Challenging Perceptions: A Conversation with ‘Bob Trevino Likes It’ Writer-Director Tracie Laymon
Filmmaker Tracie Laymon discusses being inspired by her personal journey of healing and self-discovery and framing it as a narrative, the transformative power of kindness, and her commitment to telling authentic and uplifting stories.
Often playing the role of caretaker to people like her father who should be caring for her, Lily Trevino 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 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.
Looking for a feel-good movie that is full of heart and humor? Well, look no further, Bob Trevino Likes It, is the film to add to your watch list – oh and be sure to grab a box of (brand of choice) tissues. The film is helmed and written by Tracie Laymon, inspired by her personal story. The cast is perfectly rounded out by Barbie Ferreira, John Leguizamo and French Stewart – all of whom give spectacular nuanced performances.
Filmmaker Tracie Laymon recently spoke with Script about being inspired by her personal journey of healing and self-discovery and framing it as a narrative, the transformative power of kindness, and her commitment to telling authentic and uplifting stories.
Bob Trevino Likes It (2024). Courtesy of Roadside Attractions.
This interview has been edited for content and clarity.
Sadie Dean: This story comes from a very personal place for you. How were you able to take all of that and then frame it into this narrative structure?
Tracie Laymon: The seed is very much inspired by my life. And I was looking for my dad and he wouldn't call me back, wouldn't email me back. He was mad over some small thing, and I was a people pleaser, so I thought, got to find him. I got to get him to forgive me. I've got to fix it. Put his name into Facebook and accidentally friended this other man with his name who became more of a dad to me and more paternal to me and was showing me these regular acts of kindness just for the sake of being kind, which really healed me. He had such access to my heart because of his name, and it was really unexpected. It's not a way you would think that you would heal. I've been through therapy and all these other things. And so that that seed is very much my truth.
I had over a nine-year period, up until writing this, I had had a really healing, beautiful journey with this experience with this friend, and so what I tried to stay true to was my emotional truth of that journey and the moments of healing that I'd had. And because the real situation is not cinematic, it's a lot on the computer and things like that, I built sequences around it that I felt represented, the healing and the emotional truth that I had experienced.
And I didn't feel that I had to stay true to anything. It's fictionalized, it's inspired. But the important thing was that I just keep accessing, the most vulnerable, most truthful things I could about my journey emotionally.
Sadie: You're exploring a lot of things too within this film, like self-abandonment, the grief from a breakup, and of course the inner journey of acceptance. What was that process like in mapping Lily’s emotional trajectory?
Tracie: I lived a lot of those things emotionally. For example, I had experienced not being able to get mad, not being able to get angry and thinking that would hurt people and not knowing that there was a healthy way to express anger. And so right from the get go, I wanted you to see that she can't get angry. She has every right to get angry, but she's just pretending that she's not angry and that she really deserved more. It's easy to look at a character like her and say, ‘Oh, she's a doormat’ or something like that. But she's not at all. She's a survivor. And I try to flip these things on their head.
You look at someone and you put this judgment on them, and you're like, 'Oh my gosh, they've been through all these things, and they're still able to be this incredible human being?' They're strong, beautiful, incredible, and deserving of being the hero of the story. So, I think not being able to get angry, she's such a kind person, I think a lot of people like me and like Lily try to kill people with kindness, kind of teach people, especially if you were treated in an unkind manner, 'OK, well, let me show you. Let me be so kind that you see that you can be like this too!' [laughs] But then you forget, in that you grew up with that, I think you forget that you have to be kind to yourself as well.
When I got to college, for example, I didn't realize that I had never been paying attention to my own feelings. And so even something as simple, someone would say, like, 'Oh, we're gonna go eat. Are you hungry?' And I would be like, ‘What do you mean? It's all about whether you want to go eat and I'll go or not go with you.’ But it made me realize that I had been putting other people and their feelings ahead of mine for so long that I had abandoned myself. And that's a long journey to go from self-abandonment to including yourself. And it's one that Barbie Ferreira just knocks out of the park. I just can't say enough good things about her in this film. It is quite a journey.
Sadie: As a writer, as a filmmaker, our whole journey is really about finding our voice and tapping into that. And there’s the inner critic of ‘Does my voice matter?’ What was that ‘A-ha’ moment for you allowing yourself to tell your stories?
Tracie: What a great question. For me, in the beginning, I wasn't doing it for myself. Next time I will be because I've had this experience. But in the beginning of this film, I was doing it because I thought I owed it to the world, because I had been granted these gifts, and so it was my job to share these gifts with other people - kindness from a stranger.
