After growing up on YouTube, 20-year-old Chloe East speaks to L'OFFICIEL about her acting career and authentically portraying Gen Z on 'Generation.'

From scripts written by older men to roles played by actors far from their high school days, many films and TV shows about teenage life feel out of touch from real teen experiences. But the much talked about&nbsp;series&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/new-movies-tv-shows-stream-march-2021-netflix-hbo-max-apple-hulu" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Generation</a>, releasing on HBO Max today, is doing the opposite. The show was not only co-written by 19-year-old Zelda Barnz, but has a cast of Gen Z actors playing Gen Z roles.

One of these stars is Chloe East,&nbsp;who plays Naomi on the show. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always played &#39;the kid,&#39;&quot; the YouTuber, dancer, and actress tells L&#39;OFFICIEL, &quot;but our show is about angsty teens and we&rsquo;re complex and have a lot of layers.&quot;&nbsp;

Generation | Official Trailer | HBO Max

The&nbsp;series is co-created, written, and produced by father-daughter team <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/generation-meet-the-teenager-and-her-dad-who-created-hbo-maxs-ya-dramedy" target="_blank">Daniel (who also directs) and Zelda Barnz</a>. Girls creator<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/emily-ratajkowski-preganant-announcement-instagram-nude-lena-dunham" target="_blank"> Lena Dunham</a>, who Zelda previously interned for, is also one of the producers.&nbsp;Already drawing some&nbsp;Euphoria&nbsp;comparisons, the&nbsp;first season&#39;s 16 episodes take a look at the life of Gen Z teens as they navigate love, family, and sexuality in the digital age.

The ensemble cast features East, Lukita Maxwell,&nbsp;Haley Sanchez, and Justice Smith who deal with themes around identity with an authenticity and awareness that fellow Gen Zers will surely appreciate. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just so proud to be in a show that represents everyone,&rdquo; East says. &ldquo;Every gender, sexuality has a voice in our show.&rdquo;

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The Barnz&rsquo;s personal experiences became a starting point for developing the show as Zelda and her brother identify as queer, and they were raised by two dads&mdash;the family&rsquo;s dynamic of what being LGBTQ+ means opened up conversations and perspectives reflected on&nbsp;Generation. It was not long after Zelda came out that the show was picked up.&nbsp;Zelda wrote the characters based on her own teen perspective, which East says makes the show authentically Gen Z and a stand out among other shows like it. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a show that was written by older men who don&rsquo;t understand teenage humor and language,&rdquo; East says.

One of the ways the show portrays the lives of American adolescents is by unabashedly looking at how social media operates within teen social circles. East knows a lot about this personally&mdash;before the influencer age, she got her start on YouTube at 10 years old with dancing videos, gradually gaining a following on Instagram. &ldquo;I wanted followers, I wanted to be famous when I was younger,&rdquo; East reflects. &ldquo;I only posted things I thought people would want to see.&rdquo;

But things started to change when East grew up, as she came to realize social media is about balance. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve gone through the peaks and valleys of posting a lot and wanting to get followers and borderline be an influencer to like, no, I&rsquo;m just going to post what I want.&rdquo;

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As an actor, she&rsquo;s not as concerned about pleasing an audience and gaining followers as she is with getting to explore new characters.&nbsp;On Generation, she plays party girl Naomi, a role that allows her to step outside the &ldquo;kid&rdquo; roles she was previously prescribed and enter a more grown-up acting space. Naomi also gives the actress an opportunity to reflect upon who Chloe really is.&nbsp;

East couldn&rsquo;t be more different than her role. &ldquo;I live in my overalls and I don&rsquo;t really care about makeup,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;[Naomi] has to look perfect. She needs the Anastasia Brow Wiz, the Brandy Melville, the new <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/street-style-sneaker-trends-nike-air-jordan-new-balance" target="_blank">Nike Air Force Ones</a>. She&rsquo;s very vulgar and raunchy and just wants to get drunk. She wants any excuse to rebel against her parents.&rdquo;&nbsp;

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But Naomi isn&rsquo;t too far out of reach. East may not connect with her directly, but she knows a lot of people like her, and could have even become her&nbsp;if life had been different. When she was younger, East moved from Orange County to Koreatown in Los Angeles, where she was homeschooled as she pursued her dancing and acting career. &ldquo;I feel like if I had stayed, I could have turned into that basic Orange County girl,&quot; East reflects. &quot;It&rsquo;s like I have [Naomi] within me. She&rsquo;s not super hard for me to play because she kind of comes out.&quot;

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Since the first season wrapped filming, East has enjoyed having the time to catch some waves with her boyfriend in Southern California,&nbsp;&ldquo;I love my time off and feel like there&rsquo;s more to life than just my job and working,&quot; she says.&nbsp;&ldquo;I started acting so young that I didn&rsquo;t have an aha moment where I was like, this is what I&rsquo;m going to do for the rest of my life. But what keeps me going are the fresh projects that keep coming.&rdquo;&nbsp;

So what&#39;s next for East? Continuing to collaborate with people she respects on projects she loves. &ldquo;Who knows,&rdquo; East jokes, &ldquo;maybe I&#39;ll have a cooking show next year.&rdquo;

Meet Chloe East, The Breakout Star of HBO Max's Teen Dramedy 'Generation'

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