Written By: Jayme Face

Need something new to watch? Try “Avocado Toast the series” coming to Amazon Prime May 18^th. The stars and producers Perrie Voss and Heidi Lynch told us all about what we can expect from this new comedy!

upfrontNY: Can you tell us a little bit about Avocado Toast the series and your characters?

Heidi Lynch: Avocado Toast the series is a heartfelt comedic story about the complexities of female friendships and mother/daughter relationships. The show also explores all of the awkward, funny and touching moments that arise from millennials being forced to talk about sex with their baby boomer parents. Lots of laughs, queer story lines, sexy women over the age of 50, incredible music, so much heart Molly is beige and has lived a beige millennial life until she meets The One and the prism she’s been viewing the world through shifts to another colour. She tries to make the new Molly fit into her old life and then gets scared when everything around her starts to change.

Perrie Voss: Avocado Toast the series is a no-holds-barred-female-driven narrative.The two protagonists Molly and Elle are life-long best friends and roommates who love each other unconditionally and somewhat co-dependently. Molly has just returned from England where she was for two years pursuing her teaching career where she fell in love with a woman for the first time. I play Elle, who is an art director at her mom’s ad agency and is having to deal with her parents divorcing. While Molly and Elle try and re-establish their friendship, they’re also trying to sort through their new sense of reality, dealing with the challenging situations happening in their individual lives. Elle is a hard-working party girl. She’s got some rough edges but she has a very soft centre, which her friendship with Molly ultimately helps bring out. Unexpectedly having to confront her vulnerability throughout the season, she discovers that she doesn’t always have to filter everything through a tough exterior.

 

upfrontNY: How did you two meet?

HL:We met on a theatre contract. It just happened that right after meeting our personal lives simultaneously exploded. We needed a friend, and we had both just relocated to a small town to do a play and only knew each other. We became each other’s source of support and laughter through hard times.

PV: Heidi and I met as we were getting ready to do some summer-stalk theatre in Port Dover (a small town on Lake Erie). We had met once before very briefly at a dinner party. I had the ludicrous idea that I thought we should also be roommates while rehearsing this play. I knew I liked her, and for some reason it felt like a good idea – which was very out of character for me because I tend to need private living space during rehearsals. But I asked her and she agreed and we totally hit it off.

 

upfrontNY: What made you decide to collaborate with each other? How did the idea for Avocado Toast the series come about?

HL: The story was inspired by our real life experiences. We met when I was figuring out how to come out as bi and Perrie’s parents were splitting up. We needed each other to laugh through it and we leaned on each other pretty hard. As we slowly healed from our real life we realized we needed to share a story about the power of female friendship through those two experiences. We really felt like bisexual coming out stories, stories about coping with parental divorce as an adult and stories about female friendships were not well explored and that we had a unique story to tell. You’ll be the judge!

PV: While we were doing that show Heidi had been going through a really huge revelation about her sexuality and then two weeks after we met, my parents told me they decided to get divorced extremely suddenly after 38 years of marriage. We were both going through it and what we realized is that we had this incredible strength to draw on with one another. We both laughed a lot and cried a lot but there was a trust and a bond that I had never experienced before with a friend- especially that quickly. So we have translated that into this story! I think it’s unique because of the way we’re telling the story and the lens it’s through. It’s 30 something year old women trying to get through things that they had figured they wouldn’t be dealing with at that point in their lives. They have to face some pretty huge moments. But we’ve decided to tell it with humour and through friendship, because that’s literally how we managed to get through it all — And lots of wine.

 

upfrontNY: Why the name Avocado Toast?

HL: It was made so popular by Tim Gurner when he explained to everyone the reason why Millennials couldn’t afford mortgages because they were spending all of their money on avocado toast. Avocado toast became a symbol of the millennial, baby boomer divide to us. A symbol of not understanding each other or each generation’s perspectives. Molly and Elle are struggling to connect with their baby boomer mothers.

PV: There was this article that came out some years ago – right when the avocado toast craze really took off written by a baby boomer for The Globe and Mail in Toronto (google it!) which talked about millennials not being able to afford to buy a house because they’re spending all their money on avocado toast, and if they saved their money they’d be able to buy a house. Which we found infuriating, but we also saw that as a thematic difference between millennials and baby-boomers – that if we just ‘saved up’ that would somehow make up for the housing market flux. But what we wanted to do was show that although these two generations are vastly different, we’re also not as different as we thought. It was like a symbolic clue: Avocado Toast! The intergenerational glue!

 

upfrontNY: What do you think audiences will relate to the most?

HL: Laughing when something upsets you instead of crying. Having to cry or explode because you’ve held something unhealthy in for so long.

