanai Victoria: I love to study great actors and actresses. So I was aware of them all, and it was honestly amazing working with them all. I got to learn different techniques and I guess just ways of thinking because everybody has their own way of how they portray their character. So working with the four of them was incredible for me.
Eden Grace Redfield: Megan told me to have more fun with it directly and indirectly because in our scene in the bedroom that was mostly ad-libbed. 90% of that was off script, but they still kept it. And there was another scene that we did together, and I’ve heard she mentions it all the time, but that got cut. But it was still really fun working with, especially Megan, because I feel like we bounced off each other so well and it was just a really great experience.
Sarah Cooper and Ashley Madekwe in “Summering.” Courtesy of Bleecker Street.
Elliott: Wow! That’s so cool. In a coming-of-age film like Summering, there are always lessons to be learned. Did you learn any valuable lessons working on this film?
Lia Barnett: I think from the story, I don’t think there’s like one lesson. But I think the main lesson is just that friendship means being there for someone through thick and thin. Just always being there for someone. And what I learned on set was just it’s really fun to make a movie when you like everybody there.
Elliott: That helps a lot, I’m sure!
Lia Barnett: Yeah.
Eden Grace Redfield: I think I learned some lessons, not really from this story per se but just from working on it. Like it’s okay to take it easy sometimes. You don’t have to always be learning a script in order to be productive or something. And it was just really great.
Sanai Victoria: I learned to not be afraid of what’s next. Even if you don’t have a specific plan in the future. With the girls in the story, they’re very nervous about starting middle school because they don’t know what to expect with it. So when they embark on this whole journey that unfolds over the course of the movie, they learn that they just have to take everything one by one, step by step, and just whatever leads to the next will be what was meant to be.
Elliott: In Summering, you guys reference two different types of people in this world, CSI people and Ghost Hunters. In which camp do you fall? And what would you do if you found a dead body?
Eden Grace Redfield: I am definitely more of a CSI type of person. I mean, if I was presented with indisputable evidence that was not a poor-quality security camera video, then I would probably believe in ghosts. But that has not been presented to me yet. And if I were to find a dead body, I would definitely call the authorities. I recognize myself as intelligent, but I’m not that smart.
Sanai Victoria: I don’t know exactly what I would consider myself. I know that if I found a dead body, I wouldn’t exactly go about the way that the girls did in the movie. I would most definitely call the police. I think it’d be a little bit traumatizing for me to just see somebody. You think they had their whole life ahead of them and they have their own story and you know, everything that went on with them. And so it’s crazy to just, I don’t know, take it into your own hands. It’s a lot.
Elliott: Right. Yeah. It wouldn’t make as good a movie though. So it’s a split on CSI or GhostHunters?
Sanai Victoria: I wouldn’t say I’m a Ghost Hunter, but I guess I’ll just do 50/50.
Lia Barnett: I don’t think actually many people would do what those girls are doing in that movie, they wouldn’t. But I think if I found the dead body, I would probably report it to the police. But maybe if I was really curious, I would do some of my own sleuthing things and just try to find out who this person was, but I would turn it to the authorities first.
Sanai Victoria, Madalen Mills, Eden Grace Redfield, and Lia Barnett in “Summering.” Courtesy of Bleecker Street
Elliott: Right. Follow the case and do a little online digging. And do you think you fall more in the CSI camp or the Ghost Hunters camp?
Lia Barnett: Ghost Hunters.
Elliott: So a little bit more on the spooky side of things!
Lia Barnett: Yeah.
Elliott: Well, you guys have answered all of my questions! Thanks again for taking the time to talk with me about making Summering. I really appreciate it. Good luck with the rest of your summer.
Eden Grace Redfield: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Sanai Victoria: Thank you so much for having me. I had so much fun.
Lia Barnett: Oh, it was my pleasure. Thanks, bye.
Bleecker Street will release Summering in theaters on August 12, 2022.
