And when I started to right the surface, um, I had lost my parents recently and, um, I started looking at these films and realizing what a gift, this waas Evan Seeing Peter's life in films and taking that as a CZ, a full peace of life taking That is something that he's missing that he didn't have, and that's what helps attract him to Peter.

I found that was really interesting tool.

There are many elements of this story that we're really interesting to me, and this is just in a small example.

This is home movies influencing someone's life.

But I just found that visual so powerful as I was reading it.

I was like, Yes, I love the idea of taking someone else's history and claiming it as your own and your life changing because of it.

He was a foster child that he never knew.

He's done, and, you know, he was looked after by various different foster families, having like like a looking glass into someone else's life of someone who knows their father and knows what they look like.

It's kind of really interesting for him to watch a real family structure and what someone grow up in a real environment rather than his, you know, fake family environment.

First off, I love casting.

I love actors, and I always want to see them succeed.

And throughout the years I've lived in Los Angeles, I sort of mentally collect actors and some acquittal roll index.

So it's always sort of in my being too sort of wantto in some way work with a great actor.

You do?

Where is it?

There.

You can see it now.

Nicholas's character, Chris Nicholas, came in for a different part originally and a soon as he started reading for Fish Michael.

Now we're both just like he's not Fish, but he's very much sort of Chris a different take on Chris that we hadn't imagined.

But I love Nicholas.

I just I love the way that he reads a line and makes it completely unique from anything else, and he just really had this sort of New York Andrew McCarthy sort of prep school vibe to him that I loved.

I loved the way he ran and loved his appearance.

And what was great is that he was able to transform into that character is I don't think naturally he's like the role of Chris at all.

Had you guys were you happy?

Me?

It's a simple question.

Are you happy with Peter?

I'm very much from Keizer, Oregon.

Um, not super well educated.

I don't have any kind of like a degree or anything, and I'm not well read and I'm not.

I think maybe it was like theater, having like a theater background and having that like standard American speech kind of ingrained.

But also, that is his background, that is, That's very much what I thought he would have come from.

I didn't really see him as like a as his West Coast kind of personal.

I started I, which is what I always do.

I sort of start with people that I that I know that I think will fit the Bill.

Michael Redford.

When I first read the script and I saw the role of Peter, I just visually had him in mind.

Michael had worked with him briefly on adults only film that a short film that we worked on together.

I was excited to sort of see if he could do more than that.

And he really, honestly, was the only person I had in mind.

We called in a couple of people, but he really was the first person that I thought of for some reason.

I know.

Is it a plane?

A cop?

I fled a cop on many rolls.

A cop detective, Um, kind of odd, interestingly creepy characters.

So, um, it was really nice plans.

Tell me that it was actually more in tune with my own personality.

Forgot about so much until I saw all of this.

I think I probably would with three different actors for Evan, even the first audition process and they were all completely different but would have been perfect for the role and find the role of Evan was was a difficult was a challenge.

But we knew that going into it because he really was the person that was the common thread and was the sort of lead obviously, in the film.

And so he had to be important.

And however it came to be weeded up with Harry, and I'm so glad that we did because I think that Michael didn't really necessarily see Harry as Evan.

Harry is very sort of androgynous and pretty with long hair, and I think Michael wanted someone a little more edge, and so was the dirtier.

I kind of wanted him to be not physically scarred, but I wanted him to be just, you know, quirky enough that we could believe that he had a pace, showed a past in his face in some way and some physical way and in walks.

Harry, who's model and is extremely beautiful to look at.

So I was afraid that he might not have vulnerability, but once we started working with him and talking to him about doing some tests, he just couldn't look into his eyes.

His eyes just tell a story.

It was the first lead role always cost in Um, before that, I was fine to New York and short of film, a sci fi film called Khar Hong City.

And so I shot that New York and then immediately after, came back and shot the surface.

Well, I've been interested in acting my entire life.

My mom was an actress, so from a very young age, I started acting classes and what not, But I wanted to model since I was about 14.

But since I was so short, I couldn't do anything until I was finished high school.

And then I decided to take a holiday to Los Angeles.

And, you know, I love the vibe of the city and felt I want to move here and really pristine my career.

My mom's from the States, so that was really helpful.

And being around so many American people, I kind of picked up when the accident, naturally.

But when I really came to L.

A.

I already had the experience of, like studying in American accent in New York on, and so it became quite natural.

And then just through she a practice and, you know, listening to people around me, I was able to, you know, transform my accent to something that was, you know, at least bearable for people to listen to it.

Are you depressed?

No, I don't know.

Give me about leaving school.

Maybe get a job and save up some money for a while.

Well, I use like clues from the script through, you know, defined kind of a history for Evan as I felt necessary.

Aziz kind of mentions that he was a foster child, that he never knew his dad.

And, you know, he was looked after by various different foster families.

And all other, um, you know, histories of his life were kind of just taken from clues and just things that I made assumptions based on the script.

Um, but there was a lot of imagination that needed to come into play for me to create a really three dimensional character with a full history, you know, you you are.

What's wrong with me?

What did I do?

I don't need you anymore because you don't need anymore.

It's difficult to see how what the connection is initially because it shows us the end of their relationship.

But obviously that was flying that drew them together.

They obviously had a connection that was obviously something there.

But this in a relationship kind of fell into this, you know, controlling manipulative boyfriend situation, which Chris appears to be.

