Rainbow Crew is an ongoing interview series that celebrates the best LGBTQ+ representation on screen. Each instalment showcases talent working on both sides of the camera, including queer creatives and allies to the community.
Next up, we're speaking to High School co-showrunner Clea Duvall who also directed multiple episodes of the show.
Clea Duvall has been in many shows and films you love, including some you might have even forgotten, but for fans of a certain age, her work is perhaps most synonymous with the '90s thanks to breakout roles in The Faculty, Girl, Interrupted, and of course, But I'm a Cheerleader.
In that now-classic queer film, Clea played a teenage lesbian who found love (and herself) at a conversion-therapy camp alongside real-life friend Natasha Lyonne. It's bold, silly and delightfully camp in the most '90s way possible. However, the film also had a darker undercurrent that spoke to queer kids who were forced to fend for themselves back in a decade that just wasn't made for them.
Fast-forward two decades and Clea Duvall is now behind the camera producing and directing a very different kind of queer teen story. Based on Tegan and Sara's memoir of the same name, High School explores the inner lives of these twin pop icons as they battled insecurity and casual homophobia against a '90s grunge setting.
Back in that era, Clea herself was still closeted, so watching her helm High School is a big full-circle moment for longtime fans of her work — and also for Duvall herself.
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"When I was a young person, it was like panning for gold, trying to find anything that was queer," Clea tells us. But these days, she's crafting that still much-needed gold for a new generation of queer fans, including the gay Christmas rom-com Happiest Season, and now High School, one of the best shows you'll see this year.
Digital Spy caught up with Duvall to discuss the challenges behind making this series and why the show means so much to her.
High School has such a specific sense of space when it comes to the show's '90s aesthetic. Can you talk me through the challenges of creating that, and why it's so integral to the show?
A lot of the way that we achieved it was through restraint. When you're making a period piece, there's the tendency to really go for it, and go way over the top with the period. There's lots of winks to the audience like: "Remember this?"
It wasn't trying to replicate the '90s as much as it was trying to replicate the timelessness. I wanted the show to represent the period by what wasn't there, rather than what was there – the way the characters interact with things like music or their clothes.
There was a very specific way we did things in the '90s, you know? If we wanted to hear a song, we would sit in front of the radio with our tape deck, and press "play" and "record" at the same time and get it. Maybe we got it a little late, but it was enough of the song.
It was such a special and different time. It was really on the cusp of everything changing. So I really wanted to lean into that, and make sure that the clothes felt authentic; that the music felt authentic. The authenticity was key in that, and never going too far in any direction. We wanted it to feel timeless and not dated.
I grew up in the '90s as a queer person, and I still haven't seen those specific queer teen experiences represented this specifically on screen, especially when it comes to female-led queerness.
Reading Tegan and Sara's book was the first time I encountered a piece of art that felt like my experience as a queer person growing up in the '90s. It was so powerful that reading it in my forties, to finally feel seen in that way – it just had a huge impact on me. Because their story is so interesting, and it's so unique.
In the book, they couldn't really focus on other characters. It's their memoir, and they're talking about their lives. But it felt like in a television show, you could really expand and explore not only their experience coming out and coming of age, but the people around them. That really excited me and inspired me. And thank God they let me adapt their book.
I love that it's a series, not a film. It almost has an 'indie film' kind of aesthetic, but there's more space here to let things breathe.
I think that being able to expand the world is really what made it a show for me. It never really occurred to me to make a movie. It just felt like there was too much story.
And because of the tone and the pace and what I wanted it to be, I didn't want to rush through the story. You want to take your time. You really want to get to know these people so that by the time they do find a guitar and start playing music, they're real people, and it doesn't just feel like, "Oh, we're watching Tegan and Sara."
From day one, you really want to understand who Tegan and Sara are, and where they come from, and how they became who they are, because that's what's so beautiful about their book. You really understand who they are as artists because of who they were as teenagers.
With that comes a lot of tenderness and respect, particularly with how the show explores Tegan and Sara's sexuality. There’s an innocence to it, which a lot of teenagers go through, especially in the '90s when things weren't as open. It’s such a contrast to a lot of teen shows now like Euphoria.
Innocence is exactly it. In the '90s, as kids, even when we were doing bad things, there was still an innocence to it. Kids today know way too much, and the things that they’re exposed to are crazy.
You know, I really wanted to just go back to that time, because there was such a simplicity to it and earnestness that I don't see in a lot of young people now, just because: how could they stay innocent when they could look at God knows what on the internet whenever they want to?
There's a scene at the end of episode four when the mum kicks Tegan and Sara out of the car and makes them walk to their dad's. There's a quiet intensity there, but it's never blown out of proportion in a melodramatic way. The performances really stood out there.
That was a scene that we debated a lot about, actually, in the writing stage, because Laura Kittrell – who's the co-writer and co-showrunner – and I wanted her to just kick them out of the car...
