I Saw the TV Glow Is an Aching, Surreal Portrait of Teenage Dysphoria

Spencer Pazer/A24

Perhaps no contemporary filmmaker is more adept at capturing the strange mix of freedom and terror that so many queer and trans people find in the glow of their screens than Jane Schoenbrun.

While Schoenbrun’s first narrative feature, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, unfolded within the world of online creepypastas, their follow-up I Saw The TV Glow turns an eye to the past, revisiting an era when ’90s VHS tapes and monsters of the week beckoned scores of kids to stay up far past their bedtimes, hoping to glimpse dormant pieces of their own psyches amid the fuzzy haze of the television set. In the opening scenes of TV Glow, a teenager named Owen (Justice Smith), finds his own stifled upbringing turned upside down after discovering his favorite show, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-esque series called The Pink Opaque. He is introduced to the series’ campy, neon-tinged genre trappings by his classmate Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), a fellow outsider whose passionate fandom helps her cope with the Laura Palmer-level turbulence of her home life.

Too soon, the duo’s burgeoning mentor-mentee dynamic is upended by Maddy’s sudden disappearance, which happens around the same time that The Pink Opaque is unceremoniously canceled, ending on a devastating cliffhanger. Time continues to press on, leaving Owen stranded in arrested development even as his repression of his dysphoria and unspoken trans identity diverge sharply from Maddy’s own mysterious trajectory. It’s a shattering, absorbing entry into what’s shaping up to be a wildly exciting year for trans genre filmmaking, and Smith and Lundy-Paine’s chemistry is a major part of its potency.

Ahead of I Saw the TV Glow’s U.S. theatrical release on May 3, the two actors spoke to Them about creating queer ’90s horror with Jane Schoenbrun, the tension between self-discovery and assimilation, and their own personal Pink Opaques.

Which elements of I Saw The TV Glow most resonated with you upon first reading the script?

Justice Smith: I remember just being like, “I don’t get this, and that’s why I have to do it.” Like I felt it. I didn’t get it in my brain, I got it in my gut. And when I watched Jane’s first film, it was a similar experience. I mean, that film is easier to understand, but I still felt it under my skin.

I was like, “This is a once-in-a-lifetime script, a once-in-a-lifetime character. I need to be a part of this. I went into my meeting with Jane, trying to convince them that I was cool and that I was the right person for the job, and Jane was trying to convince me that they were cool and that I should be part of this and I was like, “Yes, this is great.”

So it all worked out in the end. I’ve never seen a character devolve in this way over such a span of time. Usually, character arcs are about maturation, about becoming more yourself, and I liked this idea that I could play someone who was slowly dying. Yeah. That’s the end of my answer. [laughs]

Brigette Lundy-Paine: I was sent the script by Sam [Intili], who’s one of the producers, and we’ve been friends for a long time. They sent me the script and World’s Fair at the same time. So I read and watched them both together. I felt like I had the tone of Jane’s mind in my head, and I felt the colors and the feelings of the script really vividly. But I knew that it was a story that would be more and more complex the more I spent time with it. I felt that it was something to really, like, work your body through. I think that’s what I needed at the time.

I connected really deeply with Jane when we first started talking. We had a Zoom call and we were making each other laugh really instantly, and that’s always a good sign, you know? I wanted to do it and Jane wanted me to do it, and they just had to convince A24 because they wanted, you know, Madonna to play Maddy, and she wasn’t free, so…

I think it worked out pretty well! Jane has cited ’90s genre shows like Twin Peaks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files as very personal, formative inspirations for this movie. Did they talk to you about any specific shows or episodes that served as touchstones for your characters?

J.S.: Buffy was a big influence for Jane. I didn’t really watch anything beforehand besides World’s Fair, and honestly, World’s Fair helped a lot with the tone for me. I really just set out to play that character. I tried to bring the vibe of that character to this, because I feel like that’s kind of what Jane is looking for when they write characters, is that essence.

B.L.P.: The Anna Cobb extended universe.

J.S.: The Anna Cobb essence, yeah.

B.L.P.: Yeah, Buffy was big. I watched Buffy for the first time before filming, and I watched it up to season six. And Jane showed me a couple movies. Liquid Sky was a reference for the monologue, specifically. That’s a late ’80s movie with super monotone performances, but they hit really hard.

And then I remember Jane showing me this video of Cat Power being interviewed in Brazil for the Moon Pix tour, and she’s just got this kind of floppy, surprising syntax. At one point, the interviewer is like, “So what did you get up to here?” And she was like, “Oh, you know, restaurant stuff.” That phrase became a reference for the tone, for like, how, you hear these lines in your [head]. They feel familiar, but there’s something unsettling about them, you know?

Absolutely. Justice you touched on this earlier, but throughout I Saw The TV Glow, there’s a dichotomy between Owen initially feeling seen by The Pink Opaque versus him clinging to that nostalgia even as denying his identity is killing him. How did you find that balance between Owen’s self-discovery and repression throughout the film?

J.S.: I think it’s a decision that a lot of marginalized people, unfortunately, have to make: whether they want to suffer in silence or suffer in the open. I think that the pain of assimilation for Owen is familiar. Even though it’s killing him, it’s less risky than admitting the truth. Like, seeing this thing inside of him and admitting that it’s real, and then having to deal with the backlash of the world around him when he steps into that authenticity — I think that’s the larger metaphor.

