Often playing the role of caretaker to people like her father who should be caring for her, Lily Trevino (Barbie Ferreira) longs for a familial connection, having been abandoned by her mother as a child and then suddenly by her father in her twenties.
Bob Trevino (John Leguizamo) works long hours alone at a construction company to support his wife Jeanie’s scrapbooking habit. The couple has endured a lot in the past decade, and Bob has sought to put his wife first, to the point of ignoring his own feelings and need for friendship, meaning, and connection, That is, until he gets an unexpected Facebook message from a stranger.
Lily and Bob’s blossoming friendship becomes a vital source of connection and healing in both their lives. Bob’s small acts of fatherly kindness fill a familial void in Lily’s life and hold the power to change her direction forever. In their own ways, these two must both learn they are worthy of extraordinary love exemplified through small acts of kindness.
BOB TREVINO LIKES IT is inspired by the true friendship that writer/director Tracie Laymon found with a stranger when looking for her father online, and when the filmed played at Melbourne International Film Festival in 2024, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the filmmaker about bringing her unique story to life on the big screen.
Nick: I feel like with stories like this, about the desire for human connection, so many filmmakers lean into the sadness that can be associated with it. But, it felt like you had made this conscious decision to find the levity in that! How important was it to you to include that levity and positive feeling in a story that is so deeply rooted in the desire for human connection?
Tracie Laymon: That’s a great question. I think I wanted people to leave uplifted and connected. I never want to bring people down. You know, I think that the joy and sorrow of life kind of go together a lot of the time.
Sometimes I find myself laughing when things are really, really hard. It’s absurd how hard it is that I find myself laughing. And sometimes, things are so beautiful, I find myself crying because of the gratitude and connection, you know?
So, I think it was really important to me to find the humour in the sad things, and the depth in the funny things.
Nick: There is such authenticity within the “digital” relationship between Lily and Bob. What were the keys element you felt you had to get right to make sure the audience believed this Facebook-led connection between the two characters?
Tracie Laymon: Yeah, one really important thing to me was the fact that we’ve seen so many “social media” movies, and they’re all horror films, you know? And I’m like, “We’re all online. We have the opportunities every day to say things to people who we don’t know on the other side.” You don’t know who they are or what they’re going through. Are you going to say something that’s going to enlighten them, or are you going to say something that makes them feel really bad about themselves?
And I’m a living example of someone just being kind to me through social media, and he had no idea the kind of effect he was having on me. I’ve done years of therapy, working on myself, meditating, journaling, everything. But this stranger, who I accessed because he had my dad’s name, just chose to do the kind thing. And I wanted it to inspire people to know the power of our online communication.
Nick: To jump in to that a little bit more, in the real life situation, you also made a conscious decision to show kindness back. Where do you feel that initial push came from?
Tracie Laymon: I think at first for me, it was a little bit selfish, you know? He had access to my heart a little bit, a familial connection in a way that was through the name. And that felt good. I needed that. So, I just kept talking to him because it fills this void. It feels good as a human being.
Then over time, I thought he was maybe getting something out of it too. I told him when my grandmother passed away, and he was like, “I’m so sorry.” Or when I got in to film festivals, he was like, “Way to go, kiddo”.
I think he wanted to feel needed and of value, as well. He certainly had a wonderful family and everything, because we all want the feeling that we have things to offer. Sometimes what we have to give is receiving as well.
Nick: The connection also doesn’t work unless you have actors who make us fall in love with them, and Barbie [Ferrera] and John [Leguizamo] are incredible in this. Barbie’s performances balances that outward feeling of everything seeming okay, but you can see that anxiety building underneath the surface too. I’m curious to know how much of that was in the script for Lily? And what were those conversations with Barbie like to bring that to life in Lily?
Tracie Laymon: That’s such a good point. I first saw that in Euphoria. She had that vulnerability, and you could feel her going through this maze of emotions to say things. I had felt that personally in my life, so I thought, “Wow, she just gets it.” So, I saw her in Euphoria, and I saw Unpregnant, and her comedic timing, her wit, her deflection, and also her childlike awe. You put all of that together, and that’s Lily.
Luckily, she responded to the script, and we met up, and I just knew right away. I just knew she got it. Then, she only continued to surpass all of my expectations every day, I guess! We would sit and talk about our lives. And I’m an actors director. I really like to build trust early. I need to protect the actors. They need to know they’re safe because they’re going to go to vulnerable places. They need to know they’re in good hands.
So, we built that trust, and we learned that even though our backgrounds aren’t completely the same, there was a lot of overlap in the middle.
Nick: I’m a huge fan of John, and I’ve had the chance to interview him before, and he’s the kindest person in real life. I’m curious to know what characteristics you saw in John that you felt would bring Bob to life on screen?
Tracie Laymon: I love casting against type, and he had done such incredible, grounded, nuanced work before, but not everybody has seen all of that. They’ve seen him in a lot of the bigger, crazier things.
I love collaborating with people and creating opportunities together for them to show things that maybe they should be getting a chance to show more of. And I’d seen him in When They See Us, and he was incredible. That was the first time I saw this nuance.
