I’ve always been a director. It’s what I’m most confident doing. I had no anxiety before directing this film – I absolutely knew I could do it and had to do it. There is no way to not sound cocky saying that… but as a highly insecure actor, I’m chasing and trusting that feeling of confidence. I just graduated from UNCSA for acting – and I love acting – I want to act as much as I can, but I’m a director. I accidentally realized I love writing out of frustration for the lack of well-written female characters but also feeling like I could never relate to characters/find myself in most of them. I’m so proud of how this film demonstrates my voice as an actor, writer and director. I can’t wait to make more.
Director Statement
This film came out of my life long love of film, love for my two best friends and love for my hometown. The summer before this film was written was the healthiest and most heartbreaking. I got into such a healthy place mentally and physically and then had my heart broken by a fuckboy. I got back to my tiny school in North Carolina to my two best friends Anika and Noa, with all this pain and all this exuberance and strength that I didn’t know what to do with. So we started skating– HORRIBLY. And we started writing– furiously.
We planned, revised, applied for grants- didn’t get them, fundraised, hired crew, locked locations and equipment and then COVID happened. Everything paused, but working on the movie was the only thing that got me through that summer. But it always felt like it could never happen. Nothing was shooting yet, no guidelines by officials were set, was this appropriate to try to do in a time like this? What else was there to do?
We made the crew as small as possible, took all necessary precautions and went for it. The four days of shooting were the happiest of my life. By far. I learned so much from making this film. Always make films with people you love. Never try to write, produce, direct, edit and act in your first film. I don’t feel bad in any way about my work but wish I had more time to absorb every role I got to play. But I still wouldn’t change that I did that if I could go back
I got to be a part of every stage of the process because I did too many jobs. It couldn’t be more personal of a film because of this. Fuckboy is a record of who I was before COVID to who I am now. It catalogues who I was as an artist then and what I’ve grown to become.
Thank you so much for your consideration and time – I’m so grateful – it means the world to be able to share this part of myself.
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