Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

I'm Jesse Thorn. When Anna Conkel decided to play herself at 13, she thought she knew

what to expect. She's like 30-ish, by the way. Anna and her friend Maya Erskine were

making a show about middle school. It's called Penn 15. It's set in the year 2000 when

they were both about that age. Anyway, like I said, Anna knew what she wanted out of the

part. She put on braces and lip gloss and she found a bewitched shirt. She knew it would

be funny, but she didn't want it to be corny. Middle school is actually very scary. You're

terrified of not fitting in of being too weird. Nobody really knows what they're doing

in middle school and you are deeply, deeply insecure. What she didn't expect about the

whole thing was how easily all of that came back. I think that something that I continue

to rediscover is how not far away from that I feel now at 31 and how I get better at

faking it. Essentially, I know if I slouch too much in the wrong place, I'm going to look

more insecure or I'm going to look as insecure as I feel or whatever. I was really afraid

of playing 13 because of it being an authentic and feeling a big sketch and being silly and

blah, blah, blah and not wanting it to go that route. By the end of going like, oh, I

write or wrong, this feels very close to who I am now. Unfortunately, unfortunately.

It's Bullseye. Coming up, Anna and Maya tell me about their new show, Penn 15. Have

a mind stories from their own lives to make it and why they cast Richard Khan, Al from Home

Improvement. He had a there was an essence there that reminded us of my real dad. Yeah,

exactly. Plus, true stories from Maya and Anna's actual teenage years, totally bonkers

ones. And then someone else told me they were going to kill me. They were going to kill

me. They were going to kill me. Come to prom. You better bring a grave because you're going

...