Emma Seligman’s debut film, Shiva Baby, was a word-of-mouth hit. The micro-budget feature, which catapulted the then 24 year old Seligman and the film’s star Rachel Sennott to fame, was a dramatic pressure cooker. Sennott’s Danielle attends a family shiva in which she has to deal with her pushy parents, a toxic ex, and her sugar daddy (who happens to also be there with his wife and baby). The film was rapturously received, not only for its hilarious script and execution, but because of the youth of the entire production team.

Now Seligman, at 28 years old, has completed her second feature, Bottoms – already one of the biggest movies of the year. The story of two queer girls in high school who hatch a plan to set up a fight club in order to get close to their crushes, it’s a film in the lineage of those classic American high school movies from the 90s and 00s – only, in the words of Seligman, “with queer people or Jews.”

Barry Pierce: Where did the idea for Bottoms come from?
Emma Seligman: I just wanted to make a high school sex comedy for queer girls. I think most of the ideas that I have are “this genre that I grew up with, but with queer people or Jews.” 

BP: I think I saw you posted the writing process of the film which, seemingly, involved a lot of whiteboards.
ES: Yeah, I came to Rachel [Sennott] with the idea for Bottoms because we wanted to write something together. The whole thing was very silly, the movie is still very silly, but the process started with us just writing down our ideas for lines or titles or scenes on a whiteboard.

BP: And how was the process of turning those ideas into a coherent script?
ES: We wrote it over the course of five years, so it was a slow, gradual process shifting from this list of random, absurd ideas that didn’t make any sense into a script. I’m glad that it was sort of an evolution, because I think what we ended up with is tonally very different from how we started.

“…it started with more campy, high school movies like Wet Hot American Summer, But I’m a Cheerleader, D.E.B.S., Bring It On, Jawbreaker, the classics.”

BP: What was the original draft like compared to what we have on screen?
ES: It didn’t make any sense at all. There were characters that appeared and then never appeared again. I mean, we still have a few of those, but there were whole subplots that didn’t go anywhere. There was much more critique of Christianity in the town. [laughs] But that was actually edited out because audiences were confused as to how it could be such a sexual place and also so Christian at the same time. They didn’t really understand that commentary.

BP: What were the biggest differences between making Bottoms and Shiva Baby?
ES: I feel like they were different in every single way. Just the sheer scale of it, the amount of people I was working with on set felt so viscerally different from making Shiva Baby. On the good side, I had so much support and everyone was playing a very specific role with their specific job, you weren’t wearing 70 hats.

BP: What were some of your biggest inspirations behind Bottoms?
ES: Our influences were sort of all over the place. I think it started with more campy, high school movies like Wet Hot American Summer, But I’m a Cheerleader, D.E.B.S., Bring It On, Jawbreaker, the classics. And then once we started getting into it and I started working with our production designer and costume designer, I started pulling more from classic Americana movies like Grease and American Graffiti and John Waters’ movies.

BP: If you could place yourself within a specific lineage of directors, who would you say are those who have gone before you?
ES: I feel so weird putting my name near any of the people who inspire me. But the Coen Brothers have been a huge inspiration. They did whatever they wanted, in any genre they wanted, and didn’t care about making anything palatable or mainstream. For this movie, in particular, Edgar Wright was a big influence and continues to be. His level of combining comedy, horror, action. Anyone who combines genres successfully is a big inspiration for me, because it’s a tricky thing to do. 

“Anyone who combines genres successfully is a big inspiration for me”

BP: Does it surprise you how successful your films have been because, as you said, you’re making films from a very Jewish, very queer perspective. And yet, both of your films have been universally adored.
ES: It definitely surprised me massively, for both movies. I think that I attribute the success of both of my movies to the power of young women and queer people online. That shows they will find the stories that speak to them, and then celebrate them and push them forward.

BP: So, what’s next? You beat the sophomore curse. What are you working on?
ES: I’m dabbling in other genres that I want to see more queer and Jewish characters in. That’s all I’ll say. I made these two movies back-to-back so, I’m not taking a break necessarily, but I’m taking my time.

Bottoms is released in UK and Irish cinemas today.