Meet the Comic Book Heroines of ‘Paper Girls’
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“Funny story,” Camryn Jones says of how she and her fellow “Paper Girls” first met. Each had gone through months-long interview processes, and when they were finally cast in their respective roles for the Amazon comic series, they assumed they’d soon get to know who would be playing the rest of the foursome. The producers had other ideas.
“After we all got our casting, we were not allowed to contact each other,” says Fina Strazza, who plays KJ in the series, out July 29 on Amazon. “They wanted our first meeting to be in person and be captured by a photographer and for it to be this journey that we were all a part of.”
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“We met on May 3,” Jones continues.
“And it’s really cool, because the way that we met is very similar to how our characters on screen met,” adds Riley Lai Nelet, who plays Erin. “And I think that really affected our performance on screen.”
Of course, they bent the rules just a tad.
“We definitely looked up all of their Instagrams,” Jones, who is Tiffany, admits. “‘OK, so this is Erin, this is KJ, this is Mac.’”
“And I think we did cheat a bit because the night before we met, we were DM-ing each other,” Strazza adds.
Strazza, Jones and Nelet are joined by Sofia Rosinsky in the series, which is a comic sci-fi time-travel action show set in the late ’80s. Jones and Strazza were existing comic book fans, and recall buying the first book leading up to their auditions and getting so hooked they finished the series in one night.
Lexie Moreland/WWD
“And now, I have every single copy that has probably been [published],” Jones says.
“I just really liked how it was very real. It was very authentic and genuine,” she adds. “I loved how it was action and how it touched on themes of racism and sexism while still remaining a very action-packed, coming-of-age story.”
“I hadn’t heard about the comic book until I auditioned. And when I did, I just became immediately hooked on the story,” Nelet says. “It’s just something that I’ve worked so hard for a really long time. And it’s a type of project that I just wanted to be a part of, that female empowerment and the uniqueness of the story.”
Jones, a native of Houston, Texas, entered a pageant as a kid where the prize was an acting lesson. She won, got the lesson, and also signed with an agent out of it.
Strazza grew up in a “very creative family” in Manhattan and always thought she’d go into the performing arts, having watched her sister model, dance and act as they were growing up.
Nelet, meanwhile, is from Northern California and fell in love with films through watching kung fu movies with her grandma growing up. Being part of an action project now makes her feel close to her grandma, who passed away before Nelet had begun her career.
While the “Paper Girls” have seen the episodes already, they’re each planning their own little celebrations over the weekend to show their families what they’ve been working on,
“I’m planning on having a watch hangout,” Jones says. “We’re going to order a pizza and then I’m just going to turn away every time I see my face.”
Lexie Moreland/WWD
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