Rachel Zegler Unpacks ‘Y2K’s Porta Potty Scene At SXSW Premiere

Rachel Zegler and the cast of A24’s Y2K had a blast describing a favorite scene where a group of fleeing high school students slide, tumble and bump down a hill inside an overflowing porta potty

“So, like, the big sh*t — let’s just nip it in the bud — the big sh*t was hot chocolate mix with glycerin, so it smelled amazing. And it was really confusing to shoot that,” said the star of the Kyle Mooney disaster comedy that premiered at SXSW tonight.

The Porta Potty “was on its side, on shocks. Yeah, it was actually bouncing up and down,” Zegler said. “And you can see lovely [co-star] Jaeden Martell here was covering my ear because I kept talking about how I didn’t want water in my ears. And Evan kept saying ‘get your hand off her ear, we can’t see her face.’ But the take that got used was Jaeden protecting my ear,” she said in Q&A after the screening.

 “The actual Y2K was such a letdown if you lived it. So, it was fun to get to reimagine it,” said Mooney. So his version is not benign. The 1990s are present, from a Tipper Gore reference to dial-up Internet.

“I came across a YouTube video from my friend Kurtis Connor, where he watched a VHS tape. Yeah, he was watching a VHS tape of a survival guide for Y2k. And I thought that was the most bizarre thing.”

Mooney said that on New Year’s Day, 2019, “after a party to celebrate with Evan and our friends, I texted him that there should be a movie about two kids going to a party on Y2k December 31, 1999. And it goes bad. And some of the things you see on the screen and happen.”

Winter: “I woke up very hung over and just read this text, and it’s kind of a fully formed idea. And I said, yeah let’s do it.”

The film also stars Julian Dennison, Lachlan Watson, Daniel Zolghadri, Mason Gooding, The Kid Laroi.

Produced by Johan Hill, Matt Dines, Alison Goodwin, Chris Storer, Cooper Wehde, Evan Winer.