Student Blog: Keeping the Electricity On: In conversation with Caroline Garrett

“Thomas Edison once said that failure is guaranteed. The part that matters is what you do after”. That is one of the first lines in the young adult novel, Maybe We’re Electric, written by Val Emmich (Dear Evan Hansen, The Reminders). For the past few months, I have been working on a film adaptation of the novel. After making constant changes to the script to make it as accurate as possible, we are finally starting filming next week! Before we started filming, I talked to Caroline Garret, who plays Tegan Everly in the film about the upcoming production and her character and the upcoming production.

Caroline is a performer from West Florida. She said that acting has been a life long passion for her, but she is truly interested in the arts and thinks that they are beautifully unique. As well as being an actress, she is also a singer and a writer. Being able to do all of these different things has given her many opportunities to connect with others and discover new ways to be creative.

She said that she is super excited to play Tegan and looks forward to many things. With Tegan being such an emotionally in depth character that requires a lot of self reflection and connection in order to portray her properly. After reading the novel, Caroline said that she connected with Tegan in more ways than one. When playing Tegan, she hopes to represent the true experiences and emotions that are inevitable while forming an identity through one’s teenage years.

Caroline said that she is specifically excited to film the ending/resolution of the film, because it displays a moment in time where the characters truly look at their scars and hold each other accountable for their mistakes. It also gives the characters an opportunity to reflect on the damage they caused and face the ugly, and decide to make a more beautiful after.

Throughout reading the novel, Caroline talked about how she was able to understand Tegan’s true character and make connections with her grief, shame and guilt; her “ugliness”. With this, she specifically enjoyed being able to observe Tegan’s growth from her perspective of the idea that we shouldn’t have to walk in the footsteps of a stranger to feel empathy for one another and no one is truly as much of a monster as we think we are. 

“No one is as beautiful as they seem, nor as ugly.”

- Tegan Everly, Maybe We’re Electric

When audiences watch the film, Caroline hopes that the audience realizes that by confronting and battling the darkest parts of ourselves, we can create an unimaginable amount of beauty. Your “ugliness” isn’t all that you are, you have to remember to appreciate and honor the beautiful parts of yourself before labeling yourself as something you truly aren’t. She also said that realizing your mistakes don’t define who you are and having the ability to reinvent yourself into someone beautiful is the first step in order to heal.

You can see Caroline as Tegan Everly in the film adaption of ‘Maybe We’re Electric’, based on the novel by Val Emmich (Dear Evan Hansen, The Reminders) when it releases this Winter.