“By the time we were wrapped, it felt like a transformative experience for everybody that was on set, from our heroes to the directors to everybody on the crew,” Brie Larson said of Growing Up during a TCA press conference. The 10-episode documentary series created and executive produced by the Captain Marvel star debuted today on Disney+ as part of the streamer’s big Disney+ Day event. “I remember finishing this going, even if no one ever sees this, I feel like there was a lot of healing that happened here and a lot of connection. We've realized how much we all had in common and no one can escape the growing-up experience… I just have so much love and so much gratitude for our incredible heroes that had the courage to say things that I’m not sure if I would’ve had the courage to say and do it in a way that just brings so much love, so much joy, and so much celebration to things that are painful.”
(Disney/Anthony Artis)
“This was one of the projects that COVID deeply affected,” revealed showrunner and executive producer Nicole Galovski, with the show’s original plan to document each hero's daily lives. “We got a call from Disney that was like ‘Let’s do this in a studio,’ and we’re like, ‘Let’s do it in a studio?’ But when you get put in that creative box, I think really amazing things can happen, and I think that this show has benefited from that.” The new approach required the heroes to recreate formative moments in their life on a soundstage. “We reused sets that are the bones and the structure of what that universal experience is like, but then the set dressing and the different elements that come onto it then speak to the specific experiences of everybody and what we ended up calling memory storage. That kind of more subconscious space that you’re in stayed the same but obviously was redecorated and re-brought up with every single hero. And [director of photography] Christine Ng was really passionate about a color theory for each person, so when you see all the stories, you see the vibrancy of their particular color that comes through, and it makes it a rainbow at the end of the day of everybody’s color that projects in.”
Produced in the digital age, the process of finding heroes to be featured in the series started online. “Clare and I were actually the first two to be recruited on the show,” explained Isabel Lam, who started a chapter of the non-profit Period: The Menstrual Movement at her school with her best friend. “They were unsure what they wanted the project to really be in the beginning. But after speaking with Clare and me and kind of forming and changing the idea of the show with us, one core idea they had from the start was just amplifying our stories and refining exactly what specific points they wanted to talk about and how that would all mesh together in the grand scheme of things.”
(Disney/Anthony Artis)
Brie Larson directs the episode “Clare and Isabel,” although the creative force behind the series was present during the group sessions. “I would really give a lot of thanks to Culture House and Brie because they really pulled it out of us,” added Clare Della Valle. “When they first contacted us, we were still like 18, 19. We were still kind of experiencing growing up. And they were great interviewers and pulled our story out of us. I got a lot of Zoom calls, a lot of, can you elaborate on that? Walking us through each step. And finding these pivotal moments and how they impacted us later in life.”
“I’m one of the people who was found on Instagram,” shared Gavin Arneson, whose episode serves as the finale and tells a story of repetitive loss. “I received a DM from someone from Culture House saying they wanted to do this show talking about growing up and what it was like to be a young person. And they were asking if I could share three stories that I felt represented growing up. And I picked three that to me were pivotal core moments or memories that shaped who I am. And then months later I heard back that they wanted me to be in the show. And it started this long process of Zoom meetings… It was very driven by what I wanted to talk about but also, they helped me refine what I wanted to say, what my message wanted to be when this became published.”
Each episode of Growing Up comes from a different director, each of whom chose their heroes from a lineup of options. “[Gavin] had done so much work already in thinking about his life and his story that really my job was just to shape those elements that I felt were most potent, and in Gavin’s story, there’s just so much to choose from,” explained Bernardo Ruiz, who direct’s Gavin’s episode. “Gavin and I have similar histories. We both lost our fathers when we were teenagers and for me, telling a story about the processing of grief but also how someone can rely on people and resources to grow and become stronger felt very important. These episodes will impact people emotionally. That’s kind of the beauty of this type of work. It’s not just for the audience of young folks that we’re reaching out to. I think this is gonna be a nice broad audience for something like this that’s so emotionally present.”
(Disney/Anthony Artis)
“The main takeaway is to listen,” Nicole Galovski concluded. “Listen to other people’s stories and allow that to happen but also share, share your story. And I think that that is one of the things that we hope that other young people take away, that there are not these things that you have to keep hidden, and when we all come together, and we listen, and we feel good to share, that’s when the real healing can start.”
All 10 episodes of Growing Up are now streaming on Disney+.