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Nicole Pacent and Rachael Hip-Flores on “Anyone But Me: The Lost Scenes” and the show’s enduring appeal

Rachael Hip-Flores and out bisexual actress Nicole Pacent helped revolutionize the medium of web series as Vivian and Aster in Tina Cesa Ward and Susan Miller‘s Anyone But Me. Now, seven years after it first premiered and three years since they took their supposed final bow, Vivian and Aster are back in Anyone But Me: the Lost Scenes.

These scenes are meant to fit within the existing story structure, and give us another glimpse into the lives of two characters we loved very much. Like their characters, Rachael and Nicole have a delightful chemistry, laughing and encouraging each other as the three of us spoke on the phone. The actresses shared their love for the series and their excitement of being able to step into these roles once again.

AfterEllen: How did Susan (Miller) and Tina (Cesa Ward) approach you about this? It’s been a couple of years now since the show has ended. How did they approach you?

Rachael Hip-Flores: I think I was hanging out with Tina and I think she brought it up in person like, hey, this is a thing we are thinking of doing and I was like, “Oh! OK.” I don’t remember it being all at once, I think it was a slow boil for me.

Nicole Pacent: Interestingly enough, I was in Sweden so I remember getting an email and being like, “Whaaaat?!” and my family in Sweden being like, “I guess this is happening.” It was very exciting because it was so out of the blue and they really had made no beans about the fact that it was over. For a long time, it wasn’t even being entertained. It was funny because I thought enough time had gone by that I was super stoked about the idea. It felt like it was time to see everybody, it was so great to work with everybody again. It was great.

AE: Speaking of that, what was it like to work with each other again, as these characters that you had had such an affection and love for, for many years?

RHF: [laughs] It was really fun! I was a little bit worried because you know, I’m further away from 15 now. I’m further away from that character than I had been so I was a little bit trepidatious, but we did the first read through on Skype and it was like, “Oh, hell, this still feels really right.” That relationship still felt very much alive. And then, of course, it was just fun to get together and see each other for the first time in like, two or three years? It felt definitely easier than I anticipated it being.

NP: Oh, yeah, me too. I was saying, the only hang up that I had was like, “Oh god-am I going to have to pretend that I’m 15, 16 again?” It’s not just a literal time removal from that, but the experience gap feels so different that it’s hard to put yourself in that position. When they said, don’t put the pressure of acting young on this, that’s not what we want, it’s just about the characters and the connection, then it felt like, “Oh, OK.” I felt totally free to step into it.

AE: I had been a big fan of the series from the beginning. I have this very visceral memory of sitting in my really crappy apartment in Queens, watching it in the dark of my living room. But I remember it really was a groundbreaking series. I think that Anyone But Me just ushered in this new wave of new media in how to really present a beautiful, interesting story in that medium, in a way that hadn’t really been done before. Especially with queer characters. So when I heard about how this was going to happen, that these were going to be these lost scenes, I was a little nervous as a viewer because I was like, how is this going to work? Then when I actually saw it, I was like, oh yeah this totally works.

NP: [laughs] I think we were a little nervous about how it was going to work! Trying to wrap my head around that idea was really kind of weird for a bit. I actually started explaining it to people like theatre, because it really feels in a lot of ways, to me, the way they set it up, like theatre. Your suspension of disbelief is such that you set up these couple people in one room, and the scene changes, but everyone knows we’re all still in the same room. You can suspend your disbelief enough that you’re able to get into what’s happening on stage. It really felt more in the world of theatre, even.

RHF: I absolutely agree, it felt very much like these downtown, black box theatres where it’s not about the spectacle and not about all the stuff surrounding the story, it’s about story. It’s about relationships and the characters. We both, coming from the backgrounds that we do, sort of fell right into that. That feels like home, I think.

AE: In a way we are going back in time, but I want to go further back in time and talk a little bit about the experience for both of you of actually doing Anyone But Me in the first place. Back then, in 2008, web series were few and far between. What was it like to be a part of this series that actually took off in a major way?

NP: For me, it’s funny because I remember sitting in Susan’s sort of, like, breakfast room area in her apartment, and reading through the script together with the whole cast. I remember looking around and thinking, this could be something special, I don’t know.

RHF: [laughs]

NP: Because nobody was familiar with the platform, we were all like, “I think I know what a web series is.” It felt immediately like it was something special, but we didn’t know how far it would go and I don’t think anybody really anticipated just where it went. So, yeah, we knew we had something but being on the ride of where it ended up going was very exciting. It was unknown territory, on a lot of fronts. Most of us had just graduated from school, too, so it was the newness of being part of the cast, an ongoing cast, a series cast.

RHF: That really felt like a safe, secure environment having all these people around on a fairly regular basis. That was awfully nice. I do remember having to explain myself a lot more in those first couple of years. “Yeah, well, it’s like a TV show but it’s on the internet, but it’s short, but we’re not sitting in a basement with a camera on.

AE: I imagine that went over really well back in 2008 too.

RHF: Oh yeah! (laughs) There was more of an extended explanation that had to happen in the first couple years. But yeah, now you say web series and people are like, “Oh cool!” They’re into it and they will start naming a bunch of them like, “Do you watch this one and this one?” It’s so much more accepted now, it’s nice. I think that we all sort of had the hope that that’s where it would go, and where the medium would go, but it’s nice to have seen that actually happen.

AE: Obviously, it’s been a few years, but in the land of internet a few years can be an eternity. There are going to be people who see this and have not seen Anyone But Me, and might be interested. What would you tell who stumble upon this, who are not familiar with the web series, why they should go back and check out the whole thing?

NP: Well it totally depends on who the person is. I would kind of go back to the reasons I got involved with it in the first place, and is the reason I think people should watch it, at least partly. At that point I was just fiending for content, because like we said, there weren’t web series. Like, that wasn’t a thing. You had to really search for that kind of content, and there was a sort of taboo around the whole subject still. When I got the breakdown for Anyone But Me, I was like, “Holy shit-LGBT teens!” I wish this had been around when I was a teenager. It was so socially necessary. I think that it was groundbreaking in that way, and certainly for people who are interested in not only social movements but the way in which cinema, films, the web influences those social movements. I think Anyone But Me is a really fantastic case study in that, and that’s the dorky intellectual in me talking, but I think that’s very true.

And I would say again that it’s just relatable. Certainly, if you’re a teen and you’re going through that stuff-when you’re a teen, all your problems, especially relationship stuff, it feels like life and death. And you want someone to be able to acknowledge and validate those feelings. I think that our series did a really good job of reaching out to that audience and doing just that.

RHF: Completely seconded and I would add to that, like Nicole was saying, it’s a very universal, very relatable show. I think that yes, it does have LGBT characters as the central couple, but also I think that their story is not something that is totally alien to straight people. I think it’s eternally relevant because I kind of feel like the experience of growing up doesn’t necessarily change very much. I think we all go through very similar struggles, it’s just a matter of seeing the similarity in each other. That’s what drew me to this and that’s why I love it.

You can catch all the previous episodes of Anyone But Me on Hulu, as well as The Lost Scenes.

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