AmélieHoeferleWantsYoutoFeelItAll

The Sterling Point star on trusting your gut, cracking open emotions on-screen and remaining grounded amidst the chaos.

 

WORDS Leah Commandeur

 

Amélie Hoeferle has gone from being discovered in a Tennessee coffee shop at 14 to starring in some of the biggest productions of recent years – and somehow managed to remain grounded. The American-German actress is not interested in playing “fake humble” in real life, but her on-screen personas have gotten up to all sorts of shenanigans. The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Eddington and her most recent project Sterling Point, have kept her away from her home in Atlanta, Georgia on and off these past few years, and it seems she’ll be away for a while longer.

 

Through the faintly pixelated Zoom window, she sports a red bandana, a favoured style of her character, Ramona, on Prime Video’s latest sensation Sterling Point. Teenage angst, grief, sisterhood and a dreamy Muskokan lake set the tone for the show, which has already been renewed for a second season. Although on the road since mid-August for press, it appears she has all the time in the world for our conversation, even though that is far from the truth.

 

Her world has gotten all that much busier yet again, with the announcement of her next project having sent booklovers alight with a new screen adaptation of a much beloved romance book, Lynn Painter’s Fake Skating – where she’ll play Dani, a gifted senior who enters a fake dating arrangement with her former best friend, Alec.

 

Sitting down with IMAGINE, Hoeferle talks about the advice she’d give her teenage self, leaning into her intuition on and off-screen, and the freedom of using improv on set.

 

 

Leah Commandeur: I’m such a fan of Sterling Point. I watched it two times, once by myself, once with a group of friends, which I think is the best way to do it.

 

Amélie Hoeferle: That’s really sweet. I love that.

 

LC: I’m a chronic re-watcher. I reread my favourite books, I re-watch my favourite shows and films endlessly.

 

AH: Girl, same. Why is it so frowned upon? So what, I want to read the same book?

 

LC: Sterling Point is a really sweet offering into that genre of comfort show that people could rewatch over and over. The show does a fantastic job at humanising teenagers and treating their problems with grown-up consideration. Finding out who you are is a really big deal and first loves are important.

 

AH: It’s also what adults talk about most of the time. Like when you’re sitting around with your friends from high school, when you’re aged 25, 30, 35, and you’re talking, a lot of time you’re talking about, “Oh my gosh, remember like that guy that you kissed when you were 16?”

 

It’s so valid, it’s so real.

 

LC: How did you get into acting? Was it always the goal or did you happen upon it?

 

AH: I was very into films from a young age – I actually had this weird stage until I was about 12, 13, where I was deathly afraid of watching movies because I had a hard time discerning what was real, and what was actually real, what was acted and not acted, so I resorted to a lot of cartoons. But then, at [age] 13, 14, I very much got into this film phase where I just couldn’t watch enough. It really fascinated me. So I was always into film. That was something that interested me very much. But I think the thing that really got me acting for the first time is in front of a camera. I did a few theatre shows when I was younger.

 

I met this woman in a coffee shop and she approached me and asked me if I wanted to – well, she didn’t ask – she said, “I’m writing a script at the moment and it’s very strange, but you look exactly how I imagine this character to look like” and it just kind of threw me.

 

I was 14 or 15 at the time and I didn’t really know what to do with that information. But I was in a small town in Tennessee and I ended up doing this short film with her.

 

Her name is Erica Scoggins, and I love that woman, really. I have her to thank for getting me to experience the joy of the artistic expression that is acting. I really, really fell in love with it after doing that short film with her.

 

“I met this woman in a coffee shop and she approached me and asked me if I wanted to [act]. Well, she didn’t ask—she said, I’m writing a script at the moment and it’s very strange, but you look exactly how I imagine this character to look like. And it just kind of threw me.”

 

LC: Well that’s quite a unique origin story. We’ve seen you on screen, obviously in Sterling Point, but in other major projects like The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Eddington and Night Swim. How did being a part of big productions so early on in your career inform the actor that you are today?

 

AH: That’s a great question. I’ve never really thought about how specifically those individual jobs shaped me. I think there’s something about being on a set for the first time. I didn’t grow up in the industry or with family members who were in the film industry. So I’d never been on a major set until I was on the set of Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. And that was a massive, massive set.

