Filmmaker TRACIE LAYMON’s BOB TREVINO LIKES IT took early inspiration from an unexpected relationship in Laymon’s own life. As a storyteller (having previously directed the award-winning short films Mixed Signals and Ghosted), Laymon fictionalized that account into her feature debut.
Bob Trevino Likes It follows twentysomething Lily Trevino (Barbie Ferreira) as she forms an online friendship with Bob Trevino (John Leguizamo), who happens to share the same name as her withholding father (French Stewart). Finding the support she needs from this replacement Bob, the social media friendship soon evolves into a connection that changes Lily’s life forever. Bob Trevino Likes It premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, where it won both the Grand Jury Award and the Audience Award for Narrative Feature.
The film’s winning streak continued with Audience Award prizes at the Calgary, Denver, Mill Valley, Nashville, New Hampshire, Tallgrass, Valladolid, and Virginia Film Festivals (among others); acting awards for Leguizamo at the Newport Beach Film Festival and Ferreira and Stewart at the Rome International Film Festival; and filmmaker prizes for Laymon with the Hamptons International Film Festival’s New York Women in Film & Television Award, the Palm Springs International Film Festival’s New Voices/New Visions Prize, and the Anchorage International Film Festival’s Best Director Award.
Roadside Attractions will release Bob Trevino Likes It in select theaters on March 21. We had a chat with the film’s writer, director, and producer, Tracie Laymon, about what it took to get the feature to the big screen.
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COLIN McCORMACK: Looking back, when these experiences [from the film] were happening in your life, were you already thinking they might have the makings for a screenplay, or did that come with time and hindsight?
TRACIE LAYMON: It came with time and hindsight. This is a work of fiction, but I took my emotional truths and the gifts I had been given from a stranger and built cinematic sequences to convey them. I took major liberties, but as long as it was true in my heart I felt good about it. The backstory is that I was looking for a way to tell my “Facebook dad” what he meant to me, and I didn’t know how to do that. I’m a writer, so I’m not always the best at doing things another way. If I have something I want to say, I’ll make a whole film to say it [laughs]. So I was looking for a way to tell him what he meant to me, and I couldn’t figure it out. He lived in Wichita, and I kept submitting my short films to the Tallgrass Film Festival in Wichita because I thought, I’ll get into the festival, I’ll take him and his wife to the screening and to dinner, and I’ll tell them what he means to me. I had this whole vision for it, and you know what? My shorts didn’t get into that festival. So then I wrote a short, cheesy version of the script just to give him as a present, and that no longer became an option because of certain situations, so I was consumed with regret. Also, I was consumed with gratitude. It was a weird mix of regret and gratitude, and I didn’t know what to do.
I’m always looking for a way to say the things that are important to me, and [the feature] became the way to say all these things. It happened at just the right time. Some people say when you write, you don’t want to write through your wounds, you want to write through your scars. And my wounds had become scars at that point, so I was able to be objective about them in ways that I couldn’t have earlier. I couldn’t have been directing these traumatic scenes and these funny scenes about trauma a year earlier. I just wouldn’t have been ready. It was this compulsive need to say, “Small acts of kindness matter.” We think they don’t in this world where everything is so dark and divisive, but I am living proof that these small acts of kindness can change the world, even if we never get to see the results. Because here’s a situation where this person didn’t even know the way he was changing my life.
CM: Once you had the feature version of the script done, who were the first people you were sending it to and those first collaborators that you were bringing on?
TL: I have a writing group that I love very much, and they were supportive along the way and they really get my voice. Writing is such a solitary experience. It can be lonely, especially if you’re writing something vulnerable like I was. It takes a village, in a way, so to have them give me feedback and support me was amazing. I have a script consultant, Pilar Alesandra, who I work with a lot, and I really love her. I had Zoom table reads as well with friends and family. I would call people, “Are you available tomorrow?” and then people would show up. I couldn’t believe it. I’m sorry to everybody that I gave last-minute notice to, but you never know when you’re going to get there and be ready.
When I started sending the script out individually, something happened. I’ve written 15 feature scripts or something, and the people usually say, “It’s good,” or “You’re a good writer,” or, “Oh, that’s interesting.” They like it, but they’re not floored usually. And this one was different. This one I sent out and I started taking screenshots of the text responses because I was like, What is even happening? “My wife and I just read it, we can’t stop crying.” “I was crying so hard my husband had to check on me.” “I feel like I just watched the movie.” “I can’t wait to see it.” As the deepest, most honest parts of myself were shared, I found that I was not alone. Other people could relate, and it was not just my story but their story too. They were leaning in in this way, so I thought, This is the one to take all the risks for and put everything into. There are a lot of risks, but I knew at that time I was ready.
CM: What was the time frame from that first draft of the script to when you finally got the green light to start rolling?
TL: In a way, we gave ourselves the green light. We had to raise everything – me and my producing partners – and we made it ourselves. In late 2021, I had that script, and we were setting dates with the cast in the spring of 2023. So pretty fast, because I had another one before this that I was working on for ten years that kept getting optioned, cast, and then fell apart and didn’t happen. Only four years from writing it to its theatrical release, that may seem like a long time to someone not in this industry, but no, that’s amazing.
