One On One With Rowan Blanchard From A Wrinkle In Time

Have you guys had a chance to head to the theaters and check out, A Wrinkle In Time? It’s doing very well at the box office and I recommend you seeing it with your family. A few weeks back, I had a chance to sit down and chat with Actress Rowan Blanchard who plays “Veronica Kiley” a not so nice kinda girl in the film. She was a delight to talk with and she gave us the run down about playing a bad girl, writing her own book, and being a positive role model to young girls and so much more! Check out what she had to say inside…

Speaking of women, you’re known for being such a positive proponent of shine theory and positivity. What was it like playing a bad girl?

Rowan: I mean, it was definitely different for me. I felt like I was doing it in this way where it wouldn’t be, gosh, minimized to just a very stereotypical mean girl role. I really trusted Ava to make a character that felt complex and more than just a mean girl. I think there’s a lot of layers to Veronica that we get to see throughout the film. You guys saw it? So, I think, I don’t know, there’s a lot of different parts to her that you sort of see as the film unfolds where she’s more than just the bad girl or the mean girl, which was a relief.

This film is so much about empowerment for girls and boys. What are you hoping that young girls and boys leave the theater feeling? What do you hope that message, for you, is conveyed for them? Because obviously it was just so powerful.

Rowan: I still haven’t seen it so I’m so excited to know what you guys are talking about. But I guess it’s just this film marks such an incredible and unique time in history where so many people who have never seen themselves on screen are able to go to a film and see themselves starring in a huge sci-fi movie. Like, that’s massive. I was just looking on Twitter, there’s a lot of organizations led by young teenage black girls to buy movie tickets for a bunch of other young black girls to go see this movie.

And just that alone, the fact that people are organizing like this and are so prepared and ready for this thing to come out makes me feel so excited to be even a small part of it. So, yeah.

With your character not being in the book, did that make it easier or harder for you to develop her?

Rowan: Well, I hadn’t read the book quite recently before I started the movie so I read the book in third grade and there’s a photo of me doing a book report on it, which is crazy. But now I’m like, here and, I don’t know, she was added into the script to sort of add this character, an element of friendship for Meg coming from another girl because in the book, that’s not really there. It’s very much about Meg and her dad and Meg and this boy and Meg and her brother. So, I think Ava really, it was really important to Ava and to Jennifer to have a girl character that Meg could have in her life and that they could kind of learn from each other. So, yeah.

You’re so young and so accomplished already. Was there a time in your life where you felt like you actually give yourself permission to be a warrior? Or were you always that person that was just yelling and fearless in pursuit of your goals?

Rowan: I have to give myself permission to be a warrior on the daily. It’s not something that is a very conscious thing where I feel totally empowered and fearless every day. There are some areas that I feel more confident and then others. Going off on that piano with Oprah, Reese and Mindy, I felt like the odd one out. I will tell you guys the truth. But like, that’s a second where I have to be like, I deserve to be here and like, I’m here, a part of something bigger than myself. So, so, yeah, I don’t know, I guess that’s another–, there’s just so many moments on the daily where I have to remind myself that it’s okay that I am in the room.

Speaking of books. You just wrote a book. Can you tell us a little bit about that process and when you fit time into right and just what that looked like for you?

Rowan: Yeah, I made this book called Still Here that just came out about a week and a half ago. And I am–, it was just really important to me I guess to have these concrete forms of how I view art, which I think is a lot more accessible than how we think of art in a museum or how we think of art as a big painting. I was really always inspired by my friends who kept diaries and whose thoughts were so pure and unfiltered. And being a teenager and specifically being a teenage girl or it’s just this point where your thoughts are not as informed with the outside world yet and you’re still processing so much yourself that your writing is more unfiltered.

So, I sort of made this thing and I had I think 20 other contributors that helped me kind of compiled this thing that I think is about teenage survival. And so, yeah, it’s cool that it’s sort of coming out during the time that this is. It feels like it’s a really cool time to be a teenager. It’s also a scary time. That’s cool. I don’t know. There’s a lot of feelings.