The Wrong Girls: Alia Shawkat, Kristen Stewart and a Stoner Comedy 13 Years in the Making

Alia Shawkat signed on to star in Dylan Meyer's stoner comedy The Wrong Girls after a single coffee meeting during the pandemic — but the road from that conversation to the screen ran through a pregnancy, a vanished budget, and a script that had been sitting in a drawer for thirteen years.

Meyer wrote The Wrong Girls well over a decade before the film was made, originally picturing Kristen Stewart for a character. She emailed the script to Stewart early on. Stewart did not reply. Years later they met, fell into a relationship, and eventually married — and the script found its leading lady through a different door. The film was always intended to reunite Shawkat with her The Runaways co-star Stewart, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The characters were written as girls in their early twenties. By the time the cameras rolled, they were women in their mid- to late-thirties. Shawkat's character is thirty-six. The film is a stoner comedy about women, starring women, and directed by Meyer in her feature debut.

Shawkat's involvement hit a wall before production began. The film called for heavy weed smoking, and Shawkat — who was pregnant at the time — paused her commitment. When she stepped back, the financing fell apart. During that same pregnancy she shot the second season of the FX series The Old Man and the feature Atropia, working through both productions.

After Shawkat had her child, new financing was secured and The Wrong Girls moved forward. The cast and director have been making the press rounds in recent days: the Los Angeles Times published an interview with Stewart, Shawkat and Meyer on 12 August, discussing the film's themes of weed, female friendship and cats. Condé Nast Traveler posted a video on 15 August in which Stewart and Shawkat quiz each other on famous film locations from their own movies.

For Shawkat, the project threads together a career that has moved from indie ensemble work — she was listed among the cast of Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women when it was announced for Sundance back in December 2015 — to a leading role in a comedy she waited out, pregnancy and all, until the money came back.