Milla Rovere and Pearl Salmon-Watson on Writing, Friendship and The Tinsel Years
By Nadia Lazich Harari
The Tinsel Years (Milla Rovere, 2024)
As I arrive at The Townie in North Melbourne, I spot Milla Rovere and Pearl Salmon-Watson sitting on a picnic bench in the carpark. It’s golden hour on a 26-degree day, so we are meeting in a moment where anything feels possible. It’s hopeful compared to our surroundings of concrete, a grey Jaguar and graffitied fences. Rovere is the director of The Tinsel Years (2024) and is also the co-writer, along with Salmon-Watson. To my delight, The Tinsel Years won the 2026 MWFF Critics Choice Award.
Nadia Lazich Harari: How is the experience of being friends and housemates, but also working together as co-writers?
Pearl Salmon-Watson: [Writing solo] can feel very isolating and there's an element of selfishness where you're possessing the words. I think something that's so exciting about writing with Milla is because we understand each other so well, it becomes just like any other sort of conversation.
Milla Rovere: Yeah, and you just throw a bunch of [ideas] out there, and I'm like, no, that's bad, that's bad, that's bad, but that one is good. I think you really force a conversation to be held. It just gets the wheels in motion. And we can be honest with each other if something's good or bad.
NLH: Would you say that by collaborating, you need to let a part of yourself go?
MR: Well, Matt Johnson said a really good quote, he was like writing is confronting how stupid you are. And I think that that's just so articulate. First of all, back in the day before I made The Tinsel Years, I wouldn't really write because I was just scared that it was going to be bad. So, I think writing with someone gets you to confront your fears.
PSW: Especially in collaborating, I think there’s, dare I say, a pearl of a concept that I just can't make [this idea] into a real thing. And then I feel like there's this blame game that is so toxic to writing and creating because if you start to blame yourself or another person then immediately, you're going to kill the flowers that you've been watering because…
MR: Wait, we've been watering flowers?
PSW: Oh! Milla hasn’t been watering the flowers? That must be why they're dying then… It’s just going back and being like, this does not mean that I'm not a good writer. This does not mean that I'm the best writer in the world. This means that right now, I have to write.
NLH: When you come to collaborative frustrations, what fixes it for you?
MR: Sometimes, [Pearl will] write a version and I'll write a version and then we'll merge those two versions. Or, like... I'll be saying something confusing… I'll go off on my own, write it, and show Pearl when it's not just arbitrary words, but on paper.
PSW: It’s so important, especially when you're collaborating with someone, to be like, okay, I'm being a bit shitty right now. Take a breath and step back for a minute…
MR: This feels too close to home. Did this happen 20 minutes ago?
PSW: No, this happened two days ago.
NLH: So, The Tinsel Years. What is it about? And, why the Santa?
MR: It’s about someone asking for love under the pretence of attention. Not to intellectualize it too much, but I think that's the heart of it…
PSW: Yeah, and [I know someone who] owns a mall centre Santa business. It's just a really fascinating kind of facet of the world. It's almost a hallmark-y kind of corporate division of something…
MR: Yeah, it feels like a commodified love in a way…
PSW: What does it say about how we manufacture love? And then also sort of try to sort of retroactively fit it to our experiences and to the people around us.
NLH: Did you find that when you were writing The Tinsel Years, you put yourselves into it in a way?
MR: To an extent, I think it's hard not to. I remember writing it and being like, this isn't about me at all… then working with actors… was very revealing. I don't think this would be a film that works if it wasn’t about us.
PSW: Yeah, definitely.
NLH: So why should people watch The Tinsel Years?
MR: See it as people who tried things and they'll keep trying. It's the indomitable human spirit personified in film. If I can say that.
PSW: I think you can say that.
Milla Rovere and Pearl Salmon-Watson are currently writing Rovere’s next film, which will be about a mother who has raised her daughter to believe she’s the immaculate conception of Usain Bolt, destined for marathon stardom. You can find them on Instagram at @millarovere and @prlygrrrly.