Nearly a year ago, a film called Look At Me showed at Canadian Film Festival and I was given a link for review purposes. I was unable to cover the film due to a busy schedule, more busier than usual. This year, I got to speak to Taylor about his film which was a fictional autobiography about a bisexual actor named Taylor being deeply insecure and struggling with an eating disorder. As you can imagine, it’s a pretty big struggle for Taylor as he wants to find true love and a solution to his eating, and he ends up also getting into self-love as well, something he needs a lot of if he’s going to find true love.
Taylor Olson had quite a concept there, and it worked out pretty well. Watching it, I’ve had some eating problems myself. Not exactly making me ashamed of my appearance, but rather causing digestive issues, and not being the healthiest of contents. Things have changed greatly ever since I got braces though. Either way, I’m just as tempted as Taylor was in this film at times, so it kind of felt like something I could relate to. Some of it on the other hand, was a bit questionable even for me, but it had a good amount of comedy and movie quotes that lightened things up for me.
In my chat with Taylor, he told me about the premiere, what went into making the movie, and the motive for people who struggle with these issues or anything similar. Here, let’s look at this film, Look At Me.
HNMAG: Look At Me premiered at Canadian Film Festival nearly a year ago. Did it perform well?
Taylor Olson: Yeah, we had our national premiere at Canadian Film Fest, we had our world premiere at Slam Dance in January last year. Then we did smaller film fests in the States and internationally since then. It went well, it’s best to have a screener on home turf, and it won Best Performance of the Festival too.
HNMAG: It’s a fictional biography, but it shows real-life struggles. Did you have to tread carefully given the issues?
Taylor Olson: Yeah, I think when you’re dealing with something like an eating disorder or mental health, you definitely have to tread carefully. You want to make sure you’re being sensitive to people’s experiences. It’s a fictional biography but by emotional truth I mean that by making up the story to fit a narrative. That shows you’re playing sensitive to people who are dealing with the issue themselves while you’re also trying to be raw and sensitive as possible. There is a fine line to follow there.
HNMAG: Plus, Look At Me was originally a play. What changes did you make to the features’s script?
Taylor Olson: Yeah, I had quite a few. It was interesting because in the play it was a solo act show so it’s kind of a one-on-one talking directly to the audience so straight up storytelling. Moreso than creating a narrative for the screen so it’s probably different in the sense that if you have mini stories in the scenes throughout the stageplay, you take 10 of those stories and make them into a hundred scenes. A lot of the events and narratives from the play are similar but definitely expanded upon in the feature.
HNMAG: Did you draw inspiration from a variety of sources to make it?
Taylor Olson: Yeah, definitely. There’s a movie called I’m a Sex Addict by Kev and it’s a great film where he plays himself. Seeing how honest and vulnerable it was, he inspired me to do the same thing with this. Helped me decide “I’ll write it as a character separate to myself, it’s a fictional version of me, not anything like who I am.” That was the main inspiration of that medium.
HNMAG: And since Look At Me had real-life struggles, did people reach out to you saying how they related to it?
Taylor Olson: Yeah, I think that’s kind of the most interesting thing about the experience. People at the screenings, whether we were at Slamdance for example, people would come up to us after or people would reach out on social media saying, “Oh, I dealt with this too and it kind of validated my experience.” Maybe some people didn’t feel so alone in it, because they saw someone else dealing with it in a story. Or like a couple people reached out saying their kids are dealing with this, looking for advice and they claimed I helped them. I’m not an expert, but I try to help people and it’s amazing to see how this has an impact on them in a very personal way and the telling of it too.
HNMAG: And why did you choose a comedic approach? Did you find it would work better and make it more relatable?
Taylor Olson: Yeah, I mean… it’s funny, with these really tough subjects I’m always interested when someone tackles it with a comedic lens. It helps it to be more digestible in some ways. A movie that I loved and thought did that really well was Grade. There’s a version of that by Bo Burnham that really is a straight drama and lands in the same way if it was. With that really cringey inappropriate humour and that honest social uncomfortability they did it beautifully and it inspired me.
HNMAG: While you were filming certain parts, especially messy scenes, was it uncomfortable at times?
Taylor Olson: Yeah, totally. The part of you that’s most vulnerable in creating a movie when you’re putting ideas to the page, it’s kind of messy, untrue, and uncomfortable. When we were on set, it was important to have conversations amongst the crew about what was going on so anybody could step away from it if they needed to. You sort of have to take a deep breath in order to go.
HNMAG: There’s a significant difference between the thin you and plus-sized you. How did you pull that off?
Taylor Olson: Logistically, we shot this in 5 sequences to indicate the 5 chapters. We did that over a year and a half, so there was time to change physically, and so there were moments for four months at a time where we would be away from production. That physical change would happen and we’d shoot some more. Then at the very end we shot Thin Taylor to help reflect that the most. Then that version of himself is like the manifestation of his eating disorder. All the dark version of himself that is egging him on to continue down this path. It’ll make him better, make him more desirable, people will like him more as the person he thinks he wants to be.
HNMAG: And what about all the quotes from other movies and multimedia? Were those all from favourite actors of yours?
Taylor Olson: Yeah, that’s right. (Laughs) I’ve been around people who are movie buffs. We tend to quote movie lines all the time and so many of my friends are movie buffs so they’re always quoting movies. It was just a funny thing thinking that people have a regular job and do this in the same way. Just express how a character feels like without saying anything. Since I saw them as odd or uncomfortable things, I felt like the movie eased into uncomfortable vibes on purpose. I felt like this world was really fun.
HNMAG: Will you be making other films about disorders?
Taylor Olson: Totally, I think I probably will. My focus so far has always been something that interests me, I have a question about or unsure of how to solve a puzzle or idea so my first feature was working in a certain environment and how you deal with that. This is kind of an eating disorder and how someone finds self-worth if they don’t have self-love. I’ve shot a third feature and it’s about a dad who’s trying to keep a relationship with his daughter. I think the things that interest that either bug me personally or in society. Something that is sort of like I want to know the answer to but I don’t have it and that always makes me want to ask questions about it and figure out more about it.
Taylor mentioned he’d like to do something around an athlete with an eating disorder next. Just look at all those olympians. Something he wants to explore in a totally different universe at some point. That’s not all he’s made, along with his partner, he did a feature called Bystanders. Taylor wants to make a movie involving a certain problem or condition, usually anything that’s sort of itching under our skin, what’s going on there.
It just opened in Toronto theatres over a week ago, and might be hitting streaming services real soon. Go see if you can find it, and then look at it. It’s called Look At Me, after all.