![]() They conceived of the show a decade ago, imagining it initially as a broad comedy. Konkle and Erskine first met as NYU undergrads studying abroad in Amsterdam. In the show’s final installments, Anna and Maya navigate death, religion, socioeconomic status, and sexual firsts with prickly specificity. But in just 25 episodes, including a mid-pandemic animated special, the show morphed into a deeply funny, often existential, and more ambitious endeavor-digging far deeper than its original premise. When PEN15 premiered in February 2019, its conceit seemed like a gimmick: Watch two grown women play early-aughts preteens, surrounded by actual 13-year-olds. My name is Yuki on the show.’ And I was like, ‘Right, of course.’ It just kept happening where all of a sudden I’d be so surprised by her…as a person, and not seeing her through the lens of being my mom.” “At one point she said, ‘Stop calling me Mom. “What I realized while I was filming was I called my mom ‘Mom’ a lot while I was directing her,” she says. If anything, it just made me look at my mom and be like, Wow, you’re a superhero. And then Anna helped me one day, because I was literally throwing up all night from the stress of it. “I got sick the first day and it was truly the hardest week of my life-like, harder than the week after giving birth, in the sense of having to breastfeed in between doing setups. “We had our kids and then we had to go straight into work, essentially,” says Erskine. ![]() Konkle welcomed her daughter, Essie, with partner Alex Anfanger two months later, Erskine gave birth to a son, Leon, with fiancé Michael Angarano. “Your perspective has changed, but you’re still telling the same story that you set up to tell a year ago.”ĭuring their 18-month hiatus, both Konkle’s and Erskine’s lives were forever changed. “It was really odd, coming back into this fragmented production,” Erskine remembers. The production was forced to shut down in 2020, with only seven days of shooting left. Maybe Konkle and Erskine are having trouble getting the metaphorical monkey off their backs because of the challenges they faced filming the final stretch of PEN15 episodes. But at the moment, it’s such a whirlwind.” Probably in a few weeks or a few years I will. “I still don’t think I’ve totally processed it. Konkle, too, doesn’t quite know what to say. We feel really proud and grateful that we got to do it and that it’s out there…” She trails off and looks to her partner. “It feels more emotional, in a way, but also surreal and exciting. ![]() ![]() But then to see it in print is quite another,” Erskine tells Vanity Fair during a recent three-way Zoom. “Us talking about ending the show was one thing. “I need a break.” But true to the nostalgic nature of the show, its brain trust is having a difficult time letting everything fade to black. “What I’ve said is the most creatively fulfilling thing in the entire world is also the most draining,” Konkle says of the pair’s decision to end the series. The show’s co-creators and stars, who at age 34 play 13-year-old versions of themselves living in the year 2000, have decided to lower the curtain on their inventive Hulu comedy after two seasons. ![]() PEN15 was born out of an unshakable adolescence angst-and for Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, it’s ending with a similar haunting sense. ![]()
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