Music is known to connect us all, but for 12-year-old Beverly Moody, it’s the only way to connect her to her late parents.
Netflix’s new original film Mixtape takes us on Moody’s journey to find the songs on a broken mixtape that was made by her parents who passed away when she was just a baby.
With the help of newfound friends Nicky and Ellen, Moody’s mission to find the music takes her to people and places like never before. Moody sees this as a chance to finally learn more about her parents, but this may just teach her even more about herself.
Directed by Valerie Weiss, Mixtape is set on the eve of the early 2000s, so get ready to expect great music and a bit of nostalgia. Featuring a stellar cast like Gemma Brooke Allen as Beverly Moody, Julie Bowen as grandmother Gail, Audrey Hsieh as Ellen, Olga Petsa as Nicky and Nick Thune as Anti, a tuneful playlist and a plot that the whole family can enjoy, this flick really is music to our ears.
In an exclusive interview with Petsa, Hsieh and Allen, Celeb Secrets learned that the actresses are as great of friends off screen as they are on-screen.
“It was like in my wildest dreams fun,” exclaimed Allen on making the movie. “Especially with these girls, every moment we were laughing or crying of joy. It was amazing and I have a lot of that to thank for these amazing girls and Val, our amazing momma bear director. And especially, it makes such a big difference when everyone in the production is so nice and supportive. I feel like the vibe and the good environment makes such an impact and I got really lucky with this team and these incredible girls that I love so much.”
Hsieh explained that behind the scenes, the movie was as much of a joy to make as it is to watch.
“Yeah, I mean exactly what Gemma said,” replied Hsieh. “It was just an amazing experience. Every moment was so fun because you know, the cast and crew, they made it fun. They made it lively and there was a never dull moment, you know, from like the fashion, the music obviously and Gemma and Olga. They’re so great people. I don’t know how I was able to like work with them but everything was amazing. All the stuff you see on screen, all that fun, that was all real and it was a great time.”
And as far as what scene was their favorite to film? The girls shared that it’s a hard choice to make with so many noteworthy moments.
“Oh, boy! This is really difficult,” said Allen. “I’m going to have to say two cause I can not choose for the life of me. The Voyeur, when we went to the club, that was so fun and like Olga was crowd-surfing, we were dancing and then we were slam-dancing Nick Thune and he was like, ‘What the heck are you doing?’ and it was so fun annoying him. No, but that was awesome and it was like we had never seen, I have never gone to a club before… the lights, and the people, and the punk rock outfits and just being with the girls was so fun. And then, the Y2K party at the end was just, I mean, definitely took the cake. It was so fun and to be able to like perform with the outfits and the guitar and like feel like a rock star…”
“Yeah, I was about to say actually the Y2K scene is by far my favorite scene because, you know, we’re all dressed up amazing.” said Hsieh “They were real fireworks too which was just the coolest thing ever. Don’t know how they did that but they got it to happen. I mean, it’s Netflix so I guess I can understand how they got that to happen but yeah, it was such an awesome environment. It really felt like, well, not the end of the world but, you know, the warm vibe. You know, it felt really cozy and I really liked it.”
For Petsa, the scene on the swing brought a little bit of movie magic and real-life magic.
“It’s really difficult to choose but for me, I do have to say the scene where we’re on the swing…” said Petsa. “… it’s Gemma, Audrey and I, well, Beverly, Ellen and Nicky and we’re just swinging back and forth and, I mean, we were on that swing for maybe six hours just filming continuously and it was, first of all, extremely fun because obviously, you’re on a swing, second is the view in front of us was absolutely incredible and something magical happened that day. It started to snow as we were filming. So that scene, there’s a point you can see snow. That was all real. Nothing was fake and you get our reactions, really, really genuine reactions. I mean, we were on the swing [and] we were like, ‘Snow…Oh, my god!’ Especially for these two because they don’t get to see snow much. I mean, they are near L.A. or in L.A.. So, it was really extraordinary. I really love that scene.”
Beyond these amazing scenes, we sought to find out more details from behind the camera. Celeb Secrets sat down (virtually) with Gemma Brooke Allen, Audrey Hsieh and Olga Petsa to discuss the incredible movie. The cast not only shared insight on the film, but more than a few behind-the-scenes secrets. Check out the full interview below!
To see all these scenes mentioned above and the full tale unfold, viewers can stream Mixtape now on Netflix.
Don’t forget to let us know what you think of Mixtape by leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sending us a tweet at @CelebSecrets.
