Meet Quinn Shephard
The actress-turned-director has become New York City's new It Girl, and it's time we all recognized it.
Illustration of Quinn by Ally Hart
Talking with Quinn Shephard is a unique experience; she immerses you in a world that is both hyper realistic and fantastically dreamy. She is incredibly professional but also genuinely friendly; the type of person that would actually care about what you had to say– the mark of a good storyteller. As she puts it, “I like to find honesty through voices that aren’t instantly recognizable as my own.”
Quinn is what you would consider a child prodigy. She began her acting career at 4, wrote her first feature script at 15, directed that same script at 20, premiered her debut directorial feature at the Tribeca Film Festival (making her the youngest female director to do so) and is now 25 with her hands still busy in many productions.
All in all, she’s killing it; but, her success did not come without its challenges.
Growing up, Quinn was always drawn to different forms of art. She began her career as a child actor. As she grew into her teen years, she began to gravitate more toward the theatre world, which introduced her to the notable character Abigail Williams from The Crucible.
“I love that I have Blame because it's a snapshot of my youthful perspective,” she tells us during our Skype interview a few months back. Starting at 15, writing and rewriting Blame throughout her high school years was an outlet for her coming-of-age process but also a way to include her family in that part of her life journey. “I used it all through high school as a form of therapy and to broach topics in my life that were uncomfortable for me to talk about in a personal way. It felt safer talking through characters about these vulnerable topics.”
The intensive five-year-long process included working very closely with her mother, both on the initial writing and in creating the film. “After she read it for the first time, Mom sat down with her ten pages of notes like, ‘Okay we’re going to get to work,’ which was her exact way of saying ‘I love you and I’m proud of you but we’re gonna whip this into shape’,” says Quinn.
Together, mother and daughter wove a tale that surprises audiences with its unpredictable plot and its intensely personal feeling. Whether or not you have been in a similar situation to these young women, you feel like you can relate to them. That feeling is due to the blood, sweat and tears from everyone who worked tirelessly to make the film happen. It's that exact feeling which allows the film to resonate with audiences long after it’s over.
As Quinn reminds us, a script is never really done. People in her life inspired growth and changes in the characters over the years as the script evolved. She and her mother continued rewrites even through filming and considered input from the actors themselves on the characters they played.
“It’s really important to not be precious because actors have such value and perspective and it’s very important if you find the right actor to be open to shaping the character to their voice because they can teach you something you didn’t know.”
Blame focuses on two high-school-aged young women; the bullied and eccentric Abigail who falls for her teacher, and the mean girl Melissa who is jealous of their budding relationship.
When we asked her to go in-depth on Mr. Woods, the teacher who Abigail becomes involved with, she explained that the way she viewed his character changed as she matured. From when she began writing the story at 15 to when it was being filmed five years later, her perception of Mr. Woods’s character shifted from childhood fantasy to irresponsible adult. She made it clear that although not necessarily a bad person, Mr. Wood’s actions were irredeemable.
“I think it didn’t fully click for me in how we were framing the story until we put the film together for the very first time,” she says on Mr. Wood’s actions. “As an actor, I had to be in Abigail’s shoes and she would never see him as a villain. I had to keep some of that naivete intact while shooting because I was playing her and couldn’t play her as a victim. When I watched it for the first time was when I realized that this is a story about abuse in different forms. I’m not without sympathy for his character but what he did was reprehensible.”
One of the best things about this film is the incredibly wide range given for acceptable behavior. Each character has their own faults and their own moments that can be perceived as villainous, but Shephard insists she “doesn’t write villains.”
“I think I don’t believe in straight-up bad guy characters, it’s not my thing. I’m always looking at why people do things that are more complicated and morally gray.”
When asked why she was inspired so much by The Crucible and specifically Abigail’s character she said, “I read the play at a very pivotal time in my life and I think [Abigail] had a massive impact on me because it gave me a sense of power in a way, despite my age.” Similarly, she was also inspired by Steven King’s Carrie. Quinn says she enjoys complex characters who do unlikable things. This is the same sort of vibe she infused into Blame’s character of Melissa, the mean girl who projects her inner pain outward through bullying and faux indifference.
Shephard herself is like a King character when she describes her month-long “binges”-- hiding away in her room letting her creativity push all other priorities aside. While she did star in and simultaneously direct Blame, she says wearing many hats at once is something you can only do once in your lifetime.
“One of the most difficult things was directing and acting at the same time,” she told me. “It felt like doing something with one hand tied behind your back. I felt like I wanted to be in both places at the same time fully but couldn’t.”
In filmmaking, the audience will only see the outcome of a film - the boos, applause, critical appraise. The audience will never see the restless nights, eighteen hour shoots, constant rewrites, financial hurdles, mental breakdowns, and of course that lingering voice telling the filmmaker to just give up while they’re ahead. Looking back, Quinn believes that when it comes to pursuing your dreams, or in this case making your first feature film, it’s much harder to keep going than it is to get started.
”The truth is anyone can start something and have the courage to believe in themselves, but when it’s actually happening and you’re in the thick of it, you always know your life would be a lot easier if you stopped,” she explains. Her support system has always been the force that got her to the finish line.
The benefit of having people who really believe in you and what you’re capable of is that they’ll never let you quit. No one in her family has ever asked her, “What if you fail?” No one has ever asked her if she had a back up plan. This foundation of encouragement has made her into the person she is today. Someone who “has always picked herself back up” and kept going.
The real world has not always been so kind to her. She attributes her tough skin to her childhood acting days. Hearing “no” over and over made her stronger, and she tries not to see anything as a failure because she doesn’t believe success is a straight line.
When she hits roadblocks, Quinn asks herself, “Is being sad about this productive? Can I find a silver lining?” When things don’t go her way, she thinks “Maybe this isn’t the point in my life when I should make this.” Everything can’t always go your way, no matter how badly you want it or how much you believe in your ideas.
Quinn sees her position as a queer female filmmaker as both her superpower and her kryptonite. Just as being young, queer, and female has each individually opened many doors for her, it has often closed them as well. Although these identities have shaped her voice and made her stand out, they are also the root of many opportunities lost and have added to her struggle to gain respect in this industry.
She has been directly told that she’s missed opportunities because of her age, however she admits that she has gained access into other rooms because of it. “I’m just grateful for the doors that it has opened,” she reiterates. In light of the #MeToo movement and women-empowered initiatives such as Alma Har’el’s Free the Work established to showcase diverse creators, Quinn has the belief that things are getting better; in fact, she strongly believes she’s lucky to be doing this now instead of ten years ago.
For now, Shephard is focusing on her career writing and directing while putting acting on the back burner. She has a number of different projects brewing, many of which focus on telling elevated stories of young queer women like herself. She mentions HBO’s Euphoria and her desire to work in the same space that the show broke into, where “young people’s stories aren’t told as cliche cautionary tales but as layered truths.”
At 25 years old, Quinn has only just begun to share her voice with the world. Whatever she decides to do next, it’s guaranteed to be powerful.
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