But I love how Jane paints the ways in which your true self can call to you on a subconscious plane. It’s almost [like] you become a moth to a flame; you’re unable to deny your attraction to it. I think that’s what’s happening with Owen throughout the film, is he’s doing everything in his power to reject and deny that he’s drawn to this thing, but he gives in at the end of the day. I mean, he can’t help but give in. That’s what makes the movie interesting is the tension of watching this person run away from himself and still find [himself]. Yeah. My brain is mush.

It’s almost Friday. I understand.

J.S.: Yeah, we had this screening last night, and I had a drink and a half.

B.L.P.: Alcoholic. [laughs]

You’re getting through it! At the film’s Sundance premiere, Jane compared recognizing that you’re trans and making the decision to come out and transition to being buried alive, which made it into the movie through Maddy’s big monologue scene about finding her true self on the other side of the TV screen. Brigette, what do you remember about filming that?

B.L.P.: I spent a lot of time with the monologue. I had the script for a year, and so I memorized it, and then just said it to myself all the time. I sort of made sense of the allegory of it through my own experience of what it means to be trans, and what it means to destroy your life. I think I was teaching myself how to do that through the monologue. Like, I think I hadn’t really started going through it yet, but the monologue was a way for me to understand what it would mean.

I knew that in order to play Maddy, I would have to fully believe in what she believes, and what happens to her. Because to me, this really is a fantasy film. Like, I think that Maddy really does return to The Pink Opaque. And so in a way, it was partly infusing it with the experience of that level of self-oppression, and the fear of disappointing the world around you, or turning into something that’s too ugly to be loved, but trusting that.

You know, I told myself, “This is crazy. This is crazy. What you’re doing is crazy.” But another part of me knew that it wasn’t, that it was survival. But you actually have to destroy yourself. And then the other piece of it was just visualizing what that was like for her, making it real, what it actually felt like to be underground, counting to 10,000.

I also feel like the mentor-mentee dynamic that your characters form based on their shared fandom implicitly feels very queer, especially when it comes to building a sort of identity around the thing that your slightly older friend introduced you to as a kid. How did you two, as actors, work to establish that connection?

B.L.P.: We really met only a few days before we started filming, and I think we just got along. Oh, tell her about the life path twin thing! Because I’ve been trying to explain that to people, and I actually don’t know the math.

J.S.: Oh, I forgot that we’re life path twins! Yeah, me and Brigette are life path twins. The math is [that] you add all the numbers from your birthday. So I’m August 9, 1995.

B.L.P.: And I’m August 10, 1994. So it works out that we have–

J.S.: The same life number. I don’t know if that makes any sense.

B.L.P.: Need we say more?

J.S.: But anyways, just many ways in which we were destined to be friends. We’re both Leos. We’re both August Leos. We both have the same life path number. Our birthdays are one day apart. We both love singing musicals and playing Dear Evan Hansen. We sang a lot on set. We both love Phoebe Bridgers, and we tried to be so cool around her and were unsuccessful. [laughs]

B.L.P.: I think we’re both also just, you know, pretty queer. So you don’t have to act about that.

J.S.: That’s true.

B.L.P.: And I feel like we have a mentor-mentee vers dynamic, you know? When we get to see each other. I learn from you.

J.S.: I mentor you, you get mentored by me. [laughs] Does that math add up?

B.L.P.: Yeah. Let me run it back. Well, you’re teaching me?

J.S.: Yeah, I teach you.

B.L.P.: I’ve gotta remember what I’ve learned.

J.S.: You get taught by me.

B.L.P.: I gather the other students together, we revolt.

J.S.: We just had lots of long talks in the trailers, too. We just had a good time. I love Brigette.

B.L.P.: Yeah. I love Justice.

Yeah. I don’t understand math, but I do understand Leos, and Phoebe Bridgers, too, I think, so I love that for you guys. Before we wrap up, I’m curious: Is there a certain piece of media that you would claim as your personal Pink Opaque, that kind of turned your world upside down and, looking back, feels tied to how you understand yourself in some way?

J.S.: SpongeBob, probably. SpongeBob is, like, the source of all my humor. [laughs] When I think about the things that I find funny and then I rewatch those first three seasons, [I’m like], “Wow.” It’s there, it’s so congruent.

I had SpongeBob everything. I had SpongeBob bedsheets. I had a piggy bank. I painted my walls blue and my doors yellow. I literally had a toothbrush, everything. It’s somewhere in storage now. And I’m like, “I feel like this is valuable, like I should sell this.”

B.L.P.: A toothbrush?

J.S.: Yeah. So someone can get my DNA and clone me. No, I feel like, you know, early aughts Spongebob paraphernalia might be valuable, maybe in another couple decades.

B.L.P.: Maybe another planet.

J.S.: I think people really underestimate how good that show is.

The film has already been called a “profound” work of trans fiction.

B.L.P.: TV has never stayed with me, I’m sorry to say.

J.S.: You don’t remember, like, episodes of stuff?

B.L.P.: No.

J.S.: I’m a big TV fan. Even now I’m, like, obsessed with TV. More than movies. I don’t know why.

B.L.P.: I think I quote movies more than TV.

J.S.: Movies are hard for me to remember.

B.L.P.: I quote Zoolander a lot.

J.S.: I’ve never seen it!

B.L.P.: Zoolander was my Pink Opaque.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

I Saw the TV Glow is in theaters May 3.

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Originally Appeared on them.