The Edge of Seventeen Cast Shares "Awkward," "Scary," and "Miserable" Teenage Stories

"I was miserable. I was a miserable young teen. I was absolutely . . . I felt very much like Nadine. I felt like a misfit toy. I was. I felt completely abandoned by my group. I felt like I was so not popular. I was desperate to be popular. I got ganged up on a lot. I remember, this just tells it all. I have this curly kinky hair, and all the cool girls had stick-straight hair. Totally waspy, stick-straight hair. (Not that waspy is bad.) My hair was very curly. At night I would wet my hair I would pull it down really straight. I would press it against my head and lie down on the pillow and just hope I wouldn't move all night. And hope that miraculously my hair would wake up straight. That is such a, that is such a symbol of someone who is fighting a losing battle. Fighting to be this person they're not. To me, that's what a teenager is. It's so painful. That's what is great about the movie. It's so painful but so funny. And so real. We can all relate to it."

"I was driving a '93 Honda Civic. Red, but really it was faded pink. . . . It was great. I had my own group of core friends. I had the first car of all of us. That was our wagon. It was frustrating. I was ready to grow up at 16. At 15, I was ready to be driving by myself. I had to wait a year. And then, at 16, I had my car and wanted to drive away where I wanted to go. I wanted to take that '93 Civic and gun all the way to LA and start acting. And you can't. You have that fire inside of you. Your mind is ahead of your body and your age, and you're just like, that's so frustrating. That started a lot of friction between me and my family. I was being so stubborn about wanting a certain amount of responsibility I wasn't ready for. And they saw it. But I did not agree with them."

"I'm trying to think of where I was physically, actually. I don't even remember. I was trying not to be awkward. That's for sure. I don't know, I think I was just masking everything I was feeling. This character feels a lot better than I was. Playing this character actually gave me the opportunity to be a teenager, to figure stuff out, and freak out."

"Oh man. I was it was scary. I remember senior year, like, 'Oh my god, it's all going to be done. What's going to happen now? I don't feel like I'm ready for the world.' I was on my way to college. 'What's college going to be like?' You're afraid because you've been living with these people at this school for so long. You were forced to hang out with them. And now you go out and do your own thing, what does that mean? You're not ready. 'I'm not ready yet!' I just remember this major anxiety."

"I don't feel like that much has changed, honestly. It's weird to think about where I was when I was 17. When I was 14, 15, 16, I was in high school. Living the high school life, I had my group of friends, but I was the weirdo of school; I wasn't cool at all. I just floated around. Was friends with some people and would make an ugly face, and they'd be like, 'Ha ha, Haley.' But then, when I was 16, something clicked. And I needed to move to LA and start acting. I didn't know what that all was, but I felt like I needed to do it. I moved here when I was 16. My mom was here with me for the first two years. And then, right when I turned 18, she moved back home. She was like, 'Peace!' It's so strange to think there was only really a year difference in between that, but my world was so different. I almost didn't even have time to fully go through what Nadine goes through in the movie. It was a switch. You need to do this because the stakes are actually high. You're living in the real world. You're working on set with adults, and this is actually precious time and money and you have to get stuff done."