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Are you going to get your ears pierced?
Konkle,31, asks Erskine, also 31.
Youshould get your ears pierced.
Of course, theyve had plenty of practice.
The joke, as anyone who went to middle school knows, is that it wont be.
Onscreen Konkle, who is tall and blonde, wears braces and self-consciously hunches her shoulders.
Youre a mini-adult but also a complete kid.
At the center of every opera is a great romance, andPEN15s is between its two leads.
The show is a reflection of our actual best-friendship, Konkle says.
She pulls up short in front of a rack of magnetic earrings.
I kind of want one right here, she tells Erskine, tapping the side of her nose.
I keep thinking of like a really thin gold nose ring.
She slips a hoop into her nostril.
I feel like it doesnt work on me, worries Konkle, peering into the mirror.
It highlights my noses red spots.
I think it looks really natural on you, says her friend warmly.
But is it weird, Konkle asks me, that people are going to think our show is calledPenis?
We had mutual friends, Erskine says at an Italian restaurant near the Galleria.
We had diarrhea, says Konkle.
Its true, Erskine admits.
The cause was German playwright Bertolt Brecht.
Specifically, theshort-noticeassignment theyd been given to come up with a performance in his style.
It landed her an agent, who started sending her out on auditions.
Still, it was awful.
They were all like, Chinese Waitress No.
2, says Erskine, who is half-Japanese.
Those shows are just like a huge machine, she says.
They dont care about yourprocess.
I was like Wait, are we rehearsing?
When Erskine panics, she gets carpopedal spasms, meaning my hands turn into claws.
She was cut from the episode.
Meanwhile, Konkle was breaking up with her boyfriend and reevaluating her commitment to New York.
After seven years, I was like, I was wrong.
Shedrove out to Los Angeles, where she and Erskine plannedto make a web series.
It was our last-ditch effort to put our work out, Erskine says.
Though I guess it was ourfirst-ditch effort.
The series, which they calledProject Reality,turned out to be a perfect showcase for their comedic sensibility.
Erskines father is a renowned jazz drummer who has played with Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan.
Eventually, shed transferred to a performing-arts high school in East L.A.
But when she looked around the party, it was allthose kids, she says.
And they stillhung out, Konkle interjects incredulously.
Growing up in suburban Scituate, Massachusetts, shed had a different junior-high experience.
Girls in L.A. would not have done that.
No they would have worn like, real diamonds, says Erskine, glumly.
Cool-kid pheromones are universal.Back at the party, we both reverted to our middle-school selves, recalls Erskine.
Not cool enough, wearing the wrong things.
It got them thinking.
Its such a crazy time, says Erskine.
My first kiss wasmortifying, says Konkle.
My expectations wereSaved by the Bell.They wereromantic.When it happened, it felt like an alien drilling my throat.
I went home and burst out crying.
And I was inninth grade.
Konkle shakes her head.
I was a super-late bloomer.
Neither of them had seen these kinds of experiences onscreen.
Were raised to think ofguysjerking off as funny fodder, says Konkle.
As a young girl, you dont see that its okay, Erskine says.
Its ingrained in me.
When Im exposed, I feel a sense of shame.
I didnt know that, Konkle says sympathetically.
The show, as they saw it, would include as many of those moments as possible.
All of the secrets, Konkle says.
The things you pretend arent happening.
Maybe they were cult members who had taken refuge in a middle school?
Oddly large foster children?
I just had this vision of Maya swaddled on a doorstep, says Konkle.
I was about three feet tall in middle school, I was called a midget, he says.
ButI feel like my life as a boy was simpler.The girls experience was so much more complex and interesting.
It really is emotional life and death.
Sam was like, What if theres no explanation?
What if youre just 13?
And it was like,Oh, yeah.
The one they came up with had a scene where a kid fingers my character, says Erskine.
The kid wasnt actually in the shot PEN15isaboutchildhood traumas; it doesnt want tocausethem.
Theyd come up with what they thought was a funny way of filming around it.
And then we cut to a Bundt cake and a banana.
Still, networks balked.
Minus the fingering scene.
But whereas the discomfort Solondz inflicts on his audience feels sadistic,PEN15s intention feels different.
Its creators want you to feel something, but they dont want you to feelbad.
Even the central conceit has a kind of empathy behind it.
Or you did, but you got through it.
Soon theyre calling Maya their servant and having her fetch things.
That was sort of my way of fitting in, she says.
I would come up with these characters, and they would pull my pants down and die laughing.
Like as a joke.
Those things hit hard, even though you dont realize at the time.
Even now, it feels complicated, because she had been a participant.
The teenage actors whose job it had been to tease her were horrified.
ThenAnnastarted crying, says Erskine.
We just all started crying.
It was really weird.
It was traumatic for everyone.
Its hard navigating these things sometimes because were both really sensitive, Konkle explains.
At the moment,the real Anna and Maya are taking a breather from Anna and Maya.
If it does, they have a lot of ideas.
We dont talk about fingering enough, Erskine points out, for one.
And since they started working on the series, people have been telling them thebestmiddle-school stories.
He jerked off on her photo, Konkle begins.
No,he lit the photo of the girl he was going out with on fire, says Erskine.
Then he put the fire out with his cum.
In his mind, it was a ceremony to get her to break up with him, says Konkle.
The kicker is, it worked: The very next day, the girl broke up him.
And then, says Konkle.
Theres a brief moment where we all consider the tragicomic possibilities of seventh grade.
In the end, does anyone?
As we exit Claires, shiny bags dangling at our sides, Konkle touches her nose ring self-consciously.
You guys, she says.
Im going to besoembarrassed if I run into anyone I know.
PEN15comes to Hulu February 8.
Watch the trailer below.
