Filmmaker Tracie Laymon often hid in her bedroom closet to write while growing up in Houston, Texas. "I called it my office," she recalled with a laugh. As a queer person, Laymon joked, "I eventually came out of that closet."
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03-20, 2025That creative space, along with her sharp sense of humor, was her best way of dealing with her father's often angry, unpredictable behavior and long absences. "My mom and I would go through a lot of bad stuff, but we would just laugh at how absurd things were," Laymon said. When she tried to talk to her father about things that were important to her, he was not receptive.
Laymon once tried to connect with her father through their shared love of movies. "I thought if I wrote a movie about something that was important to me, maybe he would see it, and then we could talk," she recalled. "That drove me for a long time until I realized that wasn't the healthiest motivation." Eventually, they became estranged. But after a long period of no contact, Laymon sent him a friend request on Facebook.
He accepted the request. However, the person was not her father, but another man with the same name. "At first it was a little shocking because in that moment, I thought it was him, and it touched my heart," Laymon said. "It felt good. I needed that, so I decided to stay friends with him." Despite the risks of connecting with strangers online, this "other Bob" became a source of the fatherly affection Laymon had always craved in her life.
"I got some flak when I shaved my head during the pandemic," she recalled as we sat in a cozy corner of a quiet Melbourne wine bar. "Then I got a comment from Bob Laymon that said, 'I think it looks great.'" "I get birthday wishes from him every year, and my biological father never said that." "I was in a state of blissful shock." This very wholesome connection is fictionalized in Laymon's sweet and bittersweet debut feature, "Bob Trevino Likes It."
"Euphoria" star Barbie Ferreira plays the filmmaker. "I did imagine myself when I was writing it, but when it came to casting the lead, I was looking for someone who had vulnerability, humor, kindness, and a hopeful, steadfast optimism," Laymon said. Ferreira fit the bill. Renamed Lily Trevino, we first meet her just after she discovers her boyfriend is cheating on her via a mistaken text message. Later, in therapy, Lily says, "No matter what my dad says, I'm pretty sure it's not all my fault." John Leguizamo ("Romeo + Juliet") plays Lily's newfound Facebook "father," while French Stewart ("3rd Rock from the Sun") plays her grumpy biological father.
Lily goes through an emotional rollercoaster. You can see a whole range of emotions flicker across her face. "There were moments where Barbie was going through three or four emotions in a matter of seconds," Laymon said. "It was a master class in acting." Laymon said it wasn't too strange directing someone to play a version of herself. "We built trust and really created a safe space," she said. "I always had her back, and she always had mine. The truth was in the collaboration."
The film won the Jury Award and the Audience Award at the 2024 South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival in Austin, Texas. Laymon went to film school there, interned for "Before" trilogy director Richard Linklater, and made award-winning music videos to make ends meet. "I didn't have a lot of money and was struggling, but I thought if I convinced bands they wanted to do a narrative video, I could get the band to pay for it," Laymon recalled. "My biological father never came to any of my screenings."
Now residing in Los Angeles, Laymon's family moved from Houston to Moscow when she was 14. It was the mid-90s, and it was a culture shock. "I found myself freezing, walking through Red Square, watching the changing of the guard while reading 'The Catcher in the Rye,'" Laymon recalled. She attended an international school. "My friends were from Nepal, Germany, and Namibia, and those different perspectives really informed my storytelling," she said. "I learned to appreciate belonging in a new place because I gradually realized that I didn't really feel like I belonged when I was a kid."
That longing is also embodied in "Bob Trevino Likes It." As is the horrific car accident Laymon was in after returning to the US at 17, which resulted in a painful and lengthy recovery. "The Sex Lives of College Girls" star and proud disability advocate Lauren 'Lolo' Spencer plays Lily's best friend and in-home care client, Daphne. "Because I had a physical disability as a teenager, it was super important to me that the role be played by a real disabled person."
Laymon's father passed away in November 2022. She is processing it with new writing. "Thank God we did have a peaceful ending, but I think if I didn't have this period of healing in my life where I learned healthy boundaries, I wouldn't have been able to have that ending," Laymon said. "He didn't see the film, but it's so weird. In a way, I feel like he was at the screenings with me." She will never forget the kindness of the "other Bob." "He has no idea the power of his words. It's so beautiful, and now I try to be kind to everyone because it takes two seconds to reach out to someone who might really need it."
