'Do Revenge' stars Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke discuss teen roles, villains and fake woke men
"There is truly no one scarier than a teenage girl," says writer-director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson ("Sweet/Vicious," "Someone Great") who puts that premise to the test in her second feature, "Do Revenge," a barbed Gen Z black comedy starring Camila Mendes ("Riverdale") and Maya Hawke ("Stranger Things").
Released last week on Netflix, "Do Revenge" stars Mendes as popular Drea opposite Hawke's awkward Eleanor, who meet at tennis camp and make a pact, "Strangers on a Train"-style: each girl will take down the other's bullies — better to claim plausible deniability while watching their entitled rich kid enemies go down in flames.
Machiavellian schemes and betrayals galore ensue in the nimble two-hander, whose brightly textured world nods to the '90s teen movies, like "Clueless," "Cruel Intentions" and "Jawbreaker," that influenced Robinson. But so do moments of connection and vulnerability, as the co-conspirators become fast friends, and bitter frenemies, when their vengeance quest careens out of control.
"I could lie and say that I saw a Scorsese movie or 'Jaws' at a formative age, but I saw 'Clueless' at a formative age, and it made me want to make movies," said Robinson, who also co-wrote this year's "Thor:
