‘Backrooms’ star Mark Duplass shuts down online speculation surrounding 20-year-old director Kane Parsons
Backrooms actor Mark Duplass has defended the A24 film’s 20-year-old director Kane Parsons.
Parsons, who is the youngest director in A24’s history, has faced a torrent of speculation on social media due to his age, with many doubting the level of his involvement in the movie.
The horror flick, due to arrive in cinemas on May 29th, stars Duplass alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, Avan Jogia, Robert Bobroczkyi, and Krista Kosonen.
Ahead of the film’s release, Duplass took to X on May 26th to hit out at one user who questioned Parson in response to a report that Backrooms is on track for a huge $40-50 million domestic debut at the box office.
The original post read, “Promising but we all know Kane Parsons absolutely didn’t direct this movie. But the needle is moving in the right direction.”
Duplass then replied, “Hmmm, with all due respect I don’t remember seeing you on set. When I was there, Kane was 100% in control. More so than many directors 3x his age.”
In a later post, he also wrote to the same user, “I think that definitive, unverified statements like ‘we all know Kane Parsons didn’t direct this movie’ are the problem here. No hard feelings. I understand this platform is inherently flawed.”
While Parsons is only 20 and Backrooms is his feature-length debut, he first rose to prominence as a teenager on YouTube, collecting hundreds of millions of views, which caught the attention of A24.
In a recent interview with Deadline, he said of the intrigue surrounding him due to his age, “I’m only really here for the work that I do, and I am kind of oblivious to some of what goes outside of that, by choice.”
Parsons added, “I’m just doing, in my mind, the same thing I’ve been doing on YouTube, but somehow this snowballed in such a way that I have been given the ability to be a part of and work with such a large group of people on what is essentially just a very long video.”
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