Sara Waisglass addresses typecasting fears after Ginny & Georgia

How to Lose a Popularity Contest is not only a fresh challenge for Sara Waisglass, but also a chance to demonstrate that she is more than her beloved character, Maxine Baker, from Ginny & Georgia.

“One of my biggest fears is that I can only play Maxine Baker, because my energy does bleed into my performances,” the 27-year-old Canadian actress revealed in an interview with Us Weekly while promoting her latest movie. “And something I was very worried about was, in this movie, is it just going to be Max in a different film?”

Waisglass plays Ellie in Tubi’s How to Lose a Popularity Contest. Ellie is a high achiever who reluctantly teams up with her adversary, Nate (played by Chase Hudson), to run his student body president campaign in an attempt to win back their respective ex-partners.

To make matters worse, Nate refers to Ellie as “Max,” which is short for “maxi pad.” The moniker originated from a humiliating classroom incident years ago. The irony is further enhanced by Waisglass’s admission that she has been called “maxi pad” on the Ginny & Georgia set since season one.

The Degrassi: The Next Generation actress claimed she worked “really hard” to identify specific qualities that made her new character distinct, ensuring Ellie felt like a completely different person from her Netflix character.

“I was very intentional about silly things like posture and tone of voice,” she revealed. “So it was the same energy, just a different execution, I guess. And I’m hoping that that played out right.”