Indie pop duo Tegan and Sara have announced the stars of their forthcoming comedy series High School. The identical twin sisters, it has been revealed, will be played by fellow twins Railey and Seazynn Gilliland, who came to Tegan and Sara’s attention via Tik Tok.
Railey will be portraying 15-year-old Tegan, described as the “gregarious, confident, and extroverted” twin, while Seazynn will be playing the more “reserved, observant, and sensitive” Sara.
The cast will also feature How I Met Your Mother star Cobie Smulders, who will play the twins’ mum, Simone. Kyle Bornheimer, meanwhile, has been cast as her boyfriend, Patrick. “It felt kismet when I saw Railey and Seazynn for the first time on TikTok,” said Tegan Quin in a statement. “There was something undeniably intriguing about them: They were sweet and original, impossible not to watch. I felt compelled to send Sara the video.”
Quinn added: “‘Too bad they don’t act’, I texted her. Sara wasn’t deterred. They were performers, musical and dynamic. ‘You can’t teach charisma,’ Sara said, which they had in spades. Sara was relentless — these were the twins that had to play us. We were overjoyed when they were cast, and we couldn’t be more thrilled that it all worked out.”
High School is based on Tegan and Sara’s 2019 memoir of the same name and will begin shooting on March 21st in Calgary. While a form release date is yet to be announced, it’s expected to premiere later this year on IMDb TV.
The pop duo will act as executive producers for the coming-of-age series, joining Clea DuVall, Laura Kittrell, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner. DuVall, who will write and direct the episodes. The announcement comes just a month after the twins released Still Jealous, an acoustic reworking of their 2004 breakthrough album So Jealous.