CM: How was the process of finding your cast? It’s always daunting to find your leads, but when it’s such a personal story, I’m sure there was another emotional element to that.
TL: Since it was a work of fiction, nobody needed to look like me or anything, so I just wanted really good hearts in this film. I know people have these [casting] lists, and I understand that’s part of the business, but I am not a fan of those lists. That’s not how I work. I was looking for the right hearts for this film and none of my films are going be this “checking off of boxes” casting. It’s not how I see the world or how I see people.
I saw Barbie Ferreira in a scene in Euphoria where she’s at the prom at the end of season one, and she’s telling Austin Abrams that she’s sorry and this is why she did these things. It’s a masterclass in acting. You can feel this journey and how she’s going through this maze just to say this simple thing to a person she cares about. And I feel like Lily in my story has a maze inside her to say the most simple things. It’s all over the place and it’s hard-fought. Then I saw her humor and childlike awe and wit in Unpregnant, and I thought, “Okay, this is the same actress!” There was no one else for me, truly. I was saying her name ten times a day, and [my partners] said, “Okay, we’re going to get there soon. We’re putting the film together.” And I’m like, “Let’s just go to her now!… How about now?… Can we go now?” [Laughs] I watch a lot of interviews with actors to see how they are with people. How are they behind the scenes? Do they treat people well? And I just saw a beautiful human being. By the way, she completely lived up to that on set. So respectful, so wonderful, and so generous to the cast and crew. I can’t say enough good things about her. She’s a star in every sense of the word.
John Leguizamo – I have been a big fan of his one-man shows. But the thing that made me see this for him was when he played Raymond Santana Sr. in When They See Us. It’s so nuanced, and it was so interesting seeing him as a father. In The Power, he’s a father again and there’s something so fresh about breaking people out of boxes in the way people normally see them. It’s really important to me. He did an interview and they started talking about Latin History for Morons, one of the many great shows he’s created. He talked about his son and some of the tough stuff he was experiencing at school and how he had created the show to arm his son with facts. And he got choked up in the interview talking about his son, and I got choked up watching it. I took my phone out and videoed it. I sent it to my team and said, “This is Bob. Whatever it takes.” We didn’t even have a casting director at the time. We had to get one because I didn’t know John, I couldn’t knock on his door, so we got a casting director. He’s so busy, but he happened to be available right in our window. It was kismet.
French Stewart I found in my writing group. Vanessa Stewart, his wife, is a good friend and a wonderful writer. She said, “French is going to sit in today if anybody has anything for him to read.” I was like, Well, I guess you can try this. It was a cold read of a rough draft, and he blew us away. I never went to anybody else. I said, “French, you’re my friend. I love you. Just give me a minute to put this together, and I’ll come back to you.” Luckily, he was patient.
CM: With the theme of the film being about a chosen family, it made me think how a film’s crew on set is sort of a chosen family. Everyone’s thrown in together to very quickly bond. Was there any moment or scene during production that stands out in your mind where everyone came together to overcome an obstacle?
TL: You might be surprised at what I’m about to say, but it was actually when the SAG-AFTRA strike happened. The strike happened on our first day of shooting. We were going to start, we set our date, and then they were possibly going to strike. So we thought, Well, we won’t fly the actors until we know. We had been in touch with SAG-AFTRA, and our reps were wonderful. We were truly independent in every sense of the word, so we said, “We’re an open book. Here’s everything you need.” On our first day, I did the morning meeting. I had interviewed so many people for every position, and I said, “There’s no one else but you for the position you’re in on this film. We are all handpicked to do this together.” It was a beautiful first day of shooting. And then the strike happened.
On the second day, we couldn’t work with the actors because we didn’t have the [interim agreement] waiver yet. The actors said, “The minute you get it, I’m back.” I remember telling the crew that second morning that we were going to shoot inserts. I have a whole day of inserts and establishing shots. That’s a luxury you can’t normally have, but we didn’t have any actors. That second day, I told everyone our SAG reps were working on it and they hoped to have it soon. We were going to just plow through and have a meeting at lunch to figure out if we were going to shut down.
You could feel that everybody was on our team. There was no, “I’m outta here.” That really comes from the respect and love we had formed on set, even on the first day. And the transparency; I think it’s really important to be open with people. So I remember the lunch on the second day, we had all the producers down there at the front, and we’re huddled up like, “Okay, what are we going to do?” “The SAG rep is going to call us back.” “I think we’ll be good.” And I looked over at the crew, and they all had their meals and were silent, looking at us like, What’s next, Coach? Then, we got the waiver on the morning of the third day. It was a long night for all of us [laughs]. But we got the waiver, thankfully, and it was wonderful. We were up on the third day, and everybody came back strong, cast and crew. And that team mentality stuck throughout the whole shoot.
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Thanks to Tracie for talking to us about BOB TREVINO LIKES IT. Learn more about the film at bobtrevinolikesit.com.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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