The Pan Eros Film Festival sat down with the director of Not Exactly Strangers, Ryan Rox, for a discussion on filmmaking, set design, and trans stories. Excerpts of the interview can be seen in the Theatrical Filmmaker Spotlight from this year! Full interview is below.
Interviewed by Brodin Petrichor
Transcription by Keri Grassl-Ziegler
Q: Ryan, please tell me who you are, where you’re from, and how you started this journey into filmmaking.
Ryan: Thank you for having me. Thanks for accepting us into the festival. We’re super excited, but we’re super bummed that we can’t be there.
My name is Ryan Rox. My pronouns are she/they. I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, but I’m now based in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I got my start in film because I always wanted to be an actor, and in the pandemic, I had been in a couple independent films. I remember one time there was a director, writer-director, and a camera person, and we were in the desert, and I was the only actor, and I was like, “I think I could do this.” So that’s when I started making films in the pandemic, and I just fell in love with the idea of putting a pen to paper and bringing it to life, and I haven’t stopped ever since.
Q: It sounds like this project is something that really came from your heart, and it seems like a dream project that’s been in the works for a while.
Ryan: This is my fifth short film. I’ve done one feature, but it’s funny that you say that. I’m glad the passion that I have for it shines through, but it actually was kind of a creative itch that needed to be scratched after my feature.
As people may or may not know, features take so long, and the first time I wrote my feature was 2022, and it was really up until last year, just that. Putting my almost every day into that, and so it had been so long since I had been on a set of my own that I wanted to get back into it, and my co-producer and co-star Nick Check was like, “We got to do something. I’m here in town for a couple months. Let’s just make something fun, even if it’s a cute little bedroom thing or one location, two actors, one camera. Let’s do it.” I said, “Okay.” So I wrote Not Exactly Strangers, and we filmed it a couple months later in the span of 52 hours.
There wasn’t much planning for it. It honestly was something that came together within a couple months.
PEFF: It’s tough when it’s that quick, but do you feel like if this is a kind of a passion project, has it just been percolating for a while?
Ryan: I would say the passion doesn’t come from it being in my head for a while. I think it was the immediacy and the urgency of it that I was going through a breakup. Actually, when it was pitched to me or when Nick said, “Let’s do something,” I was in a relationship, and I thought I was super happy. I had all these blind spots and these red flags that I was ignoring. So I started writing the opposite of anything red flaggy, and then we broke up that same month. I said, “Okay, the easy way out would be making a revenge film for some solace.” But for some reason, that solace came with making the What-if. I don’t want to make a trans character that gets yelled at or broken up with or fights or argues. So I made the opposite.
I made the character the clumsy parts of my ex, but the hopeful part of somebody that could see this relationship and say, “Oh, wow, I’m watching a film where there’s romance and sure there’s going to be some clumsiness to it, to a cis-het man being with a trans woman for the first time.” But there’s sincerity, and that’s what I love about Nick’s performance. He really knows how to make a character that’s got a lot of flaws into a very charming person that you want to root for.
PEFF: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like with your character, there was a strong portrayal of the uncertainty? The fear really came out. Yeah, there is a clumsy charm that was there.
I love the hopefulness of it. And this is how the story should have ended. And I think that’s one of the beautiful things that film lets us do, especially if that’s something that we really, in the immediacy sense, want to get out. It’s so incredibly therapeutic.
Ryan: Yeah, I feel like I put it all out there in more ways than one in the film and usually in my filmmaking.
PEFF: Yeah, the artistry of the film itself, it really stood out to me too. I want to really point out how incredible the filmmaking side was. Just the color and even if it’s within this room, there was this kind of coziness to the room that y’all were in. How was that as a process? The attention to detail.
Ryan: So my room, I just painted pink and I got everything pink. I feel like I didn’t have a girlhood as readily available to me as people that come out earlier or trans people often don’t. And so I was like, I’m an adult now. I have my own money. I’m going to buy pink curtains and pink sheets and paint my room pink. And that all was already kind of in place in my room and the character is based on me. So it’s like, this makes sense. The events kind of happen here.
But I will say my production designer Madolyn Storm came in and made it into a dream room where, sure you can throw a bunch of pink everywhere, but that doesn’t make it like a homey cozy place. And her attention to details of the lights that are hung up and it feels like a movie. It feels like those movies that I used to love watching and saying, “Oh my God, do girls really have this kind of room?” Like 10 Things I Hate About You. And like those old 90s, early 2000s movies where they have these huge rooms, like Mean Girls with Regina George’s room. And so yeah, I definitely credit a lot of that or most of that to Madolyn Storm, my production designer.
And also Harmony and Des were helping her, picking out the cherry rug in the bathroom. It was like a small detail of she’s popping her cherry. So it’s like a small hint that if you know you know, or maybe on a second watch, you’ll be like, “Oh my God, I didn’t see that before.”
PEFF: You have the cherry hat on, is that also symbolic with this film?
Ryan: Definitely. Yeah. I think even later today, I have a film festival and it’s playing and I’m going to be wearing pussy pink. I don’t know if I can say that, but yeah, I feel like I love the theme and especially going on the film festival route with the continuation of the theme.
PEFF: Do you feel like there are more projects that you have that you want to do of that similar vein that are deeply personal that you feel like you just have to get out?
