This week, The Argus sat down with Georgia Reed-Stamm ’25, a campus filmmaker and reproductive justice advocate. Reed-Stamm told us about her senior thesis, Norwegian web series, and working at an abortion clinic.

The Argus: Why do you think you were nominated for WesCeleb?

Georgia Reed-Stamm: This is such a lame reason, but, genuinely, I think it’s because I have a catchy Instagram: Georgia Peach [@ggeorgiappeach]. And it doesn’t happen super often, but several times at parties people have said to me, “So crazy that your first name is Georgia and your last name is Peach!”

A: So, Reed-Stamm, you took both your parents’ last names?

GRS: My dad always says, “Pretty selfish of us to do that to you.” I always say maybe I’ll marry someone who also has two last names, have four kids, give each of them a different last name, and then just have a nightmare at the airport.

A: Thinking about your younger days, how do you feel you’ve changed since freshman year?

GRS: Exponentially. It’s crazy. I mean, I think that our grade particularly is in a weird spot because we sort of missed out on a lot. I do feel like I got to Wesleyan with a certain need to be in a social space like this. And I had my fun freshman year, but I think that it was just so much going on at once. And I think it took me a while to settle comfortably back into myself.

A: How do you know when you’ve settled into yourself?

GRS: Something I’ve been thinking about being a senior here is just comfort. Comfort and confidence. I think we’re all insecure beings in so many ways, but insecurity really inhibits us from enjoying things. And so, I don’t know, it’s not like I’m free of insecurities, but now I really feel I know this place: I know these people; I have somewhat of a routine; I’m not insecure talking to a random person at a party—

A: Because you’re @GeorgiaPeach!

GRS: Maybe not that, but I mean, people do wonderful things alongside their insecurities every single day of every single year. But in some ways, I also have a long ways to go in real adulthood. I totally feel like I have a million things I want to do and no idea where to start. But I think, in some ways, it’s kind of exciting, just for now. I think once I’m graduating in two weeks, that’ll be a little more daunting—but for now, it’s a beautiful concept: I could move there. I could do this.

A: Tell me about what you’ve already done here. I know you’re quite involved in film?

GRS: There are so many creative people here, and I’m really lucky to have gotten to be in classes with them. And I think that that has allowed me to appreciate, again, what I love about film and what excites me about it. [My thesis] shoots in a month. It’s a queer romance, basically a coming of age high school setting. I’m super excited. I love writing. I love directing. But filmmaking is just a roller coaster of a process. And there are some super incredible, inspiring, motivating days. And there are some horrible, discouraging, well-I-might-give-up days. I think that if you really do want to give up every time you have one of those days, then film probably isn’t a great medium for you. And maybe I’ll learn that in this process. But I’m trying to stick with it. I feel like my brain isn’t really resting. Like when you have a crush, you’re like, “Let me daydream about this person.” And now I’m sort of in a constant state of, like, if I’m not actively doing a reading or having a conversation—

A: You’re having a crush on your film.

GRS: But in a stressful, “Will this crush…?” Sometimes it’s such a lovely daydream: “Oh, let me imagine the best possible version of it.” And sometimes it’s a complete, you know, all encompassing doom. But I’m kind of in my last writing phase spending a lot of time dissecting everything and asking, “Is this the best possible thing it can be?”

A: In this stage, it can live so vibrantly in your head. And then, for me at least, when I perform, it’s almost like you lose something by sharing it—you only share this one version, the version that actually happens. You lose all the imagination, the possibility.

GRS: And then, once it’s done, if it flops, then that’s the version that exists in this world.

A: Totally. Speaking of campus involvement, I know you’re involved with reproductive justice on and off campus. What’s been that experience?

GRS: I’ve worked for this private abortion care office in Manhattan [Early Options] since I was 16. It’s a fantastic office with fantastic people. The woman who founded it, she’s been doing abortions for over 30 years—literally the coolest person I’ve ever met. She conducts interviews with some of her patients after the procedure, or after the abortion pill, and they really range from sometimes just 10 minutes of being helped—how was it, talking very generally—and then others they end up talking for an hour: getting really deep into unpacking certain forms of shame that are experienced alongside abortion, or what it’s like to be a mom and have an abortion, or what it’s like to want a baby but miscarry and need to get an abortion for health purposes. She hired me when I was 16 to listen to the interviews and transcribe them. I’ve pulled quotes for their website and also the MYAbortion Network, which is both a project geared towards normalizing abortion and a network to connect clinicians with patients all around the country. Abortion is really hard to talk about in a lot of ways, for so many layers of stigmatization that exist. But it was kind of crazy. Me, at 17, in my bedroom looking at this Google spreadsheet, and there would be one woman saying, “I just felt so alone, and no one could relate to XYZ feeling,” and then, like, two rows down on the spreadsheet, it’s like another person saying the same exact thing.

A: I know you’re also involved in the Doula Project. What else are you involved in on campus?

GRS: I taught a student forum twice.

A: Oh, right! ASKM? A Norwegian queer teen show?

GRS: SKAM! Don’t even get me started.

A: Okay.

GRS: I’m going to go on for hours. It was initially created as a web series, but it completely took off in a way that they were not anticipating. So it was available on the NRK website [Norwegian State-Owned Broadcasting Company], but that was geo-blocked and also not subtitled, but then an insanely robust and insanely vast widely spread geographic community arised on Tumblr. And Norwegian teenagers who speak English would translate the TV show and put it on Tumblr and I would watch it on Google Drive. A season takes place over 10 weeks, and it will come out in real time. So what that means is like, by the end of each week, there will be a full episode, but leading up to that episode clips will come out without warning based on when they take place. So, for example, if a scene with two characters takes place at 11:19 a.m. on a Sunday, it’ll just come out without warning on 11:19 a.m. on a Sunday.

A: Anything else you’d like Wesleyan to know about you?

GRS: In addition to Film, I’m a Latin American Studies major. [I studied abroad in] Colombia, an amazing country. I might move back. I think learning in general is not something that should be restricted to age. Too often, we let it be. Because you can teach an old dog tricks. We’ll see—again, infinite possibilities. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Thomas Lyons can be reached at trlyons@wesleyan.edu.