Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, PEN15 creators and stars

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ahead of their second season we'll revisit our interview with PEN15's Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle. They are the stars and creators of the very funny Hulu show. It's about two middle school girls coming of age in the early 2000s. The show deals with sensitive topics like getting your first period or being bullied, but also has tons of heart and humor.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:10.0	It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn.
0:22.0	Penn 15 is a show about middle school, or I guess this might be more accurate.
0:26.9	It's about the middle school experience you might have actually had.
0:31.5	There's the time it's set in for starters, the year 2000.
0:35.0	There are plenty of songs by Insync and Lit and Mandy Moore, the characters where BB tanks,
0:41.0	Rough Riders t-shirts, UFO pants.
0:43.8	It's a fun nostalgia trip, sort of like Lady Bird, but Penn 15 also digs deeper into
0:48.6	what it means to be 12 or 13.
0:51.4	A time in your life when a lot of kids are very, very insecure.
0:56.3	Writing themselves questions like, why is my body changing or why isn't my body changing
1:00.8	or why don't I have more friends or how am I supposed to talk to people?
1:07.7	It's a show about kids that definitely isn't four kids.
1:10.8	Sex and menstruation come up.
1:12.9	We'll talk about that later in the interview.
1:15.4	Last year I talked with Anna Conkel and Maya Erskine.
1:18.2	They're the creators and stars of Penn 15.
1:21.2	Its second season is coming to Hulu next week.
1:24.6	We figured we'd replay their interview because the show is fantastic and Maya and Anna are themselves really great.
1:32.2	As I mentioned, they're real life best friends.
1:35.0	And on Penn 15, they play middle school aged versions of themselves.
1:39.5	Maya has a brutal bowl cut.
	...

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