Megan Park on Sterling Point, sisterhood, and the challenges of authentically writing for Gen Z | Exclusive

Megan Park wears multiple hats with great ease. The Canadian is a singer, actress, director, producer and writer. Her latest show, Sterling Point, a coming-of-age story of two sisters, is out on Prime Video. Megan, who has in the past created series like The Fallout and Lucy In My Eyes, amongothers, spoketo WION recently and said she enjoys narrating stories about women and admitted that creating content fora youngaudience comes with its own challenges.

Park’s show Sterling Point isa heartfelt, coming-of-age drama led by 17-year-old Annie Jacobson (Ella Rubin). Raised in New York City with her twin brother (Keen Ruffalo) and loving adoptive father (Jay Duplass), Annie's life takes a turn when she inherits her mysterious grandfather's island in Canada. There, she finds new friends, budding romances and untold family secrets.

While speaking to WION, Park admitted there have been a lot of adoptions in her family. She got to witness such relationships from closequarters,and that inspired her to make Sterling Point.

Here are the excerpts from the interview

Q: Do you, as a creator, think there aren't enough women out there narrating stories about women, young or old?

A: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. There's still such a great inequity, but it's getting better, I think, which is awesome. Even on my next film, it's so funny, we're prepping it. We start in the fall, and I wason aZoom the other day and therewaslike 20 people and it was all women. And I was like, cool, this is awesome. But yes, I mean, as you said, I think women writing for women- you can tell immediately when that's happening and when it's not. I hope to do it for many more years.

Q: What drew you to the story? What was the point that you decided this has to be told or created?

A: I mean, I was really just excited about trying to make a TV show. I mean, it's a huge challenge to make eight hours of something versus a movie. It was like a massive undertaking. I survived it somehow. But I think this idea of sisterhood being at the core of the show was really important to me- that it wasn't just about a love triangle, that it was reallyabout, like, family.

And it's so nuanced and complicated and in grief and this nature versus nurture conversation. I've had a lot in my family. There's a lot of adoption in my family, and I was excited to sort of explore that from two different lenses through young people.

Therewerejust a lot of things that I wanted to explore, but it really all started with the sisters, Annie and Ramona.

Q: Nowadays, there are a lot of creators, including you, who are talking about young adults. Is this a trend that is catching on across the world?

A: People are realising that there's not enough content being made, and there's such a thirst for such content, I think. And that's why a lot of these older shows, like One Tree Hill and Dawson's Creek, they're all getting rewatched. And I think they're just, for a second there, there were kind of not as many happening, and I think people are realising, oh yeah, there's a lot of young people wanting to watch good TV.

It's not that it has to be centred around young people, but it is sort of like a fun challenge, especially because I spent many years as an actor playing a teenager and not always feeling like what I was talking about was real and real to my experiences. I like the idea of taking something like this and trying to make it feel really real and grounded.

People are kind of realising that young people watch a lot of TV and they watch a lot of content and they have a really great taste. They have incredible taste in all this stuff. So let's make something that can hopefully reach that bar.

Q: Is it challenging to make content for Gen Z, especially for us millennials?

A: Totally. I think it's every day remembering, like, I am a millennial, so you have to be open-minded to know what you know and know what you don't know. You have these young actors as a resource to go to them and be like, would you say it this way? Does this feel real to you? Would you wear that? I think a lot of people just don't ask those questions. Making Sterling Point was such a collaborative thing. To me, it's all about just being open-minded and really making sure it feels authentic. And we had younger writers in the writers' room. Every step of the way, there were people around who could call us on our millennialism if it ever popped out.