I heard from Ava DuVernay that once they had seen Storm Reid audition for A Wrinkle In Time, there was no question that she would be their Meg. This beautiful, sweet girl plays Meg exactly how I imagined her in the book. Afraid, smart, insecure, brave. Yes, all those wrapped into one character.
From Disney: Meg Murry is a typical middle school student struggling with issues of self-worth who just wants to fit in. The daughter of two world-renowned physicists, she is intelligent and uniquely gifted, as is Meg’s younger brother, Charles Wallace, but she has yet to realize it for herself.
Complicating matters is the mysterious disappearance of Mr. Murry, which has left Meg devastated and her mother broken-hearted. Charles Wallace introduces Meg and her fellow classmate Calvin to three celestial beings (Mrs. Which, Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Who) who have journeyed to Earth to help search for their father, and together they embark on their formidable quest.
Travelling via a wrinkling of time and space known as tessering, they are transported to worlds beyond their imagination where they must confront a powerful evil force. To make it back home to Earth, Meg must face the darkness within herself in order to harness the strength necessary to defeat the darkness rapidly enveloping the Universe.
If you haven’t seen the trailer, take a minute and watch it now.
Interview with A Wrinkle In Time’s Storm Reid
Storm Reid is an absolute delight. She was polite, respectful, and so sweet. We had to ask what it felt like to be this next generation of multicultural heroine inspiration to little girls who look like her.
Storm: It means everything and it’s very empowering for me still as a young, little girl being able to represent the little girls that look like me and being able to give them hope and know that they can have any opportunity they wanna have and they can do anything, no matter their big hair or their big nose, as people say, or their glasses or their skin tone.
They can do anything. So, for me able to be that for them and be an inspiration and to uplift them and empower them in a time like this where everybody’s so divided and it’s so dark. It means a lot.
In the movie, each of the Mrs. left Meg with a gift. We wanted to know what she learned from each of them from working with them in the film.
Storm: Yes, so, they’re all so great and I just learned from each and every one of them constant graciousness, because they are just so, so amazing and so empowering. And they’re these A-List stars, but they don’t act like it. And they are so grounded and so humble. And I just love them.
And then Miss Oprah told me don’t waste energy on things you can’t change in life when you can be using that energy on something positive in your life. So, they’re just all so great and I’m glad that I have them in my corner to pour into me and just be around me, ’cause they’re amazing women. (See my interview with Oprah, Reese & Mindy!)
We asked how the audition was.
Storm: It was a long audition process. I think it took a month to audition and then another month to find out when I booked it. But it was an amazing process, and then the journey filming it, with it being my first lead role and shooting the movie for six months, it was different and it was a change for me even though I’ve been acting for 11 years.
I learned so much and I had the best time. And to be around such amazing, powerful women and people to kinda lift me up and empower me was really amazing.
There is a scene (kind of a spoiler- sorry!) where Meg is tempted with a bad girl version of herself. This may have been the most powerful moment in the film for me, as a mom of two girls, both who have been bullied. We had to ask what that was like for Storm.
Storm: I feel like it had a deeper message in that scene for me and for young girls not to conform to what society wants you to be and what society thinks you should be or how you should look because you’re perfect just the way you are. And Meg, who is doubtful about herself and doesn’t love herself at the time, and you have this perfect version of her with this straight hair and this crop top and all these little trinkets, who is really pretty and is cute.
But Meg chooses herself over this perfect Meg because she is realizing that she is enough and that she is worthy of being loved just the way she is. So, I feel like it was really fun to film, but it had a deeper message and I’m glad that I was able to kind of connect with that as a young teenage girl trying not to follow trends and trying to be unique and be myself. And also I feel like that will transcend to our audience, especially our young girls.
It’s easy to see how we all adored spending time with this girl. Oh, my word. I just want to tell her parents what an amazing job they have done!
Storm played a different kind of character in Sleight, and we wanted to know how that switch of being cared for versus caring for everyone felt for her as an actor.
Storm: Yes, it was interesting. Wow. I didn’t even think of it like that. But it was a switch and a change, and in ‘Sleight’, I was being taken care of by my older brother.
And I feel like my character in ‘Sleight’ still had some wits about her and she knew what was going on, and she knew that her brother was in danger. And I feel like she kind of, with her adolescence and her love, got him outta that. But in Wrinkle, I’m having to take care of basically my entire family.