 

So, I think there’s a side of film acting that has everything to do with the set and how people talk and the lingo and when to be here, how to read a call sheet, all that. I think I just learned through being exposed to it. And also, kind of faking it till I make it. Like, I didn’t know what certain words meant and I would just say them until I could just contextually gather what they meant.

 

I think with each project, it required me to go at it from a different angle because all of these characters are so individual in their own way. You know, I have my core instincts, and I think I follow those, and that’s something that’s followed me throughout all those projects. But I’m not sure if I’m really in the perspective of nitpicking what I got from each one.

 

I think it’s the different exposure working with different actors, being surrounded by different people in each project, watching and sitting, if I’m not in front of the camera, sitting behind the camera and watching them set up a shot or listening to the dialogue between the hair and makeup department, or listening to the dialogue between the camera department and the lighting, and learning through being in these environments and how that’s shaped my acting.

 

I’m not sure, but I do feel it. I know I’m a different actor than I was then. I mean, from going from being 20 on the set of The Hunger Games to 23 on the set of Sterling Point, there’s a lot of change mentally that I’ve gone through and developmentally during that time.

 

And then you add in all those different experiences. Again, all those sound so wanky, but the different experiences that I’ve gathered throughout those three, four years now have definitely shaped me in ways that I probably won’t even be able to articulate until I’m much older.

LC: Did Sterling Point come into your life as uniquely as that life changing interaction in the coffee shop?

 

AH: Sterling Point was more traditional. I got sent the audition through my agent and I taped for it and then, Megan Park, our director, wanted to meet with me. I met with her over Zoom, so much like this, and spoke with her about the character and about my experience with being 16, 17, what I was feeling and going through the time, what I now can gather of what I was actually going through through that time, from a then 23 year old’s perspective.

 

Being knee deep in it, being 16, I think the perspective that you have as a 23 year old is a bit different. And sharing with her that I was very eager to step back into that and very willing to flesh out who Ramona was and what I could bring to her.

 

So that was a really beautiful conversation and exchange of just thoughts and ideas that we had. And then there was a chemistry read in Toronto. Where I met Ella [Rubin] and Bo [Bragason], and I think I met Jacob very briefly as well, and Keen. And then I got a call from Megan and she asked me, she’s like, “Do you want to be Ramona?”

 

LC: What was it about the project that drew you in and convinced you that you had to be involved in bringing Ramona to life?

 

AH: I think what initially really pulled me in was how raw this 16 year old girl was being portrayed in what I read. My first introduction to her was at the very beginning of the story in the pilot, or I guess not the pilot, she’s not very much in the pilot. But her first episode is Episode Two. She’s dealing with so much for being 16. The grief of the loss of her last known family member, young love, finding out you have a sister. It’s so much on such a young brain. And I think the rawness in which she was portrayed really, really interested me, and Megan not shying away from that sadness, that grief, the complexity of who this young woman is, and not always making it so perfect. Like it wasn’t tied up, it wasn’t always likeable. She’s very abrasive and unlikeable in the beginning.

 

And that was really interesting to me, especially a young woman on film or on TV.

 

It’s not the norm, I find.

 

LC: It was so nice to glimpse into the individuality of the show’s characters, but also how they connect as the ensemble.

 

AH: Those were thoughts that I was having reading the material that I got handed in the beginning. Everyone is written in this very grounded, real way, and that is really beautiful. It’s such a gift to be given writing like that.

 

LC: What was it like behind the scenes with everyone? It seemed like a fun cast to be a part of.

 

AH: The chemistry came very naturally and we’re all so grateful for it, I think, if I can speak for all of us, it came very naturally, and everyone was just themselves, and everyone is so vibrant and so real and honest. And I think that it really made for a weird, fun group. We really just got along with everyone being their individual selves. We had fun and it was easy. And yeah, I wish I could say we had a grand scheme of like, all right, Wednesday evenings we’ll all go out for beers after working, and Fridays we’ll do a dinner, and then Saturday this, but it really was just intuitive. Spending time with each other, and that gave us everything we needed, really.

