But my last year, they were putting on this play called Curiosity Cat. It’s funny, I always tried to be in these plays and I would always be chorus. I wasn’t giving up for good! Do you have a favorite play that you did when you were in school? It felt like another entry point to creating stories. I was like, “Yep, I’m out.” But I think because I studied film, and because I was writing and directing my own stuff, it just felt natural to try to act out characters as a way to help my writing. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. One time in community theater, I got one line during one rehearsal and then like the next rehearsal, the director was like, “Hey, who wants this one line?” And I was like, “Wait, you gave that to me last week! I have the one line!” It was that familiar feeling.

I was in musical theater growing up, and I was always chorus, so it just felt like this familiar shame. What made you want to get back into performing again? I read that when you did theater your first year at Harvard, you were put off by a bad review by a fellow student. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play Now she’s reached a turning point in her career as City on Fire’s leading lady and among another roster of impressive costars on Bupkis.īelow, Wonders talks to BAZAAR about how she made her way back to acting after overcoming her crippling shyness, subverting the “manic pixie dream girl” archetype, and the movie she’s trying to manifest. Wonders has also delighted fans new and old in Sofia Coppola’s 2020 film On the Rocks and as good-girl actress Emma in the 2022 horror comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies, in which she starred alongside Amandla Stenberg, Rachel Sennott, Myha’la Herrold, and Maria Bakalova. But when the actress broke through on the Lena Dunham–produced HBO Max series Generation as budding photographer Riley, all bets were off.

In case that weren’t hectic enough, we spoke just hours before the premiere of City on Fire, a drama series based on the novel by Garth Risk Hallberg, which untangles a web of mysteries connected to the murder of her character, Sam.įor many years, the spotlight didn’t seem like it was in the cards for Wonders, who was plagued with selective mutism as a child, which she remedied with years and years of community theater.

It’s been a whirlwind month for the 26-year-old Michigan native, who is hot off the release of Bupkis, Pete Davidson’s semi-autobiographical Peacock comedy series, in which she portrays his on-screen girlfriend. But when the actress patches into our call from New York, she is cool and lively, as if I’m catching her after a restful nap rather than post-junket. Chase Sui Wonders is doing a marathon of press, and this interview is mile 26.

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