And Bob couldn’t just be a saint. He had to be complex. He’s a good guy, but he had to be interesting, you know? And I think some actors might have played it without those levels of depth and grief, and all the things that he was dealing with. So, I knew John would get it.
I always look at interviews before we make an offer, because I do my best to try and make sure that the person is a good person. So, I was watching all these interviews of John, and I’ve been a lifelong fan, and I was watching an interview where he was talking about Latin History for Dummies, and how that came about because of some bullying that happened. And so he was against bullying, and in many ways, this movie is an anti-bullying movie.
He is Bob. When people watch the movie, they’ll just see that’s John showing up as John! That’s who he is!
Nick: I laughed incredibly hard at the scene where he childishly throws the basketball away…
Tracie Laymon: He came up with that! It was very hard not to, like, all burst into laughter.
Nick: How much time did you get to spend with John and Barbie before you started filming?
Tracie Laymon: I had to prep a lot because we did not have a lot of time, you know? I’ve heard people say, “Oh, we had a week of rehearsal” and complain about that! We had five hours! John and Barbie had a five hour window to rehearse, but their chemistry was so amazing that we didn’t even want to overrun everything. We didn’t even use that whole window because it was so magical and they were so open. It was such a beautiful space.
It was the same thing with French [Stewart] and Barbie, as well. They met about five hours before shooting together and when we all sat down together, I knew it was the right casting.
Nick: Jacques Brautbar’s score is truly phenomenal and moving. What was the collaboration between yourself and Jacques like?
Tracie Laymon: Oh my gosh, that score is great. Well, Jacques is one of the most empathetic humans and artists around, and I knew I needed a really empathetic composer, because I feel music and film are like a food and wine pairing. It brings out what’s underneath, and we needed the kindness and sadness, and the heartbreak and the joy of it all.
So, Jacques did demos before we even shot. We talked about references like Little Miss Sunshine, and the Pet Shop Boys. He did these sketches, or he calls them “exploration”. I call them demos. But he did these, and I played them on set, and it was wonderful.
Like, the puppy scene, or the shooting stars scene, it really helped the actors that we had that piece with the sketches of it. It helped them really get the feeling of a scene. And then when we got back to LA, we watched the cut together, and it just got more magical.
And then because it’s a low budget film, I didn’t know if we were going to get to record with real instruments, but everything kind of worked out for us to really record with the! That was my favourite part of filmmaking, recording the score, because it means you have a movie, kind of! I’m a film music nerd too, so I loved it!
Nick: With the basis of the film having such a personal connection to you, I’m curious to know what the emotional journey of coming up with the rest of the story, writing it, but then seeing people play it out in front of you, has been like?
Tracie Laymon: It’s interesting because I thought at first that I’ve healed by writing it. And then people were reading it, and they’re having these emotional experiences reading it, and then it became bigger than me!
I was like, I have to make this movie because I had this experience, and I didn’t get to tell this person what they mean to me. So now, I have to tell everybody! And I was so driven by this “why” that was so much bigger.
I didn’t really have time during production to really sit and think about what I was feeling or going through because I was so busy, but I found this chosen family with “Facebook Bob”, and then I found this cast and crew who were such a good team, and we have so much love and respect for each other, that I felt like I had found a chosen family again. I didn’t expect that.
And now, I have a chosen family with every audience that gets to see the film. And it’s been so beautiful here in Australia because all the other screenings have been in the US. So, having it resonate here has taught me that this movie is really a human experience, not just in some cultural, little, tiny window. I found that the more specific and the more vulnerable I can be, the more it touches all of us!
Nick: What is that feeling like when you’re in a room of people who are reacting like that to not just your film, but your story as well?
Tracie Laymon: I mean, in one of last test screenings where I felt it, we had about 50 people, and you could feel the hearts kind of cracking open in the room. And I was just in awe of the communal experience that we were all having. And that has just continued. I didn’t quite totally happen until we were through the, I guess, process of sculpting the film.
But, once I saw it happen, I think it’s happened every time. We’re all this big village, and we need communal experiences. We need to laugh together, we need to cry together, to experience our grief together, and to heal together.
I’m building a beautiful tolerance for it, because at first I felt really vulnerable when people would come and tell me their own stories. And now I see it differently. It’s taken this journey where I realise this is their ‘thank you’. They’re sharing with me because something in the film resonated. It’s not that I have to give more, or I didn’t open up enough, it’s about if I can receive it. And I think that’s a beautiful connection exchange that we’ve had.
Nick: Sadly, the real life “Bob” is no longer with us. If you had the chance to show him the film, is there are particular scene or aspect of the film you would have loved to see his reaction too?
Tracie Laymon: If I knew he could see it now, knowing that he is gone, I would want him to know that his legacy continues. That I’m friends with his widow, and I’m friends with his daughter. His daughter actually plays the cashier in the hardware store! So, there’s all these little things that he did that will continue on.
He may be gone, but his legacy are these small acts of kindness that just have a ripple effect with every person that sees the movie, and feels that connection.
Thank you so much to Tracie for her extended amount of time, and to Rialto Entertainment and NedCo PR for organising the interview. Bob Trevino Likes It is in Australian cinemas March 20.
