Gideon Adlon has officially arrived!
The eldest daughter of "Better Things" star Pamelon Adlon makes her feature film debut in "Blockers." She stars as Sam, a high school senior with a crush on a female classmate and an absentee dad (Ike Barinholtz), who suddenly shows up to wreak havoc on prom night.
Universal Pictures
"I really had a connection between Sam's relationship with her father and my relationship with my father," Gideon told Wonderwall.com while promoting the film, which centers around three teens who make a pact to lose their virginity on prom night and their parents' attempts to shut them down. (Because, you know, they're sweet, innocent girls who need to be protected from sex.)
Gideon's dad, Felix O. Adlon, moved to Germany after he and Pamela called it quits. The Emmy winner's real-life struggle to balance her Hollywood career with her duties as a single mom to three daughters is the basis of her FX comedy "Better Things."
"I'm always playing the girl with daddy problems because I am a girl with daddy problems," Gideon joked. (She also portrays a young woman with a strained relationship with her father, a violent criminal, in the upcoming drama "Mustang.")
The young actress may have a complicated relationship with her real dad, but she and her mom "are best friends," she told us.
"She is just freaking out," Gideon said of how the "Better Things" funny-woman is reacting to her daughter's feature film debut. "Every time she sees a billboard … she takes a photo or she calls me screaming on FaceTime."
Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Marie Claire
While it's clear Gideon has her mother's support. She made a point of avoiding Pamelas' help.
"I really did it on my own, and that's a choice I made for myself," Gideon said of how her role in "Blockers" came together. "Of course I ask for [my mom's] advice sometimes, but mainly I chose to do this by myself. I chose to figure this out on my own. She didn't even read the script. I told her about the movie, but as this is my first feature film, I really wanted to develop this character by myself. I know she's in the industry, but I want to make my own footprint as well. I wanted this to really come from Gideon."
That said, the actress did rely on some of her unique upbringing (courtesy of her mom's inner circle) to bring Sam to life — especially regarding her on-screen alter ego's sexuality: "I grew up really deeply in the gay community," said Gideon. "My best friend is gay, and he's been out since he was 9 years old. And all of my mom's closest friends are drag queens or just gay men and gay women."
Representing Sam's sexuality in a fair and honest way was extremely important to the "Blockers" star.
"I have friends that are still closeted and can't tell their families, and it's because of religious differences and … being afraid of not being accepted," she said. "I thought about all of that and put it into Sam being scared to tell her friends about her sexuality because she feels like they won't want to be her friends anymore."
"At the end of the day, I really wanted to normalize the fact that she's a high school girl — a teenage girl — who has a crush on someone. That someone just happens to be another female," continued Gideon. "She has a crush on someone just like any other person would have a crush on someone. … It's a normal thing. I was just trying to show that Sam wanted to be with a girl and kiss a girl — just like Julie's character wanted to be with Austin. It's the same thing."
Universal Pictures
In "Blockers," Sam's dad attempts to "block" her to protect her from making a huge mistake by being pressured to lose her virginity to a boy when he knows that she really likes girls — not because he feels the need to protect her innocence (a sentiment held by the other two parents), an unfair double-standard many young women face in regards to their sexuality.
"I am very thankful that I'm the one who gets to be in a raunchy sex-comedy from the female perspective, which is so refreshing — showing young women making their own choices and showing the boys that play our dates responding to our wants and our needs in a respectful manner," said Gideon, who added that they shot "Blockers" before the Time's Up and Me Too movements kicked off.
"I can't even begin to tell you how honored I am," she said of how the comedy has been embraced by feminists. "I don't know why it's taken so long to have a movie like this come out."
"[These] movements have been needing to come to the surface for so long," she said. "It creates a safe space for me, my co-stars and women all over the world in different workspaces to be safe and be in charge and to have people listen to them and know that women have a voice and women can make choices for themselves."
It's no small feat that a movie in which John Cena chugs beer from his butt also drives home so many important messages.
"Becoming [Sam] in this incredible coming-of-age story, it's such an honor for her to be my first character in a feature film," Gideon concluded. "Every time I'm driving in my car and I see [a 'Blockers' billboard], I just kind of smile. … I'm like, 'Is this really happening to me?' I don't think I could ever get sick of this."
