Early says that when he set out to write the film in early 2024, he envisioned making something “very handmade and ratty,” like John Waters’ 1974 classic Female Trouble. We are sharing a “Maddie’s-coded” lunch he’s brought of onigiri, milk tea, yuzu seltzer, and mochi in Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Square Park, just steps from his digs while he finishes the run of his off-Broadway play What We Did Before Our Moth Days. His buzzed head is covered with a protective layer of camel-toned peach fuzz, and a few inches below, he rocks a borderline translucent mustache that he grew for Moth Days, an adornment he concedes could be perceived as “slightly pervy.” “It does make me feel like a real gay person, having a mustache, instead of an imposter gay guy on the apps,” he says.
And so, John Early became his own John Waters and his own Divine.
John Early as Maddie —Courtesy of Magnolia PicturesWe meet Maddie when she is a lowly dishwasher working for a food content company, too camera-shy to present the ingenious recipes she creates in her free time to the world like the cruel and confident creator (Claudia O’Doherty) whose plates she humbly cleans. When her supportive husband (Eric Rahill) convinces her to upload a cooking video, it goes viral overnight, jumpstarting her career. But soon, the pressures of the industry lead to a secret struggle with bulimia.
That’s not for Early’s lack of trying. He has long played ridiculous characters who are prone to self-absorption and emotional explosions, like his breakout turn as the diabolical Elliott Goss on Search Party or, more recently, his multi-episode arc as the questionably heterosexual TV writer Josh on the final season of The Comeback. Maddie exists in contrast to those roles. She’s “a dork,” in Early’s estimation, and though she can be effusive and passionate, her story is full of quieter moments, like when she’s formulating a recipe during the opening credits as she jogs to work, inspired by the sights and smells of Los Angeles. For much of the film’s running time, Maddie is a woman on the verge. “You can only be screaming for so long before your voice gets hoarse,” says Early. “I don't want to be playing a raging narcissist for the rest of my life. I've done that a lot, and there was a crackling there. It was really cathartic for me to play a narcissist because I grew up a good Presbyterian boy, so that had real energy behind it.”
Early directs and stars in Maddie's Secret —Brandon Winters“I felt totally cracked open from the play,” says Early of the intensive rehearsal process, which led right into the filming of Maddie’s Secret in the winter of 2025 following a six-week Moth Days rehearsal stretch. His vision was to make something fast and cheap, and that he did, with a budget around $750,000. Juggling so many roles in a frugal production harried him—at one point toward the end of shooting, Early banged his head on a car door and didn’t realize he had blood running down his face as he continued going about his day. He filled the production with friends, like his ex Gordon Landenberger (who did the production design and appears in a small role); his former teacher at NYU, the Emmy-winning actor Kristen Johnston; and elusive chanteuse Sky Ferreira (who shows up in a brooding cameo).
Berlant says Early’s meticulous script and vision made filming a breeze, and that he was quite relaxed on set. But she did wonder what people would make of this “inherently strange movie.” “I have full confidence in John, but I did worry when he first told me, ‘I'm going to be playing a bulimic woman,’” Berlant recalls, anxious about what she calls the “carceral nature of the culture.” But early festival and critical response has been overwhelmingly positive, which Berlant says is a testament to Early’s craftsmanship. “It's not mean. I think that's the thing that really protects it.”
Kate Berlant and John Early as Deena and Maddie —Courtesy of Magnolia PicturesThough it swings wildly from absurdity to earnestness, Maddie’s Secret is John Early’s open love letter. “I love movies because of women,” he says. “All the people I fell in love with as a child were women.”
While it may have begun as a labor of love rooted in his comedic path, Maddie’s Secret evolved into something much deeper. “As we were shooting, I was like, ‘Is this just totally sincere?’ I'm sitting there in a wig and boobs, and I'm like, “Is this just like literally not funny?” To be clear, it most definitely is. But Early pulled off a miracle in making the laughs coexist easily with the gut punches. “I thought I was doing some kind of crazy backyard sleepover genre experiment with my friends,” he says, “and then before I knew it, on some mysterious level, this was incredibly personal to me.”
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