In Lisa Frankenstein, Kathryn Newton plays a high school outsider. In real life, the actress isn’t too nostalgic for those days.
Although Kathryn proudly shows off one of three championship rings from her time as high school golf team captain, which she wears “every day,” she tells me at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills that she has no desire to relive her school years.
“School is way harder than being an actor,” says Kathryn. “Getting through that's harder than anything.”
After years in the spotlight as a child actor, followed by seven seasons at Riverdale High, Kathryn’s co-star Cole Sprouse isn’t torn up about missing out on the real thing either.
“To be honest, I went to homeschool during high school. Shocking,” he explains. “All of my friends that were telling me about their high school experiences when I was in home school, I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. This sounds horrible for everybody. It didn't sound fun.”
Cole’s school years were spent on the sets of movies like Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy (1999), as well shows like Friends and Disney Channel's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, in which he starred alongside twin brother Dylan Sprouse.
Kathryn — who appeared in Bad Teacher (2011), Paranormal Activity 4 (2012), Lady Bird and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (both 2017) as a kid — adds, “Well, it's weird to grow up acting because then I'd go to school and be like, 'Wait a minute, is this real life or is acting real life?' And I realized none of it is real. It's all what you want it to be.”
She stars in Lisa Frankenstein as the titular 1980s teen. After her undead crush, The Creature (Cole), is risen from the grave by a bolt of lightning, Lisa begins salvaging body parts from her peers for her new beau, baking him to perfection in her stepsister’s (Liza Soberano) tanning bed.
Screenwriter Diablo Cody — who was partially inspired by Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein and the 1985 John Hughes movie Weird Science — identifies with the adolescent outsiders, noting she now has “love for my younger self.”
“I was nerdy, but also weirdly arrogant and outspoken. So that obnoxious combination of a loser who was very sure of themselves, is the best way I would describe it. I was just kind of cringe,” recalls Diablo of high school. “Unearned confidence is how I would describe it.”
Director Zelda Williams says she “was very much the opposite,” explaining: “I was a really quiet kid. I was on the tech committee at my high school, and I didn't really come into my own until I moved out on my own. That's when I found who I was. At that time, the most social I got was on these third-person RPG (role playing) boards. And I would just write on them all day.
“I was really quiet. It's why I relate to Creature so much in this as well,” says Zelda of Cole’s character, who communicates mostly through grunts. “Creature was kind of my heart and soul in this one.”
Lisa Frankenstein is now playing in theaters.
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