It’s your worst high school fear realized: You break up with your boyfriend. He posts an Instagram photo with his new girlfriend a week later. And then you run into her at a party. For writer, director and actress Hannah Marks, this isn’t so much as a fear but a reality that inspired her new film, Banana Split.
In the movie, April (Marks) and her boyfriend Nick (Dylan Sprouse) break up in their senior year of high school after they’re accepted to colleges across the country. Time passes and April learns on Instagram that Nick has a new girlfriend, Clara (Liana Liberto), whom she runs into at a party and has a not-so-minor freakout.
But Banana Split isn’t a classic teen love triangle. After April and Clara meet, they become fast best friends: They hike, share a sundae and make fun of their ex and current boyfriend’s sex fetishes together. The premise was inspired by Marks’ own high school relationship. “I had a boyfriend for all of high school,” she says. “When we broke up, he got a new girlfriend and I actually became friends with her accidentally.”
Image: Banana Split (2020).
But aside from that initial premise, Marks assures that the rest of the movie is completely fictionalized, including the ending where—spoiler alert—both April and Clara dump Nick and choose each other. “We wanted it to start as a movie where you think of it as a rom com about a boy and a girl and how it actually is about a girl and girl,” Marks says.
It’s also this reason that Sprouse signed on to play the movie’s love interest, who takes a back seat to his girlfriends’ love story. “It was an interesting innovation on a genre that tends to stagnate,” he said. “You read these kind of scripts and you’re like, ‘Ah. I really hope they don’t do that.’ The fact that Hannah didn’t and knew there would be a weird love triangle dynamic that you were expecting and subverted those expectations made the movie much more about empathy and friendship.”
Ahead, we talked to Marks and Sprouse about what they were like as teenagers, and how Banana Split is a “twist” on the classic teen rom com.
Banana Split premieres on March 27 and is available on digital and on demand.
Image: Banana Split (2020).
Hannah on the coming-of-age movies that inspired Banana Split
“We really loved Frances Ha, that Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig movie, which is also about female friendship. And also Super Bad because we felt there wasn’t a female Super Bad at the time. It felt fun to subvert those tropes and give the female perspective on that type of story. “
Dylan on the struggle of playing a teenager in his mid-20s
“There’s definitely a suspension of belief when you’re my age, trying to play a younger character, even though I can get away with younger. But I think you do have to click into that a little bit and play up the boyishness that Nick has. It was about seeming lovable enough to make you feel like, ‘It’s no wonder why April’s broken hearted or I get why Clara likes him.’”
Image: Banana Split (2020).
Hannah on why it was “important” she played April herself
“I definitely feel like I was playing an exaggerated version of myself, which is why it was important for me to get to play the role. I really wanted to act in something I had written. I don’t normally feel that way except for this project. It was important for me to play myself even though it is fictionalized.”
Dylan on how Nick was similar and different to him as a teenager
“He’s similar enough. I think Nick has a lot of aspects in him that young men do before going to college and so there was certainly enough there to play around with. That being said, he’s in a very different position than I was. I did not have a standard high school experience at all.”
Image: Banana Split (2020).
Hannah on how the film is a “twist” on the classic teen rom com
My cowriter and I were thinking about how it is a twist on a typical rom com format. We wanted it to start as a movie where you think of it as a rom com about a boy and a girl and how it actually is about a girl and girl. The ending came from studying other rom coms and how they all ended with the couple getting back together. Of course, it was natural to have the girls to be the ones to get back together after having this classic falling out that you typically see.
Dylan on how he grew up doing a lot of “non-subtle” acting
Even though Nick seemed to be a villain or the fuel that’s driving the characters that surround him, I wanted to make sure in his other scenes that he seemed like he was just as confused and trying to find his place as much as the others were. It was about creating a lot of subtlety with Nick. That was fun to exercise because I’ve grown up doing a lot of, for a lack of a better word, non-subtle work.
Image: Banana Split (2020).
Hannah on if she still keeps in touch with her ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend who inspired Clara
Umm. On Instagram!