Clea DuVall's High School Grunge

For the multi-hyphenate, the moving memoir of pop stars Tegan and Sara inspires a coming-of-age series for Amazon Freevee.

Christine Champagne

As a close friend of indie pop stars and lesbian icons Tegan and Sara, Clea DuVall got to read an advance copy of their 2019 memoir, High School.

In the book, the identical twin sisters — whose full names are Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirsten Quin — reflect on their youth in Calgary, Canada, where they got into the rave and grunge scenes of the 1990s, started playing music and began to realize that they were queer.

"I had never read anything like it — a coming-of-age story that I personally connected to. There were so many moments in it where I was like, 'Oh yeah, been there,'" says DuVall, who identifies as a lesbian and has portrayed lesbian characters on shows like Veep and The Handmaid's Tale and in such films as But I'm a Cheerleader and Girl, Interrupted.

"I felt so protective of them and their story," DuVall adds. Which is why she told her friends that she would love to adapt it for the screen.

The Los Angeles native and veteran actress has established herself as a writer, producer and director in recent years. She made her directing debut with the 2016 film The Intervention and cowrote and directed Netflix's 2020 queer romcom, Happiest Season. DuVall also executive-produces, writes and voices a character on the Fox animated series HouseBroken.

"We all talked about it because, obviously, working with friends is really hard," says DuVall, who has known Tegan and Sara for fifteen years and directed their music videos. "But this is a much bigger undertaking than a music video, and we wanted to make sure that we could maintain our friendship while working in such an intimate way."

Ultimately, they moved forward and High School, the scripted series based on Tegan and Sara's memoir, premieres on Amazon Freevee on October 14. TikTok stars and first-time actors Railey and Seazynn Gilliland play Tegan and Sara, respectively, in its eight episodes.

DuVall, who executive-produces with Tegan and Sara, threw herself into every aspect of season one — writing, directing and serving as coshowrunner with Laura Kittrell.

She even delved into wardrobe, buying clothes for the cast at thrift stores in Calgary. "I was a big thrift-store shopper in the '90s, and I was looking for the exact same things. It was like going back in time," she says, "and it was really fun."

This article originally appeared in emmy magazine issue #11, 2022, under the title, "Growing Up Grunge."