For Barbie Ferreira, filming 'Bob Trevino Likes It' tapped into complex childhood trauma

Yahoo

28-03-2025

In Bob Trevino Likes It, starring Euphoria alum Barbie Ferreira, John Leguizamo, French Stewart and Lauren "Lolo" Spencer, filmmaker Tracie Laymon's almost unbelievable personal story serves as a poignant guiding light. When Laymon's father stopped communicating with her she tried find him on Facebook, and while she didn't connect with her biological dad, she found an unexpected fatherly figure.
Laymon found a man with the same name as her dad on the social media site, but there's no relation, and a friendship formed. They spoke for nine years. He always wished her happy birthday (which her biological father never did), and shared caring and supportive messages.
The filmmaker never got meet the man who filled a parental hole for her in-person, but now Bob Trevino Likes It tells a story about the impact of small acts of kindness, the power of love, and the importance of setting boundaries in our lives.
The film is centred around Lily Trevino (Ferreira), whose narcissist father, Robert Trevino (Stewart), cuts her out of his life, blaming his daughter for cramping his bachelor lifestyle.
When Lily tries to reconnect with him on Facebook, she starts talking to another man named Bob Trevino (Leguizamo) who, much like in Laymon's personal story, gives her the compassion, support and validation in life she never received from her father. But Lily's presence comes at the perfect time for Bob as well, as he's struggling to cope with the grief of losing his infant child.
"I didn't know how vulnerable I would be," Laymon told Yahoo Canada. I just knew I had my eyes set on, I have to tell the story. I have to share how small acts of kindness matter."
"What was most important to me was that I expressed the heart of someone who was kind and someone who was fatherly, and also my emotional truth, my journey and my healing experience."
If you're thinking that this could have been an internet connection that led to a dangerous situation for both Laymon in real life, and Lily in the movie, that's very correct. While those concerns are expressed by characters like Lily's friend Daphne (Spencer) and Bob's wife Jeanie (Rachel Bay Jones), Laymon's impeccably crafted script and nuanced storytelling leads you to understand that these are well-intentioned people who have empathy.
"I'm not saying that there aren't creepy people out there, and I'm not saying go trust everybody and meet everybody you talk to on the internet," Laymon said. "But don't lose the good ones from your experience with the bad ones, because there are good ones out there."
While Ferreira shot to stardom after Euphoria, she's been particularly attracted to indie projects to really grow as an actor and work with filmmakers who have "fresh" perspectives, like Laymon's Bob Trevino Likes It.
But for this film, she also has a personal connection to the filmmaker's own story of a volatile parental relationship.
"With Tracie, we spent a lot of time talking about our own issues with our families and our own morals, and how we continue our life post a childhood that maybe wasn't incredible," Ferreira shared.
"Me and Tracie have a lot of overlap of our own childhood trauma and our daddy issues and all sorts of things that come from that, which is a complex web you just untangle as you are an adult. So we really were on the same page."
Pushing against societal taboos, Laymon's script doesn't sugar coat exactly how toxic Robert is, including giving his daughter a list of "expenses" associated with raising her that he wants her to pay back, or smaller things like holding the door open for a stranger, but not his own daughter.
"Tracie was having this conversation with me about how we want him to be as charming and as real as possible, because a lot of people who take us for granted, or are emotionally abusive to us, are actually really charming," Ferreira said. "French, I think, did an incredible job of making Robert this very real father."
Laymon added, in a separate interview, that both she and Stewart couldn't see the character as a "villain" to tell this story.
"We used to say a lot on set that every villain is the hero of their own story," Laymon said. "[French] has some lived experience in his life that crosses over with the character he's playing, so I think him bringing that truthfully was the key in making sure that he was always coming from a real place."
"I think people can tell that I've written something that is emotionally true to me, and I think we just had to show up and treat that dad like he was a human being as well, while also making a movie that was really about learning to have boundaries."
What's also particularly compelling and honest about the character Robert in Bob Trevino Likes It, and something often avoided in films, is that at no point is Laymon trying to make excuses for Robert's behaviour.
"[Tracie] didn't want to give any excuses to Robert. We didn't want to fall into like, 'Oh he's a bad dad because he's an alcoholic.' ... Some people are genuinely just manipulative and just not meant to be fathers, or have children," Ferreira said. "And I think what was really beautiful about this movie is that I've never seen something about choosing to take space from your blood-related family members, which usually is very shameful. It's very taboo. It's something that you're supposed to work on ... infinitely, until it works out."
"I think what's interesting about this film and is that it shows that there's a choice in that. ... I think with Lily in this movie, what was really powerful is that she made this extremely courageous decision to separate herself and to prioritize herself."
But in order for these actor to go to these complex emotional spaces as their characters, Laymon had to establish an environment for them on set to able to take those risks and be vulnerable.
"Tracie's such an actor's director and ... I'm a very young actor, I've only been working for like seven years, and I never really, truly, knew the definition of that," Ferreira said. "Tracie really valued the actors and so it made it a completely safe experience."
"I took the time that I needed before emotional scenes by myself. Everyone respected it. We were all like this little family, because the crew was really small."
"I have a feeling that, because the story was so vulnerable for me, I was showing up already vulnerable, and so I feel that was my expression to my cast, of like, 'I'm in this too. You're not alone. You're not out there all alone,'" Laymon said in a separate interview
While Laymon never had the opportunity to come face-to-face with the man who changed her life on Facebook, if she could talk to him now she would want to tell him how much his small decision to engage with her on social media changed her life.
"I am ... committed to sharing that kindness with everyone, ... and so your legacy will live on through me," Laymon said.
Bob Trevino Likes It is in select theatres March 28, with a more cities and theatres being added