Hollywood Stargirl, the sequel to 2020's Stargirl, delivers a sweet-hearted musical ode to growing up as an artist and living in Los Angeles. After moving to LA alongside her mother Ana (Judy Greer), the titular Stargirl (Grace VanderWaal) finds herself trying to use her music to inspire change in her neighbor, collaborate artistically with a young man, and ultimately win over a rock star who'd long ago given up on optimism. Throughout Hollywood Stargirl -- directed by Julia Hart, who also helmed the prior film -- there's an undeniable heartwarming view on the world.
During a press conference for Hollywood Stargirl ahead of the film's June 3 premiere on the Disney+ streaming service, the film's director Julia Hart reflected on the movie. She described why it mattered so much to her to place the story in Los Angeles and how the film evolved to further reflect Stargirl more as a character instead of a cipher.
Hollywood Stargirl sees the titular young woman relocate to Los Angeles and quickly find herself attracting all sorts of attention, both the romantic and potentially professional sort. Reflecting on her experience making Stargirl and the biggest difference between that experience and Hollywood Stargirl, Hart pointed out how "I was eight weeks postpartum when we made the first film with my second child, so it was already easier... because my youngest is now almost four. He turned three actually while we were shooting Hollywood Stargirl. So that was the biggest difference for me. It was so special to get to shoot it in LA, where I live. We made the first movie in Albuquerque, which is one of my favorite places to make movies, but it was really wonderful to get to stay home and to get to show the LA that I love in a movie that I made."
Despite her love for Los Angeles, Hart revealed that the film wasn't originally going to be filmed in the city. "Originally, we were gonna set it somewhere else," Hart explained, "and then the pandemic happened. [Myself and my] husband and co-writer Jordan Horowitz... The thing that we missed the most during the pandemic was our movie family, our amazing crew who we love making movies with. I knew Grace [VanderWaal], and I knew she was gonna be Stargirl... but we decided to write a love letter to both LA and also all the people we missed while we were all stuck at home."
This ended up being exactly what Hart and the rest of the cast and crew she collaborated with needed, as she explained that it "was really wonderful to be able to write about them and write about the city that we were quarantined in. I'm grateful that that ended up happening because I think this is ultimately the best version of the movie. I fell in love with all the characters, and they became my friends during the pandemic. They were the only people I was really hanging out with, even though they were just words on a page. Then I got to meet all of these beautiful people who inhabit them so perfectly."
Los Angeles ended up being a setting for Stargirl, who found a city full of offbeat musical weirdos just like her in the City of Angels. "Part of why we ultimately chose Los Angeles," Hart explained, "is we loved the idea of her coming into a city that was full of people like her. I mean, Los Angeles is one of the most diverse, eccentric, exciting cities in the world, and Stargirl, on her first day, is already encountering people who are as zany and unique as she is. I thought that that was a really exciting part of bringing her out of a small-town setting and into this large city that we love."
Notably, this meant the film deviated somewhat from Love, Stargirl, which was the original novel sequel to the first Stargirl. "I love Stargirl, and I love Jerry Spinelli's books," Hart said. "But I was excited about taking her out of Mica and into a larger world, to show her journey on a grander scale." Hart also was quick to note how important the film's star, Grace VanderWaal, was to the development of the story, explaining how "Grace and I had a lot of fun in the development process of the sequel.
"Grace was 14 when we made the first movie," Hart described, "and she was 17 when we made this one. That's a huge difference. We really wanted to honor both Grace's growth as a young woman and also Stargirl's and how they're different and how they're similar. The most exciting thing for me about making the sequel and the most important thing to me was that the movie be from Stargirl's perspective because the first movie and the first book are obviously from Leo's perspective, and it's how he sees Stargirl. It was really exciting to just get to have a whole movie through [Stargirl's] eyes and her mind."
Stream Hollywood Stargirl on Disney+ starting June 3.