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, luckily with the last couple of shorts and my feature, I got out most of my trauma that I wanted to work through. And so I feel a little resolved by all of that. And so now I’m ready to continue. Of course, there’s always going to be some elements of my personal life in my films as I usually write and direct, sometimes star in them. That’s just going to be inevitable. But I’m excited to maybe tell happier stories of trans joy, of queer joy. Since we’re at Pan Eros, like I gotta say, I love a sexy film. I love a film that’s NC-17 or like Leave Your Kids At Home. I do love going that direction, Gregg Araki, like Luca Guadagnino, some of my idols. So I really would love to continue exploring sex, but in ways that haven’t been explored on screen with trans people before.
PEFF: Have you started conceiving what that might look like? Or is that something you want to keep secret?
Ryan: No, I mean, I really wanted to do a similar thing because Nick is here in town again for this festival that I’m going to today. And I was like, Oh, I should write something really fast. And we should make something really fast again. But the timing didn’t work out. Money is always a thing.
I think a lot of my films, if not all of them, have taken place predominantly in rooms. And I loved what someone said one time. It was like, well, that’s just your thing. There’s a theme through your films. But I almost want to challenge that and say, “Okay, cool. I don’t want to do that for a film. I want to do a threesome road trip queer film, and utilize mockumentary or something like that.” So that’s kind of where my head’s at. There’s not a script, but I’m always percolating and absorbing things and writing down ideas. That’s basically it. I’m conceptualizing right now.
PEFF: It sounds like Nick is a pretty frequent collaborator with you. Is the partnership focused around making content together? Or is there a deeper friendship?
Ryan: We realized with Not Exactly Strangers, he became the only through line in all of my films. So he’s been part of every single one from the beginning. And so now it feels like we’re each other’s biggest champions. And this was the first time that he co-produced with me. And he’s usually my main actor or one of the main actors. And on my feature, he was an executive producer and really stepped up. And so this time when he said, let’s make a film, he wasn’t just saying like, please ride a vehicle for me, he was saying, let’s make a film together. Let’s do this. Like, I will help you the whole way through. And he really has. And that’s part of what I love about this journey. Because it really is like us two against the world. And I’m so glad that we’ve been able to go to film festivals together.
He’s definitely been a really great friend. And this film has really just brought us closer as friends.
PEFF: I feel like when I watch Not Exactly Strangers, I feel like you and Nick used to skateboard together. I can feel that in that film.
Ryan: I love that. Yeah. It’s funny, because I think Nick is a longboarder or has longboarded before. So yeah, it kind of worked out that my ex just happened to be like that skater type. Nick did cut off all his hair for this film. And I hope people see the passage of time through his hair, because every day we cut a little bit more of his hair and we filmed backwards. So that there’s like, if you don’t understand, and we don’t want to put title cards that say “one month later,” “two months later.” So the way that we did it subtly was his hair starts off as a shaved head, and it just progressively grows a little longer.
PEFF: That’s so interesting. Oh my goodness.
Ryan: And then that’s the kind of dedication that Nick brings to our role when he’s serious, he’s gonna do whatever it takes.
PEFF: Because I genuinely felt that “Oh, okay, they’re just filming this like Boyhood over a long period of time, right? And then as the hair begins to grow out, the looks begin to change. But no, wow, you told me 52 hours, right? I feel like I just made that connection.
Ryan: Yeah, and the room, that’s the other thing that we try to do with production design. The room kind of becomes more both of them. And there’s pictures of them and their names on the wall. And as their relationship kind of progresses. And if you see the first scene, her room has pretty heels and everything. And then as the film progresses, if you look at her shoe rack, there’s now like pink converse in there. So she’s kind of absorbing his style and becoming more him.
PEFF: Wow, that is gorgeously done. I take it that the film’s been pretty well received at other festivals.
Ryan: Yeah, it feels like the start of it. I’m so excited. We had our world premiere at the Stonewall Inn Visitor’s Center in October. And after that, you know, I guess film festivals really aren’t running in November, December often. And or at least, you know, the deadlines that we had for submitting weren’t lining up with that. But now here comes like April and, you know, we’re now saying, “Oh, dang, like now we have to choose one or the other” or, you know, “I’ll do a video interview because I can’t make it out there because there’s so many.” And so yeah, now it feels like, okay, I can kind of have a sense of calm that it is picking up steam and people are watching it. And it was just a timing thing, I think.
PEFF: Can you tell me a little bit more about your feature? You’ve mentioned it a few times. I would love to hear a little bit more about it.
Ryan Yeah, it’s called Hidden Flora. It is about seven boys and men that changed my life for good or for worse. And it deals with my addiction journey. It deals with sexual trauma. It really is my life in a nutshell from ages 16 to 26. Luca Silver plays younger me and honestly just owned that role. And it was their first role really, like their first big role. And they’ve won acting awards for it. And the film itself had its New York City premiere at New Fest. And it’s actually now streaming on multiple platforms.
If you want to, if you have some extra coin and want to rent or buy it, it’s on Fandango At Home. But if you can’t afford it and need more accessibility, I’m also all here for the Tubi route. Just know that there’ll be some ads, but it’ll still help make the next one for me, I guess.
PEFF: I wish you could be in Seattle. But I understand that there’s just all these different priorities and it’s festival season, so you have to pick your battles. The people will thoroughly enjoy your film. And I’ll do my best to showcase how much they do.
Ryan: Yeah, please. I love Seattle. I am so glad that you all are doing what you’re doing and showing the work that you are.