PV: When challenging moments come up in our lives they can feel really isolating and ultimately cause us to question everything we know. I think everyone can relate to not really knowing what to do next in those instances. What I have realized is that what we are actually often craving is understanding and community to help us through that. We watch these two protagonists going through challenges and sometimes it’s messy and uncomfortable.When Heidi and I were going through these instances we really wanted to be able to see that representation in the media. Yes we had friends and family around us, but if we could have seen someone’s story showing us that what we’re feeling is safe and ok it would have been really healing. We want to be that source of relatability for our audience.

 

upfrontNY: Do you see similarities in yourselves and your characters?

HL: In Molly’s situation for sure. The fun part was making her different from me so that I got to bring my truth to it but act her. I am a very direct communicator. If I am working with someone or in a friendship/relationship and they understand me, that is how I am. I can shift that if I need to to get something done but my best friends, collaborators and my partner all know not to take me personally. Molly has a hard time making decisions, speaking up about things and that only gets heightened by her identity issues around her sexuality. It was really important to make Molly look as real as real can be. I am going through my own journey with how women are represented visually on screen and NEEDED to create make-up free, braless representation.

PV: I think there are definitely elements of Elle in me – she is based on my life experiences and I think I was probably more like her when I was in my 20s, and I’ve definitely amplified elements for the screen. I had my good friend, Kristian Bruun who plays Jake, come on set for a few days and afterwards he laughed that Elle and I can both be sassy but I’m a lot nicer as Perrie haha. I’ll take it.

 

upfrontNY: Who in the business inspires you?

HL: Our Co-Producer Charlie David or Border2Border Entertainment and now Guts and Gall Productions Inc. Charlie is a seasoned producer/director/creator/actor. He has mentored us, collaborated with us and championed us. He also has the insight and wisdom to realize when he’s learned from us and he vocalizes it and thanks us. I truly feel like at Guts and Gall Production Inc. our gender and sexuality is something we can celebrate but not something that sets up any unhelpful power dynamics. Geena Davis oh my god! Her work with the Geena David institute on Gender in Media and specifically her documentary “This Changes Everything”. Watch it. Learn it. She is a force.

PV: I’m really inspired by women who are taking what they want and figure out ways of making that happen. Greta Gerwig, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Lena Waithe have been tremendously inspiring to me lately. I love seeing people who are constantly figuring out how to be completely authentic to who they are, and who are finding ways to have their voice heard.

 

upfrontNY: What advice do you give other women looking to write and produce their own material?

HL: When it’s your first time and you’re cutting your teeth it is such an asset to be working with people who have patience and create space to screw up. Mistakes are part of life. As women, and especially actresses we rarely let ourselves fail and make mistakes without feeling the pressure of 100 women just like us waiting in the wings. The biggest thing I keep trying to instil in women I work with is to forget perfection. When putting time and energy into finding your own path remember that perfect is a waste of your energy. Most of the time ‘good enough is good enough’ and waiting until you can do things perfectly, or spending hours on creating the most beautiful powerpoint slides distracts you from spending your time on other tasks that could be adding important value to your work, your life, your identity.

PV: Honestly? Just start. Make something. Make anything. Have it be shit, have it be the worst thing you’ve ever made, and just keep going. We had a lot of roadblocks that seemed like it was the end of the road. So we cried, we got back up, and we started again. Find a way. Do not stop.

 

upfrontNY: Since you two have started a production company together does that mean we can be seeing more series and projects down the pipeline?

HL: Absolutely! I’m in development on another scripted web series and we’re gearing up for Season 2 of Avocado Toast the series. We’ve discovered a great group of people to collaborate with so it feels like Avocado Toast the series was an important launch pad. You can follow our company on Instagram @gutsandgall. Guts and Gall Productions Inc.

PV: Yes! Our company, Guts and Gall Productions Inc. was formed with our third producer, Charlie David who owns Border2Border Entertainment. We adore Charlie. He’s a brilliant producer and has become a great friend. Guts and Gall is the sister company, centred around underrepresented stories through a female lens. We have a few different show ideas in development now and planning Season 2 of Avocado Toast the series next year!

 

upfrontNY: How have you been spending your time during social distancing and quarantine?

HL: Social media for the show, recording a sexy audiobook about vampires, calling my nephew and nieces. We are all writing a story together. It’s getting pretty weird. And sometimes I just sit on the couch in sweatpants and look at the wall.

PV: Our team has been working around the clock with our post-production final stages to get our show ready for distribution at OUTtv which is exhilarating watching all the pieces come together! But it’s also a lot of work – which we absolutely love and fully embrace. But besides that I’m making sure that I get out for a long walk everyday. I’ve been cooking delicious food, treating myself to nice wine and doing video calls as much as I can with my friends and family.