Maya Erskine is workshopping some of her signature poses in front of the camera. Her favorite right now: A gem that she calls the
Maya Erskine is workshopping some of her signature poses in front of the camera. Her favorite right now: A gem that she calls the « taking a sh*t » pose. It involves pliéing and putting her hands on her hips. Meanwhile, her PEN15 co-star and co-creator Anna Konkle favors “the garden gnome,” which involves crouching and staring vacantly into the distance. It’s bizarre — and yes, even Konkle seems to realize it.
“I know you’re like, ‘Don’t do that,’” she announces to no one in particular, after demonstrating the pose, “but I have to.”
It’s a sentiment that perfectly describes Hulu’s new series PEN15 —named after that infamous schoolyard prank — a delightfully weird comedy that casts Erskine and Konkle as versions of their 13-year-old selves in the year 2000 alongside a bunch of actual pre-teens. Equal parts cringey and heartfelt, the show is more than a surface joke about two grown women wearing a bowl cut and a mouthful of braces, respectively (though that was certainly part of the fun, too).
Still, it’s almost off-putting to see them in person as their actual 31-year-old selves. On this day, the women are appropriately glammed up: Erskine in a wide-legged, black-and-white polka-dotted and striped jumpsuit; Konkle in a bubblegum-pink pleated dress with a snake appliqué on the front and the AC/DC logo hiding on the back, which is only revealed when she flips back her long blonde hair. Though they actually met while studying abroad in Amsterdam during their junior year at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, they chose to use the bond of their friendship to revisit some of the most formative and embarrassing moments of their youth together, from ill-advised playground crushes, to confusing moments of sexual experimentation, to brushes with bullies.
“It’s really a love story between these two characters,” says Erskine, who’s cuddled up with Konkle on a loveseat in the Bustle office. “It’s about these two best friends who are going through this horrible time, but they have each other, so it’s also the best time of their lives.”
Watching the two women re-inhabit their tween bodies over the course of 10 episodes is triggering to just about anyone who ever felt even a little bit awkward in middle school — especially once you hear that for Konkle and Erskine, getting back in that headspace was basically all muscle memory. “The first step was we were given these wraps to essentially push down our flat boobs,” Erskine says of their characters’ wardrobes, which look like they’re straight out of the Limited Too archives. Putting on clothes that reminded her of her tween years was enough to take Erskine right back to a time when she felt uncomfortable in her own skin. “Instantly, you want to hunch over. You’re hyper self-conscious.”
Konkle hates to admit it, but even as an adult, she still sometimes feels like that awkwardly hunched-over teenager who can’t stop touching her hair.
