The Stars of 'Astrid & Lilly Save the World' Talk New SYFY Show
Samantha Aucoin and Jana Morrison of 'Astrid & Lilly Save the World' on their friendship, grossest scenes, and more.
As you may have guessed by its explanatory title, the new SYFY show Astrid & Lilly Save the World—which airs Wednesdays at 10pm ET following Resident Alien—is not subtle, in substance or its influences. Its monster-hunting elements invite comparisons to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, while the uplifting solidarity between its two leads is reminiscent of Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion. But it doesn’t matter if the show is made up of familiar elements; like a pizza shop that introduces its own twist on the classic recipe, Astrid & Lilly Save the World takes its ingredients and cooks them up into something uniquely delicious.
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“There’s friendships, there’s relationships, family drama, friend drama, lots of bullying. The show touches on a lot of different topics, and I definitely feel like there’s something in it for everyone, even if you’re not a teenager,” Samantha Aucoin, who plays Lilly, told Sling TV in a recent interview. “We really touch on the topic of not feeling accepted and kind of feeling like an outcast. We feel like everyone feels that way [at] some point in their life, in many different situations. So that really is the main focus of the show, besides all of the monster-slaying.”
The plot kicks off when the titular high school besties crash a party where “one of the bullies says a horrible thing about our weight, and that we spy on people,” the show's co-lead, Jana Morrison, explains. Humiliated, the girls “have a little pity party, and we end up deciding to take out all of our feelings into this fun little friend ritual thing that we do,” Aucoin says. “In doing that, we unintentionally end up opening a portal into another universe. We let 10 monsters into our universe and it’s up to us to get these monsters in order to close the portal back up again.”
Much of the show’s appeal rests on the chemistry between its two leads. Although Aucoin and Morrison hadn’t met in person before filming began, they quickly developed a rapport that carries over into the show (and interviews promoting it).
“We kind of had instant friend energy,” Morrison says. “I think what really brought us closer together was just hanging out all the time. We’re different and we love each other, so I think that really played into how we were on the show together.”
In fact, even after the shoot was over, the duo found time to reconnect.
“We were together for four months for the show, and then [we had] two weeks off, and I was like, 'I’m gonna go to Victoria [Canada] and I’m gonna be with her for two weeks,'” Aucoin says with a laugh.
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The pilot episode jumps right into the action, with Astrid and Lilly covered in slime as they disembowel a monster. When asked what it was like filming the gross scenes, Morrison laughs and says, “I don’t want to relive that!”
“It was disgusting, it really was disgusting,” she says. “Those gags were authentic.” However, Morrison says that a scene in which Lilly vomits in front of her—“it was oatmeal chunks and banana chunks and some liquid” Aucoin says, revealing the movie magic of fake puke—”was grosser than any of the guts, for me.”
“But honestly, it kind of debunked some of the scary things I see in movies,” Morrison continues. “I’m like, ‘ok, this is how it works, I think I can watch some scary movies now.’ Which [Sam] has been forcing me to watch.”
Despite featuring a supporting character who is like a male model crossed with a unicorn, Astrid & Lilly Save the World is more relatable than one might expect. When they’re not slaying monsters, the two friends are dealing with typical teen problems like fitting in and dealing with crushes. Both Aucoin and Morrison drew on their own not-too-distant high school experiences for inspiration.
“It was definitely a lot of butterflies,” Morrison says of filming scenes with her crush on the show. “I’ve never done a love scene. Ever. Because, traditionally, someone of my size, someone of my ethnicity, [the attitude is] ‘That’s not for us.’ But it is! Because we go through that stuff too.”
Above all else, that sense of empathy permeates the show (tellingly, the first monster the duo must face is “The Tearjerker,” which literally drinks the tears of its victims). The show’s premise may be out-of-this-world, but thanks to Aucoin and Morrison’s performances, the emotions it plays with are anything but far-fetched.
New episodes of Astrid & Lilly Save the World air Wednesday nights at 10pm ET on SYFY. Use the link below to start watching Sling with SYFY, then invite your very own Astrid to try Sling with our newly revamped Refer a Friend program.