SXSW 2024: Tommy Dorfman and Corey Fogelmanis Call Filming I Wish You All The Best A “Freeing” and “Healing” Experience

In I Wish You All the Best, non-binary teen Ben DeBacker (Corey Fogelmanis) is thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged sister (Alexandra Daddario) and her husband (Cole Sprouse). Attempting to survive junior year, Ben meets charismatic jokster Nathan (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) who takes the struggling teen under his wing. Through a supportive group of friends, Ben is able to discover themself and see what a happy future may look like. Pop Culture Planet’s Jordan Bohan sat down with the director Tommy Dorfman and actor Corey Fogelmanis at SXSW to chat about directorial debuts, utilizing the book by Mason Deaver as source material, and what they hope viewers take away from the film.

This is the first movie of its kind to have a non-binary lead character and it will blaze a trail for future queer storytellers, directors, writers, and actors to come. Tommy Dorfman was very open about how the book resonated with her when reading it for the first time and how her role within the adaptation changed over time. “When I read it initially, it was approached almost as a acting opportunity in some capacity, but then, when I read it, I felt really drawn to write the adaptation for it,” she shared with me. “I felt like I was uniquely qualified to do so, just as a queer person from the South who was identifying as non-binary at the time.”

Dorfman has been very open about her journey with identity, especially in the public eye. Seeing how she went from potential actor, to screenwriter, and finally director for this project shows just how much Dorfman cares about the story. “I was so moved by Mason's work and the world that they created. I think I slid into Mason's DMs and they entrusted me in this and gave me freedom to adopt in whatever ways I saw fit,” she said. “We were super collaborative and I ran all the bigger changes by them and they were super excited by them and supportive. It was a great process overall and then as I was writing it, it became clear to me that I wanted to direct it.”

Adapting any book into a show or film requires some changes, updates, and sacrifices in terms of specific characters and stories within the book. This adaptation made some changes in order to work better on screen, most notably the omission of B’s journey in therapy. “I just wasn't quite sure if I could justify Hannah, as a new mom which I also added, thinking about all of those things and making that decision for Ben,” Dorfman explained. “I'm a heavily therapized person and I love therapy and I think it is such an important resource, but I also think it is something that is not always accessible to people even if they need it or want it.”

She continued: “I thought about what it would look like for B to navigate a world in which maybe that wasn't something that was super accessible to them. Maybe there wasn't a queer specialist in Raleigh who could handle it that they could afford. I think therapy is such a privilege. I didn't have a therapist in high school, but I had an English teacher who protected me. Those adults shaped me and saved me as a kid and so I thought that Lena [Dunham]'s character Miss Lions could serve a similar purpose as a safe space for them to confide in and grow.”

In addition to the therapy storyline being cut, B’s journey of coming out happens a lot quicker and less dramatically than in the book. This was a very timely and important update for Dorfman. “I felt like kids are kind of past that right now. When I talk to people who are in your generation, Gen Z, one in five people are identified in the LGBTQIA spectrum. It felt more realistic to me for this to have that not be a point of conflict or confusion,” Dorfman explained. “It's good to let people in and you want to feel safe with whoever you're with. Miss Lions and Hannah and Thomas show different examples of how someone could respond to you coming out as non-binary. The fear is being healed by other people responding differently than maybe your parents did. I want people to just listen to each other.”

A lot of B’s story in the book is told through internal monologues, which didn’t work on screen, but Corey Fogelmanis was able to use those that resource to get into character as B. “It was really cool to have the book because it feels like a manuscript of an internal monologue. It was such a wealth of information,” he shared, with Dorfman adding: “I love novels because you can really burrow inside of characters and that intimacy felt important to the film and I'm just grateful that Corey is the type of actor who can be that vulnerable and let people in.”

They were able to translate those scenes into montage moments of Ben getting ready for school or going through a depressive episode or even tap into music to express their feelings. “We used music a lot in the filming of those scenes. Tommy would talk me through things and we would just kind of roll the camera for 10 minutes sometimes and just explore all the different parts of the room,” Fogelmanis shared. “It was cool. It feels very meditative and it feels like life organically unfolding. Ben does go on such a journey and a lot of that happens with people, but a lot of it happens alone so I love those moments in the movie.”

As a story that is so close to Dorfman’s personal experiences, it is clear to see that this was a passion project for the first time director. “I feel like working on this was incredibly healing for me and for my teenage self because I got to relive high school through the lens of somebody who was more involved in their gender identity journey than I was at the time. I got to live through Ben and all these other characters making friends, falling in love in a safe way. [We] show what an affirming relationship looks like as a teenager, show what consent looks like, show these conversations,” Dorfman shared. “It was really healing for me.”

Fogelmanis agreed. “I love how you say that it was healing for you because I feel like, for me, it was very freeing. I feel like you're maybe looking back a little bit and I feel like I'm looking forward. Getting to a place with Ben where the opinions of others maybe aren't the most important thing anymore was very freeing and something that I've taken away and I'm trying to implement.”

I Wish You All The Best has yet to receive a release date, but for now you can stay updated by following their Instagram.