Tracie Laymon’s feature film Bob Trevino Likes It is all about found family and remaining kind through life’s biggest obstacles.
Since its premiere at SXSW in 2024, winning the Grand Jury Audience Award, its positive reception has spread, garnering even more festival wins. Laymon is a triple threat, directing, writing, and producing the film, which stars Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo in a heartfelt story that reflects all walks of life.
Based on events in her own life, Laymon explores how films like Little Miss Sunshine inspired her to make films with meaning. Bob Trevino Likes It, which hits theaters nationwide on March 28th, marks a debut from Laymon that shows our stories can be dark, but our futures are bright.
Megan Loucks: Thank you so much for sitting down to talk to me about your newest film, Bob Trevino Likes It, which you directed, wrote, and produced. What was it like wearing that many hats on your feature film debut?
Tracie Laymon: Oh my gosh. Well, it was tough, and I have some gray hair under my bleach now—my Bob Trevino hair. But I had a wonderful, wonderful team. I had great producing partners, Sean Mullin and Edgar Rosa. The whole team was wonderful: Felipe Dieppe and Carl Effenson. It takes a village. It really, really, really takes a village. And to be that vulnerable on set and look out and know that people had my back, the cast and crew had my back. I had their back, and they had my back. That helped a lot. I know that I could not have gotten through this without them.
Megan Loucks: This film is a roller coaster of emotions I wasn’t expecting. It’s a very moving story. How does it feel to see people resonate with your film, especially given that it’s based on your life?
Tracie Laymon: It’s so cathartic because, you know, part of my narrative when I was younger was that I was alone. And as I share this story that I was really just saying because I had to say it, I’m finding that there are a lot of people like me out there who have been through similar things, and they tell me their stories, and then neither one of us is alone. You know, the power of storytelling to bring us together and make us know that we’re all, though we’re all unique, we’re not alone, and our shared experiences are not so dissimilar.
Megan Loucks: I got that straight away from the opening scene with Lily as she’s opening her phone, and you get the sense that she’s a very kind person, a very people pleaser kind of person, and I resonated with that a lot. What made you decide to showcase her personality in that kind of way?
Tracie Laymon: I think it was just me being very honest about things I’d been through. You know, Thad is an amalgamation of that guy in the text; he’s an amalgamation of many people in my life and my past life. But, you know, Barbie is just incredible, and she has such vulnerability. And that was actually supposed to be the third scene, but we made it the first scene because she just knocked it out of the park. And I was like, what sets up the character better than this? It shows that she’s extremely kind, that she’s being overlooked, that she’s afraid to get angry, and that she needs to get angry. She doesn’t really have anybody in her life, and she needs people who see her and get her like we all do. So it was just kind of easy to show it. Barbie brings such magic to everything she does.
Megan Loucks: I’ve been following the film’s behind-the-scenes press tour, and you guys are also very close outside of the filming. What was it like working specifically with Barbie, John, and Lauren Spencer in their roles in the film?
Tracie Laymon: I do a lot of work before making an offer. I’ve been told it might be annoying to some people because they’re like, ‘Make an offer!’ I’m looking at their work. I’m looking at things they did 20 years ago. I’m looking because you cast the cast, and you also cast the crew. I do the same thing with the crew. I interviewed many people, but you’re creating people who will become a little family on set, like your team, and in some ways, you’re a little family, a chosen family. And it’s so important to me to cast the right people and every single person in our cast and our crew had a good heart. I looked really hard. I feel like we all did. We brought our whole hearts to this film. And so I think that’s what people are responding to as well. Everybody was grateful and happy to be there, and we had each other’s backs. I think it did help that it was inspired by a true story because I was already being vulnerable by sharing this.
Mike Nichols, one of my favorite directors, said, ‘If you want an actor to go somewhere, be willing to go there first.’ And I’m very much willing to go there. I’m not gonna leave someone hanging out there alone, you know, in front of a camera and a crew. I’m with you. I’ve got skin in the game, and I’ll meet you wherever you’re at, and we’re gonna figure it out together. So, lucky for me, this incredible cast just went there with me.
Megan Loucks: I think one of the most relatable aspects of the film is how you explored Lily’s (Ferreira) personality through social media and also Bob’s (Leguizamo) personality through his wife’s scrapbooking. I feel like you blended two different generations together so well. So what was it like exploring those avenues of showing the audience without telling them?
Tracie Laymon: It is generational, right? That social media for Lily and Bob being kind of clunky on the computer. He doesn’t really know how to do it. He gets a notification. He’s like, ‘What is that?’ Like it’s the craziest thing ever. I think that social media is a way to bring us into the real world, and that’s why I love that scrapbooking was kind of like a tool. Social media is a tool to bring us into the real world, to connect and have tangible things, and share moments in real life, which they very much do in the film. I appreciate both, and I feel like both have a purpose. And I also feel like the younger generation is learning something from the older generation, and the older generation is learning something from the younger generation. So, neither one is judged as bad. In fact, they’re both good.
Megan Loucks: The entire time I was watching this movie, just, you know, ugly crying. I wasn’t expecting it to be honest. What was your first reaction upon seeing the finalized version of the movie?
Tracie Laymon: We did a lot of test screenings. Sean Mullin, one of my producing partners, had done a test screening before. And so thank God it was in a safe environment because I’m very hard on myself. But it was probably like the seventh test screening before I thought, ‘Okay, it’s going to be okay because I’m so meticulous and I’m so hard on myself.’ We moved some things around and some scenes, and things got tighter. And I was like, ‘It’s gonna work.’ And that’s when people started really crying and really feeling themselves in the film. We did a lot of work after that, but that was the moment that I was like, ‘It’s gonna be okay. I don’t know what okay is, but I know it’s gonna be okay.’
Megan Loucks: There’s not a lot of information about you online. This is your first feature debut, making our conversation even more exciting. Who are some directors that you watch their movies and you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, this is what I want to do. These are the kind of stories that I want to tell.’
Tracie Laymon: Well, I was first influenced by Todd Solondz and Todd Haynes, actually, killer films in general. They were kind of showing a darkness that I felt existed in the world that I wasn’t really seeing in my other teenage movies that were like rom-coms and things. And so I just really liked that. But then I realized I’m not that dark, to be honest. I’ve been through the darkness, but the darkness is not me. I want to be a light in the darkness, and I want to show people that you can go through hard things, prevail, and choose to see the light. You can find family, even if you don’t have it necessarily. And so, a lot of my work tends to do with a sense of belonging and challenging perceptions. But Little Miss Sunshine was the film that showed me that you can do that. You can show real things, and you can do it with heart, and the characters can be flawed, and they’re still lovable. And that just, the film changed my life. So I think it’s a perfect film.
Megan Loucks: That Little Miss Sunshine scene where she’s talking to her grandpa gets me every single time. I just rewatched it the other day, too.
Tracie Laymon: She doesn’t want to be a loser. She’s so not. She’s so completely perfect and precious. It’s so touching.
Megan Loucks: Is there anything that you want to say to the audience before heading to see your film coming out soon?
Tracie Laymon: Yeah, I think if you can just please get to the theater because, you know, we’re in a time where people are telling us that we’re all different and we’re all divided and that that in ways it’s making us feel like we’re powerless and our kindness doesn’t matter. But this film, really, I really think it will remind you that it does matter and that we’re not all so different and to be in the room laughing and crying with strangers, I hope that it restores a little bit of your faith in humanity because we need each other and we can do this.
Bob Trevino Likes It releases in New York & Los Angeles on March 21st, expanding nationwide on March 28th.