Tegan and Sara would sign off on the outlines just to make sure there was nothing in the scripts that they didn't want out there. We wanted to be very respectful of their story. And they were like, "We don't want her to just kick them out without knowing where they're going, because it makes her seem like a bad mom."
So we landed on this, that she's taken them to their dad's house. It was really this moment for their mom who… We really wanted to make her so human, and not just the stereotypical mom you see on TV. We wanted to make her a real, three-dimensional character who is flawed, who is going through her own problems, and having to deal with, on a day-to-day basis, things her kids know nothing about.
As a parent, you do shield your kids from things, and you don't want them to know all the bad things yet. As much as you can protect them, as long as you can – you do. And it's about how kids don't really ask – because that's not what they're thinking about.
But it's something that I really love about the structure of the show – we're able to explore someone like the mom, and we're able to really see her as a three-dimensional character, and then go back into a situation with Tegan and Sara, who are just sort of in their own worlds, and have no idea what she's been dealing with.
It feels very real, and the audience knows all the characters better than they know each other.
Working with Tegan and Sara, you don't want to offend them or overstep I imagine, but equally, you want to be true to who they were and who they are. Was that ever a challenge for you on this show?
Absolutely. Working with friends is always an interesting thing because who you are in the work environment is different than who you are as a person. The stakes are totally different. There were some things we would really debate, and things they felt strongly about that I disagreed with, or they would bump on things or push back on things.
It was not always easy-breezy. But I think because of the amount of love and mutual respect we had for each other… like, we never got in fights or anything like that. No one ever said anything they couldn't take back. It was always very respectful. But it was not easy.
It's almost easier to disagree with someone who you only have a working relationship with, you know? Because we're not only trying to preserve the integrity of the story but also preserve our friendship.
But we're all getting along. We're all still talking. So we succeeded.
You're coming at it from very different perspectives, like you're making the show and come from a film background whereas they’re coming at it from: "This is our lives."
Exactly. It was really important to Laura and I that the show took on a life of its own, because we're not just telling— as a television show, it's not just the Tegan and Sara show. They are obviously the central characters but there are so many other characters in the story as well that are not in the book, or whose stories went a different way than we thought they would, and became sort of fictionalised versions.
There are a lot of things that we had to change for the narrative of TV, because life doesn’t happen in 30-minute chunks. You have to kind of build the show into something else.
I first came across your work in But I'm a Cheerleader, a film I adore, and now seeing you direct a show about the queer teen experience in the '90s – it feels like such a special, full-circle moment. Is that fair to say?
Absolutely. I thought about But I'm a Cheerleader so much when we were making this because I was Railey and Seazynn's age when I made that film. Just thinking about where I was at and thinking about Jamie Babbit directing all of us when we were all these insane, young people.
Before I started filming, Jamie – I was talking to Jamie, and she was like, "You're going to get all your karma about what nightmares you guys were on the But I'm a Cheerleader set." And I was like, "Oh, no, I hope not." [laughs]
What she dealt with was out of control. But my kids didn't do that. They were much better than we were. But I thought about it a lot, and it was so weird.
Even though I was 21 when I made But I'm a Cheerleader and I'm 45 now somehow – it doesn't feel that far away. When I think back to— I have such vivid memories of making that movie, and it just doesn't feel like that long ago. Time is so weird.
While we're reflecting, is there a particular moment of queer representation on screen that really resonated with you or helped you in some way early on?
I feel like when I was a young person, it was really… It was like panning for gold, trying to find anything that was queer. But I remember seeing… Bound was really big for me. Gina Gershon's character in that movie – I was like, "Women can be like that?"
It had a big impact on me. But also The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, which was such a sweet, earnest story. As a person who is very earnest, I really loved that. I loved how innocent it was, and I really connected with that. Because I think the impulse when they are young lesbian stories or storylines, or there has been – it's to really over-sexualise it.
And that's not how I felt. I felt so like: "I don't know what I'm doing." You know, the awkwardness, and you're so uncomfortable. A movie like that really captured the innocence of it. I think innocence is so important, especially in this story – their innocence was really important to capture, to not make it feel like some salacious, lesbian teen drama.
That was not an option here.
Looking back across your whole career, what are you most proud of?
But I'm a Cheerleader, for sure, is probably the number one. But I've been able to be a part of so many amazing things. I did… The Laramie Project – that was such an incredible experience, getting to meet some of the real people, and meet the theatre group who made the original play. That felt really significant.
And making Veep was an amazing experience – being a part of a comedy like that. I had not had the opportunity to do a lot of comedy. And then seeing the impact that making people laugh has – it's really fun. It's a different— you don't want to only make people cry because you're getting murdered. You want to be able to make them laugh sometimes, too. So that's fun.
High School airs four episodes on Amazon Freevee, formerly IMDb TV, from October 14th. New episodes will then air weekly.
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After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