And I think that Evan, if feeling lost, doesn't know what he wants to do.

He doesn't know if he can leave this sex relationship because he's been so used to it.

So he was fine, has a difficulty, and, you know, moving on because it's like what he knows and what he's comfortable with.

It's money well spent.

Don't even have anything to play them on.

I think what he does, he does.

From his perspective, in total truth and in what he actually thinks is right and what he thinks is helpful and what he wants Evan to be, I don't think he would ever think of himself as a bad person.

I talked to Michael, too, about how I really didn't think Christmas, someone who would raise his voice.

I thought, you know, even like if you were to get upset, it would be very kind of like, Why any kind of way?

Not so much like a screaming kind of person, But do not be a joke, because it's not.

Yes.

Hi.

Is Harry here?

Not right now.

Oh, um, So I bought this camera in his yard sale last month, and he said if I got the film process that I could use his editor, but my character foresees haven't come up to the door.

I think he's a little taken aback.

Um, and I think he doesn't quite know what to do with this young man in his presence, because my character, Peter, is literally 20 years older than Evan.

Um, yet I have a relationship with him.

But, you know, Evan comes into Peter's life at at a point where he is still struggling to find, you know, a father figure and family that he's never had, you know?

So I think he's naturally drawn to authority, figures, um, and somebody to really kind of take him in and take care of him.

You know, when Evan brings him this, this film that is basically a relieving of his past.

I think he's pretty.

He's pretty blown away for one, but I think it's pretty appreciated.

He's pretty enamored with Evan and I.

I don't even think Peter realizes the depth of why he's attracted Devon.

And Peter is at a point in life where I think unbeknownst to him, he is desperate to go back in time and take care of this young boy that he lost when he was a teenager.

He's also just lost his father, and I think he has a lot of feelings of loss and loneliness and he's, you know, processing the father son relationship.

Look, you just take it all.

You sure your dad Yeah.

He, um He died a few weeks ago.

I'm really sorry.

Unfortunately, why we were shooting this.

My father got ill and passed away.

So, um, we had shot, you know, a lot before.

And and I think we actually had to delay So my scenes, because my father was headed say, gotta go up San Francisco.

He then passed away and, you know, it was oddly parallel into my characters experience exactly what was going through.

So I mean, I was literally processing the emotions of losing, apparent as we had to shoot these scenes where my character was processing the same emotions.

There's a saying in, like, a road trip saying Where, um, birth Michael and I were like, shooting.

Ah, lot of the moments between, like, the friends of the road trip.

And he used most most of the moments that was actually the ones that I took because I really followed them along and took pot and like everything that we're doing, and I was the one just filming it, and so it was really interesting.

Thio you know, be on that side of the camera.

I think it's quite fun filming.

It's a really interesting process and also who taught me how to actually, you know, put three pieces of film together and, like, dual the old school stuff, and he actually taught me how to do it.

So it looked real on film.

I was very lucky to have a number of very strong mentors in my life, had several teachers that were very Inter built to my early life and start pointing me in the right direction.

I'm very grateful to all of them.

My grandfather I had one of the first home movie cameras in the forties and was taking home movies back then.

So we have home movies of my mother as a teenager.

I think we're a family reunion, and my father was.

I was a teenager.

My father was tired of shooting home movies of us, so he handed me the camera and told me to go shoot things, and that was really kind of the beginning, and my grandfather taught me to edit.

There were two scenes with Evan that were kind of special me.

One was the you know the first really intimate scene in the bedroom as we were just kind of, you know, very casually exploring each other's bodies and, um, really noticing the tattoo or work on each of our bodies and just kind of sharing what it meant to each other.

It's a symbol of fearlessness.

When I was young, I was really afraid, and I also liked the very end of the film when I come out of my bedroom late at night and I see that he is once again up late at night watching his films and the past and, um, and he stops her for a minute and we have a conversation.

And, you know, he asked me what was I asked to be in my life, and my issue was that I was asked to be everything, and then I'll return the question on him and asked what he was meant to meet his life.

And he said nothing.

And I just to me that was really a pivotal point in my character.

Realizing where I was in my life and realizing where he was in his life and that while we are so different, were sense memory just think about feeling the water would be a little more dreamy.

Your film made me see things differently.

My dad mark the other really lovely scene between the two of them and fire pit.

Peter talks about his friend and in the movies that he grew up with, Um, and how things have changed for him and how he sort of dropped out and eventually died.

And I put that in there because I always wrestle with that relationship that you wish you could have helped someone more.

Then you did.

I think, the beach sequences, my favorite it was great is that you know, we have Sam, Kyle and Jenny who played Shell Fish and Amy and they're like a boatload of fun.

And then Harry, who plays I've been He's a lot of fun.

And you?

No way.

There was a There was an idea, You know what we wanted?

Accomplishment got there, but we ended up just like having a blast.

And luckily it worked out something that really great that Michael did was give us the freedom to explore, You know, other parts of the characters with improvisation, and he used, like a handheld camera.

So it made it very easy to you know, him work around us, I guess I was just playing the piano one day at the house that we were filming out.

And then they said, Why don't we get included in the film?

And that was a really great part of the healing process.

Is there a lot of moments that, you know, lost minute?

What kind of Let's just include in the film.

I mean, I I do know what I find fascinating about the film is that it is primarily about the journey of this one young man, you know, to find family and love and fulfillment and you know, to better himself in the process.