Tij D'oyen Enjoys Mean Girls Doing Bad Things
The 'Nepotism, Baby!' director discusses working with actors, feeling like an outsider in film, and his interest in ennui and the leisure class.
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After graduating from University of North Carolina School of the Arts in 2017, Tij D’oyen was feeling frustrated. He’d studied to become an actor, but for years was having difficulty booking work. For someone without Hollywood connections, the film industry seemed impenetrable. But then D’oyen pivoted. He began filming sketches, and during the pandemic he wrote like crazy — features, episodic pilots, shorts. One of those shorts, Lollygag, was a black comedy about a summer that a teen girl (Gaby Slape) spends spying on the boy who lives next door (Isaac Powell) as he eats chocolates and entertains lovers at his pool. The short premiered at OutFest in 2022, and it landed D’oyen on Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces list. The next year, it went on to win awards at Fantasia and Slamdance.
Prior to all of Lollygag’s success, D’oyen wrote another short, Nepotism, Baby!, that began as a way to “express my frustrations with the inaccessibility of the film industry” but quickly became a character study “commenting on our societal obsession with fame and how social media has exacerbated that.” The film — made possible by the money D’oyen won at Slamdance — stars Betsey Brown as an aspiring actress who resorts to desperate measures when her famous parentage fails to deliver her A-list celebrity status. I became a fan when I caught it at a Rooftop Films shorts screening this past summer. D’oyen has a gift for elegant shot compositions, droll voiceover, and capturing the dark absurdities of life among the rich and the famous. We spoke about how he works with actors, where he finds inspiration, and how, even with success, he feels like an outsider in film.
You’ve said that you wrote Nepotism, Baby! because you were feeling frustrated by the inaccessibility of the film industry. That’s something a lot of people obviously feel. However, it seems like you were writing it at a time when you’d won twenty five thousand dollars from Slamdance and were maybe able to get some other grants and were also named to Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces. So how were you feeling this inaccessibility manifest itself?
It was written before all of those things happened. We were in Park City with the script ready to go if something happened. But I hadn't won the money yet. Filmmaker Mag had just happened. I mentioned in the close of that interview that I had Nepo ready and needed money. But I agree, if I had written it after all those wins, it would've been a bit twee of me.
But even so, Filmmaker Magazine is great and I'm so grateful for that, but what has it done? Yes, it maybe opens a little door here or loosens something there, and that's great, and I won't deny how lucky that is, but also, it really never stops. There's always doors and there's always barriers. Even now, I feel like it's getting worse. There are people who I admire who have made these great movies and you're hearing that even they can't make their next movie. You're like, What the fuck, how is that possible?
I think you're right. Everyone feels that way, even if you're Martin Scorsese. But I'm curious about the specific road blocks you were hitting.
It's the same story I feel like so many people have. Every grant application or fellowship or program, every rejection imaginable, for years in a row. And that was frustrating. Really, before Lollygag, the festival circuit just felt like if you don't know someone nothing's going to happen. I do want to zoom out though. I know I am very lucky. I made one short film and now it's being made into a feature. That's so cunt. That's the dream obviously. I don't take that for granted. But to give a little more color, I went to school for acting. So for five years after graduating, before I started writing and making movies, I was dealing with that frustration of trying to break out as an actor. So sure, once I switched to filmmaking things seemed to be working really great. But for years I was no stranger to waiting for something to happen and having absolutely nothing happen.
Do you feel like there's a throughline to the things that have worked for you? If certain doors weren't opening, what were the more fruitful things that were working?
It felt like nothing, even though that’s probably reductive. And it truly wasn't until we made Lollygag — which had a sleeper run. It premiered at Outfest (RIP!). It slowly gained momentum and attention once it started getting some wins. And even then, that didn't necessarily lead to anything. It took my friend Isaac, the star of Lollygag, introducing me to his producer friend, and us having a meeting and hitting it off. That led to one thing, which led to another. It took someone else kindly holding the door open for me to make something finally happen. That's kind of fucked that that's how it is. But thanks, Isaac!
In one way it is kind of fucked. But in another way it's, I don't know, kind of beautiful. You make things and accumulate collaborators, and once you have enough people on your team rowing in the same direction you gain momentum.
Yeah. And then there's the hope that you'll be able to hold the door open for other people.
You mentioned you wrote the script with Betsey Brown in mind. What did that process look like?
I knew I wanted to work with her. I didn't base the character off her. Actually when I brought the character to her, she was like, "Why are you presenting this to me? I'm not her?" And the first thing she said was, "Do I have to get fillers?" Because in the script it said that she had fillers. So the writing process wasn't particularly collaborative. I wrote it on my own.
