Five years after Mae Martin debuted “Feel Good,” their semi-autobiographical romantic comedy series, the comedian is returning to Netflix with another project of similar personal significance with “Wayward,” a thriller series set within the troubled teen industry.
The topic of the difficult teen industry and its dangers, which the cultural zeitgeist has grown increasingly aware of in recent years, has been near and dear to Martin’s heart since their teens, when they had several close friends get sent to a school for troubled youth, in particular their one friend, Nicole, who served as a consulting producer on the series and even made a cameo as a waitress.
“Because it was my best friend who got sent to one of these schools, and I always had a lot of guilt about it, because I felt like I should have been the one who was sent, imagining a scenario where I went to bust her out and then was in there with her trying to stay sane, was a really interesting exercise,” Martin told TheWrap.
Thus “Wayward” was born, with Martin’s scenario taking form with best friends Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind) and Abbie (Sydney Topliffe), who routinely cut class to do drugs and daydream about a future away from their town together. Leila, whom Martin most identifies with, is the instigator in most situations, dragging Abbie into trouble after a family tragedy left her without much semblance of a support system at home.
With “Wayward” grounded in this central bond, Martin calls the show “a love letter to teen friendship,” specifically calling out the “the intense codependent friendships where you feel like you can be full of yourself and you’re hysterically laughing all the time.” The friends, however, are quickly separated when Abbie’s family sends her to Tall Pines Academy, kicking off Leila’s mission to rescue her from the school, which is led by Toni Collette’s ruthless founder Evelyn.
While Martin admits “Wayward” isn’t a “literal” depiction of some of these schools, they hope to start a conversation about the billion dollar industry, which remains quite unregulated despite increased awareness and transparency in the past decade.
“I think a lot about the world that we’re handing down to them and the
systems that we’re asking them to be a part of,” Martin said. “That healthy rebellion is pretty crucial — we all, I think now more than ever, have to tap into our own teen rebellion, because it’s going to take a lot of creativity and imagination … to dream up a better world and a better way of doing things. When you’re young, you do have those ideas, and you just sort of get gaslit out of them.”
As Leila and Abbie’s escape journey commences, “Wayward” employs a dual narrative that extends beyond the walls of the school into the town of Tall Pines — where things are also not quite right — as Martin plays police officer Alex Dempsey, who moves to Tall Pines with his pregnant wife, Laura, a former student at Tall Pines Academy, and immediately realizes all is not right in Tall Pines.
Taking on the role of creator/star felt natural to Martin, who also spearheaded “Feel Good” from both sides, and also seemed to be a necessity in their own acting career, with Martin saying candidly, “I don’t get many auditions, so I have to write my own parts.”
With Martin, who identifies as nonbinary, playing Alex, a trans man, in the series, Martin said playing that different gender identity felt comfortable to them — admitting “who knows where I’ll end up on that spectrum” — and pondered that had the series not been set in 2003, maybe Alex would identify as nonbinary as well.
“It’s important to me that … if I’m portraying a queer character, that’s just one small aspect of their identity and it’s not the focus — I don’t want to give anyone an excuse to switch off and relegate the show to some niche,” Martin said. “I just hope that people relate to him … that’s the best way to get people to humanize trans people, which seem seems like a crazy thing to say.”
What Martin was nervous about, however, was playing a cop. “I hope people can tell that we’re commenting on those very seductive systems and that deep yearning for acceptance that we all have, that I think Alex … feels so profoundly, and it really drives him,” Martin said.
Alex meets his match in Collette’s Evelyn, whose intimidating presence and connection with Laura is a hefty rival for Alex as he tries to protect his family’s peace. Martin admitted that Collette “elevated all of our performances because we all wanted to impress her the same way you want to impress Evelyn.”
Martin and the writing staff had envisioned Collette as Evelyn from the start, and were thrilled when she took a Zoom meeting with the team. “She had such intelligent questions about her character, I mean, really deeply psychological questions about the character, which was so encouraging, because that’s all you really want — is for someone to deeply engage in the story and for someone to be curious about what’s going on underneath,” Martin said. “She brings this deep richness, because she really understood the character on every level.”
With Alex determined to peel back the layers of Tall Pines, what follows is a cat-and-mouse game between Alex and Evelyn that extends beyond the confines of the troubled teen industry. “Even though it tackles dark themes and it escalates to real horror, I wanted it to be a world that is fun to be in, and you want to keep watching,” Martin said.
“Wayward” is now streaming on Netflix.
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