Synopsis

Joey Wethersby is a typical 16-year-old New York girl -- if your typical New Yorker had parents who were in a one-hit-wonder band in the 90s. And if your typical New Yorker found themselves traveling every night to a bizarre alternate reality, where everybody only says three words: “Peas and Carrots”. Joey finds herself navigating this weird new world, while also dealing with her changing family dynamic after she suggests that she and her parents (and, to her chagrin, her siblings) form a new band and start rocking out together. 

In addition to a delightful and multi-generational cast, Peas and Carrots also features the talents of numerous New York music legends, with new music (and sometimes appearances) by members of The Ramones, Sonic Youth, Guster, and Richard Hell & the Voidoids. 

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Cast

  • Kirrilee Erger (Joey)

    Kirrilee Berger (Joey)

    Kirrilee played the central role of Rebecca Smallbone in Lionsgate’s 2024 release, Unsung Hero. She also appeared in “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Country Comfort”, and recently released her first album, Stories, Lies, Allegories, and Fables.

  • Amy Carlson (Laurie)

    Amy Carlson (Laurie)

    Amy is best known for her seven seasons as Linda Reagan on “Blue Bloods”. She was also a series regular on “Third Watch”, and has appeared in numerous other television shows and movies.

  • Jordan Bridges (Gordon)

    Jordan Bridges (Gordon)

    Jordan played Frankie Rizzoli for six seasons on “Rizzoli & Isles”. He has had a long and productive career, most recently being featured on the Apple TV series “Palm Royale”.

  • Andrew Polk (Woody)

    Andrew Polk (Woody)

    Andy memorably appeared as the problematic teacher Mr. Turkeltaub in Armageddon Time. His credits include a recurring role as Fred in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, and a leading role on Broadway in The Band’s Visit.

  • Kelly McAndrew (Ms. Washington)

    Kelly McAndrew (Ms. Washington)

    Kelly works equally often on stage and screen. Her recent credits include recurring roles on “Orange Is the New Black” and “Smash”. On Broadway, she played Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

  • Talia Oppenheimer (Mickey)

    Talia Oppenheimer (Mickey)

    Talia is a vocal major at LaGuardia High School (the “Fame” school) in New York City. On stage, she has played lead roles in Annie Get Your Gun, The Sound of Music, and Annie.

  • Callum Vinson (Topper)

    Callum Vinson (Topper)

    Callum, by the age of nine, has already been a series regular twice: in the Peacock series “Long Bright River”, opposite Amanda Seyfried, and in “Chucky” on Syfy.

  • Ajay Naidu (Director)

    Ajay Naidu (Director)

    Ajay is known by many for his starring role in Office Space, but his work has ranged from numerous TV roles to directing feature films, to contributions to the Asian underground music movement.

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The Director

Peas and Carrots is the eighth film written and directed by Evan Oppenheimer. His other films are The Magnificent Meyersons, Lost in Florence, A Little Game, The Speed of Thought, Alchemy, Justice, and The Auteur Theory.

The Magnificent Meyersons is currently on the Starz network after being theatrically released twice, in 2020 and 2021. Lost in Florence, shot entirely in Italy, was released around the world in 2017 by MGM and Orion Pictures. A Little Game, Evan’s first family film, was called “a classic in its own right” upon its release in 2014 and won Best Feature and Best Actor at the International Family Film Festival. The Speed of Thought, a science fiction thriller, was released nationwide on-demand, as well as in numerous countries around the world, and is currently being adapted for a television series.

Alchemy, a romantic comedy, was a New York Times Highlight, the TV Guide Movie Pick of the Week, a Washington Post Best Bet, and an Us Weekly Pick. Justice was recognized as the first narrative film to deal with the after-effects of 9/11. It premiered at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival and was lauded in The New York Times (“A genuine surprise”), TV Guide (“Admirably subtle”), and The New York Daily News (“There’s no denying the film’s emotional core”).

Evan’s first film, The Auteur Theory, made on a shoestring budget of $70,000, screened in festivals worldwide, winning numerous awards. Reviewers have called it "ingenious", "among the best first features I have ever seen", "one of the best independent films of the year", and "easily the funniest indie film since Clerks".

After graduating from Yale University with a B.A. in English, Evan was an editor for three years at Atheneum Publishers. He then moved on to NYU Film School, where his student film Cross Road Blues won first prize at the University Film & Video Association Student Film Festival.

Evan lives in New York with his wife and three daughters. His next film, Out On a Limb, is planned for 2025.

