Empire Waist star Mia Kaplan: ‘I never saw queer characters who were plus-size’ --[Reported by Umva mag]

When the trailer for coming-of-age body-positivity film Empire Waist landed online in August, it sparked massive interest.

A dramedy featuring a plus-size queer actor – SMILF’s Mia Kaplan – in a lead role, with an astonishingly diverse cast? A story about a plus-size student pursuing her fashion industry dreams? It seemed like a movie that audiences had been demanding for a very long time.

“Seeing people so excited to see something that they’ve never seen before, and so many people saying that this is something that their younger selves needed, was really affirming because that’s why we made this film,” Kaplan exclusively tells PinkNews.

“The whole time we were on set, we just kept saying how this movie is for us. It’s for the young people [who] grew up not knowing where they fit. To see that the world also had that reaction was really exciting.”

Empire Waist follows Kaplan as Lenore, a reserved and self-conscious teen who faces mean girls at school and a fitness-obsessed mother at home. With a little help from new friend Kayla (Jemima Yevu), she learns to embrace what others tell her is wrong with her – her weight – and uses it as a superpower.

It’s a frequently funny and heart-warming story but, most importantly, it’s unlike anything that’s been on the big screen before. “As soon as I heard about the project, I knew it would be special to me, even if I wasn’t a part of it,” Kaplan says.

PinkNews: There’s been a lot of buzz online for Empire Waist, and a lot of it has come from queer people. Why do you think that is?

Mia Kaplan: As a queer person myself, I think there’s this love for people who are different and people who are not necessarily fitting in with the status quo. We all go through that period where it doesn’t make sense and we’re afraid of what people are going to say. Then, when we find that love, it becomes joyful.

I know you’ve experienced frustration and anxiety about being typecast as the plus-sized friend in other roles you’ve auditioned for. How does your Empire Waist character flip that narrative?

As soon as I heard that there was this character who was more than her body, it was immediately: ‘I need to be a part of this’. What I loved about this film is that I was allowed to take up space and never had to make myself feel smaller. My character is very insecure at the beginning, and she gets to go on this journey of finding herself. That healed a lot of my inner child. It was one of the first times I felt I could really be a leader, I could be myself and I could exist as a person [who] is way more than how I exist in the world physically. It was refreshing to know that this is a possibility in my career.

I loved the way Empire Waist is led by a cast of people from minority groups, but the victim narrative is subverted, like Marcy, who is in a wheelchair but is not someone to be messed with.

Our director [Claire Ayoub] was adamant about making sure that the character in a wheelchair was one of the most powerful and that people are scared of her. It’s usually, like you said, the victimisation complex. [She] worked with each of us and our personal identities to alter the script and make it authentic, not just this idea of what we think a disabled person is, but to actually show the experience of someone who is a disabled actor and how she moves about the world.

And there’s Tina – it’s nice to see dumb and ditzy trans representation without the trauma.

The casting call for that role, they weren’t looking for a trans actor. Holly McDowell was amazing and she was right for the role. I love that trans and genderqueer and people of all kinds should be able to just be people and audition for the roles they want to play.

We’re seeing more non-binary and trans actors take on leading film and TV roles, but it’s still rare. How does it feel to be part of that change as a genderqueer person?

I didn’t come out as genderqueer until post-filming. It’s interesting to go back and watch and recognise the person I am, even in this role playing a cis woman. Last night at a screening, this 12 year old came up to me and said: ‘I’m genderfluid and I related to this’. I said, ‘Oh, I’m genderfluid too’. They were so excited. I mean, that’s everything. I felt so full after that. It was like, ‘Oh, my existence is helping you’. That’s crazy.

There are people I look up to in this industry who are genderqueer. I look at people like [House of the Dragon star] Emma D’Arcy and those who are existing fully and so publicly about their gender. It’s inspiring, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been being my authentic self.

How similar were your own school and acting college experiences to Lenore’s?

I started acting when I was very young and fell into the trap of being cast as mothers and older folks because I was larger than the other kids. That, for some reason, is what makes sense in people’s brains. There was a long period where I just sat in that and said, ‘OK, this is my future’. I had teachers tell me that I wouldn’t be an actor until I was 40, until I could play mums. And to that, I say: ‘Look at me now!’

Then, through TikTok and social media, I found people who were standing up for themselves and talking about body neutrality and body positivity and being joyful in their existence, and I discovered I was queer. I had people like Kayla in my life to drag me out of the mud and say, ‘Come on, you’re more than this’. I think that I’ve also been able to be the Kayla for others.  

TikTok can be a surprisingly powerful tool, can’t it?

There was no representation in movies. I watched Hairspray for the first time and was like, ‘There’s a plus-size woman falling in love!’ I never saw queer characters who were plus-size. So, it took me so long to figure that out about myself, because I never saw it. I just didn’t click.

There are definitely more queer, plus-size actors on screen now, such as Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning, but still not many. How do you feel about the state of the industry in that sense? 

I think we’ve come a long way. We definitely have a long way to go. Speaking of Baby Reindeer, seeing Jessica Gunning in that part was refreshing. I think we need films like Empire Waist so we can have plus-size characters [where] it says nothing about their body. I am dying to play a queer character, and at times it feels like I can’t do that as a plus-size person because that’s “too many complicated things that are happening”. No, it’s not. I exist like this every day, and I’m having a great time. The next steps are going towards seeing people living authentically, and I hope that TV starts to look like the world we live in. All my friends look different. All my friends have different stories.

You got to work with some acting greats on Empire Waist, including Missi Pyle and The Office star Rainn Wilson. What did you learn from them?

I feel like you can only learn so much in a class and it’s really doing the thing that gets you to the next level. Working with the two of them [was] a masterclass. Rainn is a master of comedy. You get in there and he is just rolling off you, and it feels like you’re just playing. That’s the goal.

Missi is not only the most phenomenal actor I’ve ever worked with, but is so incredibly kind. On the first day she was on set, she came into my dressing room and gave me a gift. She told me that none of the stuff that she was saying as my mother is stuff that she means as a person and that if I ever needed someone to talk to, she was there. Those scenes, I didn’t have to act because she’s just so good that I was crying at her performance. It’s amazing.

Empire Waist is in US cinemas now. It will stream on HBO Max from 25 November but is not currently available in the UK.

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