J Stevens and Breton Lalama both wore multiple hats when creating their indie-drama Really Happy Someday. The two co-wrote the script, with Stevens directing and doing the cinematography, while Lalama starred as Z, a trans man on the journey of finding his voice in transition. Here, the two speak about the importance of authenticity in filmmaking and how they approached representing the trans experience.
My favourite aspect of your film is the authenticity of the main character, Z. Could you speak about the process of crafting this character during the writing process?
Breton Lalama: I knew J was seeking to create a character-driven drama that was grounded in authenticity and who this person was. It’s so interesting; I didn’t think of it as creating something new. With a piece such as this, where we’re drawing from our lived experiences, I thought about which parts of myself I could use to tell this truth in the simplest way. Essentially, we both took parts of our lives and listened to what felt true. And then we had a lot of Zoom meetings.
J Stevens: Yeah, there were lots of Zoom meetings in the writing process because we were in different cities at the time. For me, it felt important that while there are elements of both Breton and I in Z, we wanted to craft a character that wasn’t too close to Breton to allow for that separation as a performer. It also felt important to listen to what the story needed and how to best create an arc out of that. So we had a lot of meetings where we asked whether something fit, whether that was what the character needed at a particular moment. That’s a way of chipping away at the story.
There is a large false consensus that trans people’s experiences are a monolith, and they’re, of course, not. I loved that your film doesn’t try to speak to every trans person’s life but this one individual’s.
JS: It’s the trap of any marginalised group being represented in film and TV, or any medium. I think content made by people who aren’t from that group feels as though it’s trying to represent every trans person or every queer person. Exactly like you said, we aren’t doing that. We are just telling this one person’s story. We’ve been a bit surprised by how many people are resonating with the story—I think it’s because we decided to be incredibly specific.
BL: Thank you for saying that because, yeah, he’s a trans person, but it’s a human story, right? He’s a person, and his transness is an aspect of himself, like how sometimes I have dark brown hair.
The authenticity of your film has resonated with audiences despite some or most not relating to most of the narrative. Your film is a reminder of how audiences don’t need to relate to a character to understand the emotion of their experience.
JS: To say this is a master plan would give us too much credit. I think that by showing someone trying to find their voice as a metaphor for gaining control over their life and becoming their authentic self, it is easy to find yourself in them because, in some way, that’s what we’re all doing. We’re all in transition all the time.
The amount of films we see about transmasculinity is still small. You’ve both carved out a space for yourselves to tell these stories with Spindle Films. Has the process been artistically liberating?
BL: I have worked through transition, which looks like many different things as both a fan of film/television and as my job. I’m really sick and tired of any marginalised community being reduced to a singularity of storyline. All we usually see is the coming-out story. Whether that be trans or gay, it’s that you come out, and that’s your whole character. To me, that is A) boring and B) harmful because we are the stories we consume. If trans and queer people only ever see themselves portrayed as a coming-out story, they aren’t given the space to dream beyond that. It’s personally liberating because we made this, and I got to transition through it and represent that quite literally. I don’t have to do this again, and I’ll happily play a trans guy if it appeals to me, but I don’t have to. I feel like I’ve graduated, and I think we as a society and as filmmakers should graduate from just telling the coming out story. It feels like we did that in a more nuanced and human way.
JS: It felt artistically liberating in the sense that it was our own voices and our decisions at every moment. I had been doing a good amount of union TV directing where you’re a piece of a machine that’s moving forward, and you’re supporting that. But there are so many people whose opinions and voices are in the mix, and rightfully so. To then create this with Breton, follow our instincts and make a film that we wanted to see was a special experience. What are my instincts? What is my tone? It was really lovely to have the space and time to actually explore that.
BL: I would add that building a team of mostly queer and trans people is liberating because it completely changes the alchemy of the set. It proves the value and importance of those crew and cast in our industry.
JS: As a director, it was incredibly important to craft that on-set environment for Breton as a performer because this is an incredibly vulnerable film and performance. Just like Breton said, it completely changes the experience of making the movie. Almost every single person who worked on this film, especially on set, was gender diverse. We had one or two people who weren’t, who are mainly queer and allies. It was such a beautiful environment to be a part of. I think when the people behind the camera match what you’re telling in front, the work is stronger for it. It helps the performers.
Z’s various romantic relationships throughout the narrative were refreshing to see play out, particularly his relationship with Santi, as it portrays the love between two trans people. Was t4t romance something you knew you wanted to explore when you started the project?
JS: I don’t think anything other than Z’s vocal transition was there when we first sat down. It was more about what this journey is for Z and then listening to what he needed along the way. We shot it over the course of a year, so our script is unique in that we did an outline where I knew I wanted the opening and closing shots as immovable goalposts. Then, we could listen to everything in the middle and learn along the way. We left it as an outline and would flesh out the script before we shot each portion to stay open. Early on, Z and Santi didn’t get together, but it became clear that this relationship was special in Z’s journey.
BL: I’m so glad it is, though. I’m so glad that we got there.
Romantic relationships between two trans men on screen are rare, and you portrayed them tenderly and without trauma narratives.
JS: It was very intentional. One thing that’s important for me, and in as much of my work as I possibly have control of, is to show queer and trans joy. That doesn’t have to mean shying away from the truth and reality, but it means showing folks that it gets better‚—and it doesn’t just get better, it’s fucking awesome. I want to show that to people so they have hope and are excited for the journey instead of dreading it. We actively fought against the instinct to put transphobia in the film. We would write certain scenes, and then we’d be like, why are we showing this? We all know this happens.
Could you each discuss what you hope transmasculine audiences take away from the film?
BL: Whatever they need. We need to be seen to know we exist. I’m going to butcher it, but there’s an Indigenous idea that we only exist in relation to another person. I think that is exactly what we do when we make work that depicts people, any people, but particularly with lesser-seen intersectional identities. Take what you need from the film; I wouldn’t want to prescribe anything in particular. I hope there’s a feeling of being seen and that it’s some sort of salve.
JS: I think that’s exactly it. We did a screening at a festival where a 60-something-year-old trans man said thank you for putting my humanity on screen. What more could you want than that?
Interview by Isaac Arif
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