I have a bit of an obsession with the leisure class and ennui and isolation and these people who have this cultivated, crafted distance. The character has these gloomy anecdotes and is morbid and modern and rich but spooky and chic but haunting. That's really interesting to me. And a seed of this was planted in Lollygag. Something that's luxurious and rich but also haunted. So continuing further in that. And obviously both shorts utilize voiceover in a way I think is fun. Also, I'm a homosexual so I enjoy mean girls doing bad things — and in general, characters who are questionable. Who make the audience question why they're feeling bad for someone who on paper seems so terrible.
How collaborative is the process of then building the character out with Betsey once she's on the project? How are you directing her?
It was super collaborative. A couple months before shooting we started having weekly meetings. I wouldn't call them rehearsals because we weren't working with the text very much. The first thing we did was find the character's voice. So we were watching lots of interviews with like Lana Del Rey and Hollywood socialites. Finding the voice was a huge keystone for Betsey in getting into the character. And then we choreographed the TikTok dance and learned that together. And it was really those kinds of things — getting into her body. We did some actor homework on background and details, fleshing out her history with her parents, etc. But it was really more indirect. We would meet at Betsey's apartment. She would read through the text. We went shopping for the gimp suit. Just spending time together helped us get more comfortable with the character.
Basically, I let Betsey play in our 'rehearsals,' and when she went too far with something I'd set the boundary there, and then she'd go the other way and I'd set the boundary there. I really just gave her the box the character fit in so that on the day she knew what her boundaries were but within that she could go ape-shit.
Having started as an actor, I'm curious what kinds of things you liked directors to do and not do.
That's definitely my secret weapon. I'm so glad I went to drama school. I don't really act anymore — nor do I care to — but I think it informs my writing and helps me be able to talk to actors. The verbiage of working with the text, like actions and all that came out of that conservatory training. But I don't know. I personally love a line reading. I think it's really helpful for me — not for the whole thing — but to ground me and help color everything that comes after. Specificity is always king to me. And not being overly prescriptive. I like the directing game of tapping the thing until it falls into the hole, being gentle and letting it come somewhat naturally. I think that can happen so easily when you have done the work beforehand. You know what? Cut all that, the answer is homework. I like homework.
What kinds of homework were you giving beyond what you mentioned?
Watching movies, listening to interviews. Betsey and I both went to the same school — she graduated before me — and we both had fight choreography training. But Betsey is not very good at that, so the beat with the Oscar and some other physical stuff she was a little worried about so I gave her the homework of practicing that every day until the shoot.
You mentioned being interested in ennui and the leisure class. And I feel like the filmmaking and the visual language and voiceover all contribute to nailing the tone of that. So I'm curious, how did you find your own tone and visual language and marry it to these themes?
A lot of my inspirations come from — I mean, Michael Haneke is a huge inspiration. For this film, Angst, the Austrian horror film from the '80s, was a huge inspo visually. There's something about movies that feel flat and bleak and removed. Those films and filmmakers are my education. And then putting that on my stories, which are a little absurd and comedic makes this interesting clusterfuck when it comes to the tone. So it is sort of using horror or darker things as visual inspiration and tonal comps that ground the thing. This could've looked so different. It could've been more bubblegum and poppy.
You mentioned you’re turning Lollygag into a feature. Where are you at in that process?
We're casting. We want to shoot late spring, early summer. But we have some exciting casting developments, which is cool. It's set fifteen years later. I call Lollygag (the short) a detached prologue to the feature. The events of the short definitely inform the character but you wouldn't need to watch the short to enjoy the feature. For a while when people would ask about making it into a feature, I would say, "No, no, no." Because I truly like the short form as a medium. I was really set on making a short that didn't feel like a proof of concept and felt fully contained and could stand on its own. So I was rejecting the idea. But then through some life events I woke up one morning in a fever and wrote for three days and then had the feature.
You wrote it in three days?
I might be a little autistic.
I'm always curious about how up and coming filmmakers are in conversation with their peers and how those kinds of relationships are impacting them.
One of my biggest collaborators at the moment is Michael Calciano. He's a playwright who's transitioned to film. And we started developing episodic TV together and are gearing up to make a little secret movie together. So his voice as a writer/artist is huge for me at the moment.
And my friend Devyn Chuang, who I met at NewFest made a film called, Mom, If I Were a Vampire, which rocked my socks. And they made another film called Strawberry Shortcake, which is so bizarre and unhinged. They feel like a kindred spirit.
Does it feel like an exciting time right now? Particularly in New York?
Yes and no. I think it is an exciting time. I really think it's promising but it's also bleak. I think there's a lot of noise. But when you do find a little pocket and you're like "Oh shit, this is cool," that feels really great. But I'm not going to lie. I still feel like an outsider a lot of the time.
In what way?
Not that this is the goal, but I still don't feel like I'm in the game. And yes, I have my collaborators that I make movies with, but I'm not super in on what's happening beyond that. But, maybe that's fine. Maybe it's actually good. Who knows? I think you want to play the game, but you don't want to be in the game. Tbd. Ask me again in a year.
PS - Happy almost Christmas! Here’s a breakdown of a Christmas Eve feast scene I published last year…
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