And the cause and the why, was so much bigger than me that I never thought about what would be on the other side of that to be honest. I never thought about what it would be like to talk to hundreds of or thousands of people about my own trauma or receive any accolades - I just needed to say it. But it is interesting, because a lot of the other times before this story, I wasn't going 100% - I would go like 80% or I would try to do a little bit of what was mostly me, but kind of what other people told me would work, or something like that.
And this one, I was so honest and vulnerable and truthful, because I felt that I owed it to what I had to experience to be that way. I thought I have to say it truthfully, because that's the only way other people will understand that, that it can be this way, because it was this way. That I'm living proof that small acts of kindness can change someone's life. This is not some toxically positive, magical reality. [laughs]
In that process, I experienced even more healing, because I was like, ‘Oh, wow. These people are showing up to support me, and these people are putting their hearts and their souls into it, and we're doing it together.’ And my story is not just my story, but everybody's story.
I remember being on set, and I'd be really affected by the beauty of this collaboration. Every day, even now, when I see an audience see the film, I experience it again with them. I think a lot of people that have been through this kind of trauma or the self-abandonment, they don't become people who can stand in front of 50 people and tell them what to say ‘My point of view matters’ because you've been literally told that it doesn't over and over and over to the point of trauma. But if you are one of the few that can break through that, I think that we really owe it to people to tell our stories, because there are definitely other people that can relate and need to hear them.
Sadie: Yeah, absolutely. One of the thematic anchors, at least for me as a viewer was just the idea of chosen family in this and what I loved is how you bookend that with that beautiful poem. When that poem came into play, was it early on in the writing stage, or was it something you came across later?
Tracie: I'm so glad you asked about that, because I don't get to talk about it a lot. I tried writing the poem first...I wanted to be a poet...it wasn't even good, it was just bad. [laughs] And so I was like, ‘Well, let me just Google chosen family poem.’ And I Googled, and I found a poem online on a blog or poetry site, and it was written by Robert Hahn. And I just thought it was beautiful. And I thought this sounds sincere and heartfelt, like Lily would have written it. I thought I gotta get a hold of Robert Hahn. So I Googled, and I found out he had passed away the year before - it's just a lot of coincidences here. I found out he had a widow named Patty - so I had my old intern trying to reach her, and then we're getting close to shooting, and people were like, ‘You need the rights to that poem.’ And I said, ‘I'm trying. I'm trying.’ [laughs]
I was up at my friend's place in Washington State, and I finally, get this call, and it says, Patty Hahn. And she said, ‘I thought you were a scammer, trying to license my late husband's poem.’ And I said, ‘Patty, listen, I promise. I'm sincere. I'm the real deal. This is the most heartfelt movie. Let me send you the script. I think you'll get it.’ So she read it, and that was the longest three days of my life, waiting for her to get back to me. [laughs] And then she wrote me and said that she was crying happy tears - she granted us permission to use it, thankfully.
Sadie: You've made this film. It’s hitting theaters soon, what do you hope audiences initially take away from seeing this film?
Tracie: I would love to challenge perceptions. I think if people really do fall in love with these characters, I want them to fall in love with these characters. And they all have different backgrounds, but they're all just beautiful human beings that need each other and we're not all that different, and I think we're all a little bit broken and we can help each other heal. We don't have to suffer alone, and it's OK to not be perfect. It's OK to ask for help. It's OK to see people for who they are and not who society tells you that they are. So, I think if we're sitting in a theater and we're laughing and crying in this movie, and we're doing that together, we're realizing that we're not all so different, and we all really do need each other.
Bob Trevino Likes It hits NY & LA Theaters on March 21, 2025 and select cities on March 28, 2025. Purchase tickets here.
Sadie Dean is the Editor of Script Magazine and writes the screenwriting column, Take Two, for Writer’s Digest print magazine. She is also the co-host of the Reckless Creatives podcast. Sadie is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, and received her Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting from The American Film Institute. She has been serving the screenwriting community for nearly a decade by providing resources, contests, consulting, events, and education for writers across the globe. Sadie is an accomplished writer herself, in which she has been optioned, written on spec, and has had her work produced. Additionally, she was a 2nd rounder in the Sundance Screenwriting Lab and has been nominated for The Humanitas Prize for a TV spec with her writing partner. Sadie has also served as a Script Supervisor on projects for WB, TBS and AwesomenessTV, as well as many independent productions. She has also produced music videos, short films and a feature documentary. Sadie is also a proud member of Women in Film.
Follow Sadie and her musings on Twitter @SadieKDean