Musicians 

  • Lee Ranaldo

    Lee Ranaldo

    Lee was a guitarist and singer in the legendary New York band Sonic Youth. Rolling Stone magazine rated him as the 33rd Greatest Guitarist of All Time, but Spin magazine had him at number 1. Since Sonic Youth went on hiatus in 2011, Lee has continued to make music, both on his own and in various collaborations. Lee provided much of the score for Peas and Carrots, and also appears as himself in two scenes in the movie. 

  • Marky Ramone

    Marky Ramone

    Marky joined the Ramones in 1978 for their legendary fourth album, “Road to Ruin”, and, aside from a hiatus from 1983 to 1987, played drums with the Ramones until their retirement in 1996. Along with the rest of the band, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. He regularly tours now with Marky Ramone’s Punk Rock Blitzkrieg. For Peas and Carrots, Marky co-wrote the climactic song, “City Family”.

  • Ryan Miller

    Ryan Miller

    Ryan is the lead singer of the band Guster, for whom he also plays guitar, piano, and bass. Ryan has scored fifteen feature films, hosted a TV series on PBS, and composed the score for the musical Safety Not Guaranteed, which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2024. For Peas and Carrots, Ryan composed the song “(We Are) City Kids”, which (fictionally) was a minor hit years ago for the band City Kids.

  • Garland Jeffreys

    Garland Jeffreys

    Garland is a legendary New York musician, born and raised in Brooklyn. In 1977 he was named Rolling Stone magazine’s “Best New Artist of the Year”, and his career continued for forty years after that. A new documentary about him, The King of In Between (in which Bruce Springsteen calls him “A great American artist”) will be released in 2025. Several of Garland’s songs are used in the score of Peas and Carrots.

  • Ivan Julian

    Ivan Julian

    Ivan was a founding member of the seminal punk/new wave group Richard Hell and the Voidoids, for whom he played lead guitar. Since the demise of that band, he has been a vital member of the downtown New York post-punk scene. For Peas and Carrots, Ivan plays guitar on the song “(We Are) City Kids”.

  • Seth Jabour

    Seth Jabour

    Seth was the guitarist for the indie rock band Les Savy Fav, after which he helped lead The 8G Band, which was the house band for “Late Night with Seth Meyers” from 2014 to 2024. Seth co-wrote and plays guitar on the song “Shape My Destiny” in Peas and Carrots.

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  • "WHAT IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, BUT YOU WERE JUST AN EXTRA?"

    Peas and Carrots

Peas and Carrots

TWO

IDEAS

SPRUNG

OUT

OF

PEAS

AND

CARROTS

TWO IDEAS SPRUNG OUT OF PEAS AND CARROTS

About

Peas and Carrots sprung out of two ideas.

One was a thought that I’m sure most of us have had – that we’re starring in the movie of our own life. Sometimes you’ll see yourself reflected in an elevator mirror or a store window…and you’ll stand up straighter, and make a better show of things. Because there you are, on (a kind of) screen. We are the hero.

Except we’re not. It’s a fallacy. Even if we were in a movie, why would we be the star? We’re surrounded by scores of other people, what kind of hubris does it take to think that it’s our movie and not their movie?

That was one idea. The other idea was…I wanted a family band.

In college, I played in a number of unsuccessful bands. There was The Humble Gods, which devolved into The Disciples, which further deconstructed into several unnamed bands, remembered so little that they don’t even need to be forgotten. But I’ve insisted on indoctrinating my three daughters into the church of rock and roll. They’ve listened to a lot of music, and I also made sure they learned how to play music. But my dream of having a family band never really materialized.

So, if I couldn’t have it in real life, I figured I’d put it into a movie. I thought, what if a husband and wife had a band, and eventually they ended up playing together with their kids? (Of course, the idea of a New York husband and wife playing in a band was self-evidently inspired by Sonic Youth, which made it karmically appropriate that Lee Ranaldo, singer and guitarist for Sonic Youth, eventually played a major role in the creation of the movie.)

This movie had its challenges, beyond the general impossibility of indie filmmaking. The biggest one came on the fifth day of shooting, when our extraordinary (in every way) lead actress, Kirrilee Berger, showed up on set with a grotesquely swollen ankle. “I’m fine!” she insisted. But we took her to Urgent Care, and…she wasn’t fine. Her ankle was broken. And she needed surgery.

So we waited for her to heal. Six months later, we regrouped and shot the balance of the movie. As the sweatshirts we all received at the wrap party read, “One break…leads to another.”

— Evan Oppenheimer, Writer/Director of Peas and Carrots”.