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tically, “and everyone just got up, and the music was blasting in the middle of the forest, and we all started singing. It was the greatest.” Then she jokes, “I’m not used to being a bat yet, but I’m adjusting.”
Despite her demanding schedule, the artist appears calm, collected, and confident, and I feel as if I am catching up with an old friend, rather than chatting with a superstar who fostered a large fan base via her breakout role ten years ago on Disney’s Girl Meets World. We heartily discuss her singing career, though she recoils at the mere mention of her performance on a Miley Cyrus singing compe-
tition at ten years old,
rocking a fedora and a
peace sign t-shirt. All of
that is in the rearview
mirror now, as Carpen-
ter has moved full speed
ahead since her Disney
days, recently wrapping
production for Tall
Girl 2 in New Orleans,
procuring a deal with
Netflix to produce a mu-
sical rendition of Alice
in Wonderland under her
own production compa-
ny—all while engineer-
ing a fifth studio album.
Carpenter’s current Atlanta-based project, Emergency, is based
on of a short film of
the same name from Sundance—the script turned into a full- length feature. The details of the film are kept under wraps, but the plot centers on a group of various college students on their way to an energetic night
of partying when they
become entangled in
the perils of an unusual
emergency. “It’s a really
fun film, and it’s very
much action-packed,”
Carpenter remarks
emphatically. “Having
that much energy in
the middle of the night
isn’t usually my forte,
because I’m much more
of a morning person.
It’s been a very inter-
esting experience, getting loopy around eleven and having to be professional when I’m usually very silly.”
If you were to ask yourself what you were doing at 21, it likely wouldn’t be the feat of founding your own production company—but Carpenter stands apart from your average person in a vibrant display of splendor. Her pursuit to take control
of her individual vision amassed with the founding of At Last Productions. “I always knew I wanted to produce,” she shares, “because I always saw myself on set looking at things with a producer hat. I knew I couldn’t say things and overstep. It was about having ideas, and just going into things with a strong point of view, and figuring out the best ways to make things hap- pen. I really wanted to make things that I wasn’t necessarily in.”
Carpenter’s primary vision for Alice, currently in pre-pro-
duction, charmingly came from her life-long fixation with
the wildly curious character—even having an Alice in Wonder- land themed sweet 16. Carpenter will star in and produce the contemporary reimagining based upon the concept of a music festival called “Wonderland” alongside her producers from the Netflix dance musical comedy, Work It. “My hopes are to bring to life a version of the story no one has ever seen before,” she emphasizes. “Telling the story through the music is pivotal. I want to bring people in with a dynamic vision. Cinematography is a huge thing for me, and I love when things are shot abstractly.
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VERSACE dress and bra and PANDORA earrings and necklaces with charms.
Because that story is so whimsical and otherworldly, I want to make it feel real and grounded and about real people, while also outside of your imagina- tion.”
Since the pan- demic, Carpenter has found herself
back inside the intertwining worlds of cinema and music, a quaran- tine dually imbued with sentiment and solitude. The time to herself has led to an evolution in her lyrical abilities and formation of mu- sical autonomy. “It gave me, as Sabrina, the opportunity to get a little bit closer with my own voice and myself,” she says. “Being alone in a room with a pi- ano, and being able to send those ideas to my friends, and not having them being over-thought or touched too much was great. It gave me a little bit more time, where- as before I had to leave the studio with a full song done and nothing beforehand. I try not to go in with a
specific mission of a thing I want to make, because it may take you down the wrong path and not allow you to be as creative as possible.”
Carpenter and I briefly mourn over the melancholia of our long-lost, quarantined 21st birthdays, in the absence of ritualis- tic booze-filled bar mania. “I got to learn my alcohol tolerance in the privacy of my own home, so that was great, because there’s no risk there!” she laughs optimistically. When asked what has memorably marked her growth in the past year, she replies,
“I feel like I’m unlocking a lot of who I am currently, in the
last year, especially. I feel like the 20’s, in my eyes, are such an exciting time, because I’m ready to feel as much as I can, and whether that be good or bad, it’s all useful.”
Carpenter’s embrace of the emotional spectrum is well-ev-