 

LC: I feel like you can get the hint of that coming through the screen, which is so refreshing. I wish everyone could have a Muskoka to go to.

 

AH: Yeah, man, that’s the best. And I would prescribe it every day.

 

LC: We see this divide between New York and Muskoka in the show, and how different those cultures are. Are you more of a nature or city person?

 

AH: I mean, personally, I love a New York era for Ramona. I really do. I think that the girl needs to just go and have a good time. I love New York, don’t get me wrong. I love New York. My ideal would be a Muskoka that’s like two hours away from New York, so I could go into the city when I wanted to, but I would love to be out in nature. Nature is where I feel my most grounded, and I love being out there.

 

“there was a chemistry read in Toronto. Where I met Ella [Rubin] and Bo [Bragason], and I think I met Jacob very briefly as well, and Keen. And then I got a call from Megan and she asked me, she’s like, Do you want to be Ramona?”

 

LC: Ramona has so much inner turmoil. How do you depict that inner turmoil through a visual medium like television?

 

AH: My face can’t really tell a lie. I have a hard time censoring what I’m thinking or I, so I’ve been told, you know, I don’t walk around with a mirror in front of myself, but I’ve been told that I can’t really hide a thought on my face.

 

So maybe it’s that. I have a lot of empathy for Ramona. And, like you said, she is going through so much that I think it’s only, it was the only, there was no alternative but to play it that way. I think, with the circumstances that she’s been given – you just lost your grandfather, and then you’ve been tending to him on his deathbed for the last year, you’ve not been home really, been in this depressive state. I mean, we saw the apartment in the show, and now he’s gone. She was taking care of him and now there is nothing to take care of, she’s left with nothing. And so she’s driving back to Sterling Point on the jet ski, walking up the stairs to find a random person in her home. You know when you’re ill, the last thing you want to do is do anything other than lay in bed and watch a movie, take your medicine and sleep. I think depression and grief is an illness of sorts that needs to be cared for, with proper rest and care, and she has none of that. Instead, she gets handed on this silver platter, this girl in her home that brings all of this confusion and new turmoil with her. How can you not be a bit abrasive and show that? She’s so depleted. She’s nothing to give anymore. When you think about it, it’s really rough for a 16, 17 year old.

 

LC: How was it working with Ella to bring this very complex stranger to sisterhood relationship to life?

 

AH: Honestly, I think a lot of it was intuitive, just taking it episode by episode, scene by scene. I love being in a scene with Ella because we, especially as the show progressed and as time passed, I think we solidified who Ramona is and who Annie is. And when we were in a scene together it was just her and I, and we got to be them and sort of live within this world that’s been created with these circumstances. I think a lot of it was intuitive given that set of circumstances in the world that we were inhabiting as Annie and Ramona. Sometimes heart achingly so, because a lot of [the beginning of their relationship] they don’t always get along. And then times that they do, and it feels like a morsel, like a little piece of chocolate, a treat. And then again, when they don’t, it’s heart aching. Ella and I are like sisters off screen as well. We spent time together and we talked and talked and talked and talked and talked. The more we got to know each other and the deeper we connected off of set, I think the harder it was to do those strenuous scenes.

 

LC: On the note of intuition, I read that improvisation was welcomed by Megan on set. How did that inform filming?

 

AH: I think it more so allowed us to be freer, to feel like we could move more within each scene, which is such a gift. I think that the core of the story would have stayed the same, but I think it does give each scene this heightened sense of realness that it already had in the original dialogue, but it did allow us to just be and to feel freer within each character. The [fight] scene between Oona and Ramona, Bo’s use of the word baby or babe in that is… I never want to be in any sort of disagreement where anyone calls me babe or babe because that was such a stab and a knife to the heart. But even that, that’s not changing the story. It just makes it garner sort of a reaction. I’m sure I said things that made Bo react in a way that she may not have if I would have stuck to the written word. It just makes it grippier, I think.

 

LC: Is there any particular advice that you now in your 20s would give Ramona where we saw her leave off waking up in New York? What do you kind of want to shake her and say—listen to me!

 

AH: Specifically to Ramona, I would tell her to just let yourself be present and act on your true emotion. Try to be less afraid but also let yourself feel, let yourself be angry, just let yourself feel it all.