In 2002, Stephanie (Rebel Wilson and Angourie Rice) had everything going for her. She was the epitome of popularity as a high school senior: she was cheer captain, dating the quarterback, and almost a sure bet for the title of homecoming queen. Life was good, at least until she fell off the top of a cheer stunt, which rendered her bedridden and in a coma for 20 years.
Miraculously, Stephanie awakens from her coma in 2022, ready to pop on her tiny flower hair clips and bedazzled low-rise jeans and reclaim her position in high school just as she left it. Only high school isn’t the same place that it was 20 years ago. Beyond the trends and pop-culture references that are all "out" now, the kids, their thoughts, interests, and ways of showing off are all different too. Struggling to adjust to the social differences from the past to now, Senior Year explores the themes of identity and fitting in by encouraging individuality, even as adults.
Keep reading to find out which familiar faces you can expect to see (or already saw) in the new film from Netflix.
Angourie Rice as Young Stephanie
Angourie Rice is playing Stephanie, a girl who in her early high school life was too brainy and frumpy to be ‘in’ with the popular kids, and who tried her hardest to change this. As a senior in 2002, she is thriving in her high school life, about to reach all of her hopes and dreams for the future, when she falls from her cheer stunt and ends up in a coma. Before her accident, Stephanie had succeeded in making herself the person everyone wanted to be, or be with. She was popular and happy being so. Seeing Stephanie in school helps to set up the picture of what high school was like 20 years ago and juxtaposes this to current-day high school and its inherent culture.
Rice is an actress out of Australia who is best known for her role as Betty Brandt in the MCU Spider-Man movies as well as for her role as Siobhan Sheehan in the Emmy-winning HBO limited series Mare of Easttown. Additionally, she starred in Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled alongside Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst and the action-comedy The Nice Guys. Rice is also known within Australian cinema for her roles in Ladies in Black and Jasper Jones.
Rebel Wilson as Adult Stephanie
Rebel Wilson plays Stephanie in the present day, once she has waken up from her coma and is ready to graduate as if she never left. After being thrust into a different type of high school life, where she is told there is no social hierarchy and no cheer captain, the very things that made Stephanie popular, (instead, replaced by the idea that everyone is the cheer captain), Stephanie is confused and displaced. She ultimately struggles to adjust her ideas and perceptions of things that were important when she was in high school to the things that high schoolers today find important, and above all what she feels is important to herself.
Wilson is another actress hailing from Australia who is most known for her boisterous roles in comedy. Wilson’s break into the American film industry was her role in the Oscar-nominated comedy Bridesmaids. Quickly after this Wilson was cast as Amy in Pitch Perfect and its two sequels. Wilson is also known for playing the lead role in Isn’t It Romantic, as well as her roles in How to Be Single, The Hustle, and Jojo Rabbit.
Chris Parnell as Jim
Chris Parnell plays the role of Jim, Stephanie’s dad who has been waiting for Stephanie’s recovery. We learn that Jim, a widower, was hopeful that Stephanie would recover, so much so that he left her room the same way as it was when she left it 20 years before. He is playing a supportive and kind father who is happy that his daughter has returned.
Parnell is an actor with a prolific history in the industry. Most notably, he is known for his segue into voice acting as Jerry Smith in Rick and Morty, many characters in Family Guy as well as Archer, and Ed in Dogs in Space. Parnell is also known for his roles in the Disney+ reboot Home Sweet Home Alone and will next be seen in Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers, which is also a Disney+ Original.
Mary Holland as Martha
Mary Holland is playing a friend and principal of the high school that both she and Stephanie attended themselves. Martha was friends with Stephanie before she became ‘cool’ and still stood beside her. Martha’s character provides a friendly bridge between Stephanie’s past as a teen, and life as an adult learning all the lessons a high school experience provides. Holland’s character appears apprehensive about Stephanie returning to school as an “almost forty-year-old”, but is supportive nonetheless. Proud of the inclusive changes that she has made to the school, Martha is concerned that Stephanie’s return and influence may not be the best for the other students.
Holland is most recently known for her role alongside Kristen Bell in the Netflix series, The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window. Before this, Holland may be recognized for her roles in the Apple TV+ series Physical, as well as Homecoming, Robbie, and Happiest Season.
Sam Richardson as Seth
Sam Richardson plays a character similar to Mary Holland, in that Seth has also returned to his high school, now as an adult, in the role of the school’s librarian. Seth is a character who always had a crush on Stephanie, despite her never noticing, who also stuck by her as she spent her years in the coma. Seth provides Stephanie with a mature adult friend who is crucial in helping her grow into the person she was meant to become.
Richardson is most likely to have been seen as Aniq in the Apple TV+ series The Afterparty and Richard Splett in Veep, and has also had roles in hit films such as The Tomorrow War, Good Boys, and Promising Young Woman.
Zoë Chao as Tiffany
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Evidenced by the age of the references and shade thrown between Wilson and Zoë Chao’s characters, Chao plays Tiffany, Stephanie’s high school nemesis and current President of the PTA at the high school. Chao’s character adds tension because she appears to have stolen the adult life that Stephanie had always dreamed that she would have, including the hunky husband and the perfect house. For the most part, Tiffany adds petty tension while also showing the audience examples of adults who forget to move beyond high school.
Chao is most likely to have been seen playing Sara in the HBO Max series Love Life and starring alongside Richardson in The Afterparty as Zoe. She has also been seen in Modern Love, I Used to Go Here, The High Note and Where’d You Go, Bernadette.
Joshua Colley as Yaz
Joshua Colley plays Yaz, one of the friends that Stephanie makes when she returns to high school. He is on the cheer team and is there for Stephanie, despite their age difference. Yaz is close friends with Janet and is on board with mixing up their high school dynamic because while there are technically no popular kids, he is aware that he and Janet are unpopular.
Though Colley is still relatively new to the industry, he may have been seen in the film Sex Appeal as well as heard as Pig Robinson in the TV series Peter Rabbit.
Avantika as Janet
Avantika is another one of the new high school-aged friends that Stephanie makes on her return. Janet and Yaz are best friends and are on the cheer team together. When Stephanie joins the team and attempts to make it a little less tame than what it ended up becoming after 20 years, Janet and Yaz were both on board with supporting Stephanie’s vision.
Avantika is well-known for her role in the Disney Channel original movie Spin where she plays Rhea, a girl with a passion for being a DJ. You may also have seen Avantika as Monyca in the Disney+ original series Diary of a Future President.
Alicia Silverstone as Deanna
Alicia Silverstone is providing audiences with her return to the teen comedy genre, with a crucial, albeit short appearance in the film playing a character named Deanna. Deanna is the ex-prom queen and a seemingly happily married woman, who young Stephanie sees and decides that her adult life must become what Deanna’s appears to be. Deanna is the vision of perfection as an adult that drives the entire movie and motivates Stephanie’s character until she discovers that what is truly important is more than adoration from others and seemingly having everything together.
Silverstone is most widely known for her role as Cher in the 1995 teen classic, Clueless, a retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma. Recently, Silverstone has been seen in the show American Woman, as well as in The Baby-Sitters Club.
Senior Year is now available to stream on Netflix.