Another concept had them as grown foster children.

“We’re just 13, surrounded by 13 year olds, in the year 2000.”īut how? One idea, quickly scrapped, had them escaping a cult and having to hide in society as 13 year olds. “And it just came through a couple days of brainstorming,” Konkle adds. But the idea that you never really leave seventh grade was really an exciting thought.” “I was like, ‘at this age, how are you still reverting back to this time?’ I thought I got over all the trauma and self-consciousness. “I felt all of the insecurities that I felt in seventh grade,” Erskine says. Then one night, roughly five years ago, they went to a party that was attended by many of Erskine’s former middle school classmates. “But afterwards I was like, ‘I’ve never felt as empowered as I have when we’re making stuff together.’ ” “It was incredibly difficult,” Konkle says. The series, “Project Reality,” was essentially a faux reality-show where they played a variety of characters. “It was all an experiment we just wanted to see if we would like it,” Erskine says.

Erskine moved back to Los Angeles to see what acting jobs she could land and Konkle, who had been waitressing in New York while trying to keep her stage ambitions alive, eventually joined Erskine in Los Angeles. “And we just glommed onto each other because of our similar comedic tendencies and weird interests,” Erskine adds.Īfter graduation, their goal was to live in New York and pursue theater. “It was a very intensive theater program, and everyone was performing constantly and having to create work and produce. “We were bonding over our IBS issues and our anxiety,” Konkle says. The anxiety they felt about participating in the storytelling exercises required in the program was a special kind of bonding experience. The two wouldn’t know each other until their junior year at NYU’s Tisch School of Arts when both attended an experimental theater workshop abroad in Amsterdam. Her room had a Winnie the Pooh border and Winnie the Pooh bedding - “that’s so not cool,” she says. She prided herself on not being obsessive over celebrities at that age - but don’t be mistaken, she definitely developed a liking for Justin Timberlake. Roughly 3,000 miles away, Konkle was navigating her teen years in a coastal town in Massachusetts. I feel like most of my trauma comes from that time of feeling rejected by my friends.” And I so desperately wanted to be that, and I desperately wanted to hold on to those friends who were veering away from me. It was a time when class differences started to show, and I was not in the upper part of it. “It’s funny,” she says, “because my friends from that time are like, ‘You seemed like you were so happy and you were friends with everyone,’ ” Erskine says. She was the girl who crushed on Brad Renfro, lined her bedroom walls with “Got Milk?” and Absolut Vodka ads and rented artsy coming-of-age French films like “Pauline at the Beach.” So, what was seventh grade like for them?Įrskine grew up in Los Angeles and attended the elite Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in Santa Monica - a fact she reveals almost apologetically.

Maya ishii peters