First things first: Molly Gordon and I went to the same theater camp. Excuse me—the same performing arts training center. We were even in a musical together. Over coffee at the Crosby Street Hotel, Gordon—who’s since starred in Booksmart, Shiva Baby, and, most recently, season two of The Bear—and I reminisce about our summers spent treading the boards in the Catskills: the sometimes wild casting choices, first crushes, fond memories, and drama. At camp, Gordon tells me, “I was supposed to be in Working, but I dropped out because I got nervous and thought I couldn’t handle it. I got put in the chorus of Aida. That actually is something I think about a lot.”
Years later, Gordon is definitively stepping into the spotlight with Searchlight’s Theater Camp, her hilarious feature about the ins and outs of working at a camp for precocious and preternaturally talented kids. Gordon codirected with Nick Lieberman and cowrote the film with her longtime pals Lieberman and fiancés Noah Galvin and Ben Platt; she, Platt, and Galvin also star in the movie, which is based on a short film the group made together in 2017. The full-length version of Theater Camp was a hit at Sundance, due largely to its stacked ensemble cast, also featuring Jimmy Tatro, Nathan Lee Graham, Owen Thiele, Patti Harrison, and Gordon’s The Bear costar Ayo Edebiri.
“It was a collaborative atmosphere, kind of going back to that theater-camp vibe,” she said of shooting the improv-heavy film. “Even if we wrote some of the dialogue for scenes, we would rehearse it and then we would just improvise it. As an actor, I’ve gotten to work with Seth Rogen as a producer, Melissa McCarthy, and at the last 20 minutes usually of every setup, you get to do an improv take. I’ve just always had this dream: Oh, what if the whole movie was that?”
Theater Camp features a side of Gordon very different from the one we see in season two of The Bear, where she plays Claire, the grounded love interest of Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy. “I think he’s one of the best actors of our generation,” Gordon says of White. “I was just like, I can’t believe I get to work with him. Like, that’s illegal. That’s not okay.”
After a walk down memory lane, Gordon chatted with VF about lovingly roasting theater teachers, her struggle to get Theater Camp made, and introducing a whole new dynamic to season two of The Bear.
Photograph from Elias Tahan
Vanity Fair: We have to talk about theater camp, because we literally went to camp together. How much of your experience there inspired your movie?
Molly Gordon: I didn’t have a good time, yet I went back for three years. I was not cool there. But I always went back because I also had my favorite moments there—the moments that I felt the most free and like anything was possible. Even, like, the one straight guy. I kissed a guy my second year. He kissed me and he was like, “I miss my girlfriend.” [Laughs]
Theater Camp really feels like a cross between the 2003 film Camp and Wet Hot American Summer, specifically the over-the-top drama counselors played by Amy Poehler and Bradley Cooper.
Devoting your life to teaching children is the most beautiful thing you could possibly do. Janet Adderley is Ben and my teacher, who Ayo’s character is named after. She treated me like an adult when I was three years old, and was like, “What is your trauma? Use your trauma.”
We had a screening last night, and someone came up to me and was like, “I don’t know why anyone’s saying that this is too much. My [theater] teacher was crazier than this.” I think theater people are the main characters of their own lives. They’re insane, and they’re amazing, mystical people that need to be celebrated and roasted. But only if you’re in our community do you really see how realistic the behavior is.