I’m having to put on these pants with this missing void, who is my dad. So, I’m having to be strong for myself, be strong for Charles Wallace and my mother.
So, it is a big jump and a big gap between the two, but I feel like they still connect because they kind of make everything better with their love and with their innocence and with their vulnerability with Tina in ‘Sleight’ and Meg in ‘A Wrinkle in Time.’
We asked if she learned anything by playing Meg.
Storm: I did learn that I am enough. And, of course, my mom taught me that and instilled that in me, and I’m pretty confident. But just being Meg and experiencing that and going through that journey with her where she doesn’t feel that way about herself and she has to embrace the light from within to become that, it really helped me do the same and really reassure that I was enough and that I am worthy of being loved, and I do have faults and challenges, but that can’t stop me.
Me and Meg grew up together or grew together because Meg is growing through the journey and when I was her, I was growing as Storm, as a person, as a teenager as well.
There is a scene in the film where Meg sees her father, and the raw emotion is incredible. It was one of the scenes we were all talking about right after seeing the movie. We asked Storm what she was thinking at that moment.
Storm: So, thankfully my father hasn’t been missing for four years [LAUGHS], but with all the situations Meg is going through I really had to step in her shoes and put myself in those situations. I had to just imagine my dad being missing for four years and I go on this tumultuous journey to try to find him and put my life at risk to try to find him and me walking in the room and seeing him there, I mean how could you not get emotional? How could you not feel that?
And then Mr. Chris was so great and so focused, and you could really tell that he had that connection as well with Meg and Dr. Murray. He helped a lot.
In fact, Chris Pine talked about that moment when he was on the carpet at the premiere of A Wrinkle in Time. Take a look.
We had to ask Storm if she could Tessar anywhere in the world, where would she go?
Storm: I think I would like to go the past, with my knowledge as Storm, as this 14-year-old girl, go back into the Civil Rights Movement and see how I would deal with those things and come back and see how I could kind of change the future because I feel segregation and inequality is still going on.
So, if I could have that knowledge of how I experience that and how I could’ve changed that and come back here in times like this, that would be really cool.
Most of us in the room were parents, so we asked Storm how her parents reacted when she told them she wanted to be an actor.
Storm: I started acting when I was three and it was solely my idea. It wasn’t talked about it in my house. My mom wasn’t an actress. It was just my idea. So, I went up to my mom and I said I wanna be on TV and I wanna be a stuperstar. [LAUGHS] And my mom was like what did you say to me. So, I had to repeat myself.
We really both feel like it was my destiny and my calling because not a lot of three-year-olds are walking around saying what they wanna do with the rest of their lives. So, she just really thought it was just GOD and my destiny. And she, of course, took it seriously. As long as I was taking it seriously and was having fun, then it was something that we could do. And thankfully I’ve been blessed enough to do so and be able to enjoy it. It’s my love and my passion.
Our final question was about the Mrs; Was there something each of them said that resonated with her?
Storm: With Mrs. Whatsit, when we are doing the gift exchange, ‘I give you your faults’ was really powerful to me because she’s basically saying, you have your faults.
They’re staying with you and you have to accept them. And you have to learn to cope with them and use them to your advantage and to become the light.
Everything Mrs. Which said was so powerful and wise!
And then Mrs. Who only talked she when she felt like she needed to talk. And it really moved me when she gave me her glasses in the movie [to] use through a moment of peril where you can’t see anything. And it kinda relates back to me like faith.
You can’t see what’s gonna happen in your future and you don’t know what’s going to be in your future, but as long as you have faith, or you have these glasses, then you could keep on going and you can move forward and do something good with that.
Storm Reid is wise beyond her years. But of course, she has been learning from three women who are all at least 2 billion years old.
Storm took a minute to get a photo with our group.
A Wrinkle in Time slams into theaters on March 9. You’ve got to see it. Make it a family night or a mom’s night out.
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A WRINKLE IN TIME opens in theatres everywhere on Friday, March 9!
Take a look at the photos from the Blue Carpet World Premiere!
This was all-expenses paid trip to experience the A Wrinkle In Time movie event in exchange for sharing it with you. As always, many thanks to Disney for inviting me to participate in this incredible event.
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