Lily Yasuda on Like Love, friendship, and being a multi-hyphenate creative
The first thing you should know about Idaho native Lily Yasuda is that she wears many hats. Lily is a Japanese American actress, producer, writer, and budding director. I caught up with her in anticipation of her debut film, Like Love (2020), getting ready to be released for online streaming. We talked about the contrast between her writing the script and producing on set, as well as her star role in the part of protagonist Harper, who pointedly doesn’t fall in love with her friend Jackson (Joseph Bricker) in the self-proclaimed “romantic(ish)” comedy.
(This interview has been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity)
Lily: It’s funny because it’s now been like five years since I started writing the script for Like Love. And it’s been three since we shot—we shot in summer of 2018. And then we were essentially fully done with the film by end of 2019. So, it’s such a long, slow process. Now it just feels like a crazy thing that happened a long time ago. We’re obviously really excited to get it up on Amazon... but really I think until someone else who’s not my mom is like, “Hey you made a movie, that’s cool,” I just forget that it happened.
Cassi: That’s really exciting. Like Love is still new for audiences, but to you I guess it must be pretty old. But to start, I want to hear more about you; your background, where your love of film came from. What came before Like Love?
Lily: Absolutely. I was born and raised in Boise, Idaho, and I was always a theatre kid—which I still do on occasion, but I mostly identify as being a writer, certainly now. I did a lot of acting and dancing, neither of which I was particularly good at. [laughs] But I really enjoyed performing. Both of my parents are creative-adjacent: my mom is an actor and my dad directed a similar low-budget feature about ten years ago. He’s produced a couple of small things as well. He ended up being a producer for Like Love, as well.
Cassi: Oh, wow, that’s so nice!
Lily: Yeah, he really went above and beyond to help us in that way. So I always knew I wanted to be a writer. When I was little, I wanted to be Jo March from Little Women, so I did tis thing where I would write my manuscripts” by hand and tie them together with ribbons. I’m sure my mother still has them somewhere. And then my junior year of high school I went to a very competitive high school (I’m the only one of my friends who didn’t go to an Ivy League and become like, an engineer or something.) I was freaking out, I didn’t want to go to college undeclared—which in hindsight, I don’t think matters at all—and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was talking with my mom and she was like, “You love writing. You love film. You should go to film school.” And I was like, “that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” But she said I should apply, check out programs, see what happens. And, I did, and I got not a great scholarship at Chapman (University) and declared screenwriting kind of by accident. I had some really wonderful professors, and went on to meet my best friend, who is now my agent. And of course, Michael (Wolfe), who directed [Like Love].
Cassi: I love how everything sort of lines up and leads up to Like Love—having your dad as a producer on the film, Michael as director. I want to talk a little about the film itself, which is your first, correct?
Lily: That’s correct.
Cassi: So you wrote the screenplay, you act in it as well, you’re involved in so many other ways. I know the film is about complex relationships. How was it translating your life into the writing and acting process? How much influence did you take from your own experiences?
Lily: A lot of people ask why I didn’t direct, but I didn’t direct Like Love because I wrote it for Michael. He reached out to me, and I just said “yes”. We didn’t really know each other (we’d had like one creative writing class), but I knew he was a smart guy, and honestly a wonderful writer, so there was a mutual respect. He’d graduated a year before me and was really interested in doing a feature. So he essentially commissioned me to write Like Love for him. He had a whole bunch of ideas -- probably ten or twelve -- but the one that stood out to me was him reflecting on one of his best female friends from high school. Talking about “the friend zone”, and what it means to be attracted to someone you can’t actually be with. I was struck by how personal it was to him, and even if I knew we weren’t gonna be reinventing the wheel with a low-budget romantic comedy, I figured we could do something different with it. Examine it from a new perspective. I like small stories. I basically just like stories set on planet earth, with normal people. [laughs]
So he and I were basically friendly strangers at the time we started this project—we developed the script over about two years. I think we were able to balance our perspectives as a man and woman who went on to be really close friends. And that brought a good kind of depth and life to the characters that hopefully plays out on screen. I think we’ve all been in a situation like the ones that our characters (Harper and Jackson) find themselves in, the sort of thing where one person is really into the other and they know it’s probably not reciprocal but they go for it anyways. I don’t know that this film is based on any one particular relationship in my life, though. If anything, I’ve probably been Jackson more often than I’ve been Harper. [laughs].
Cassi: I’ve also had my fair share of being Jackson. So you mentioned that the process of just writing took two years—how is it going from the actual script-writing process to becoming one of the main actors in the film? What’s that transition like, in your mind?
Lily: Very gradual. When I wrote the script I was not planning to be in it, nor was I planning to be involved in production at all. I was really gonna just send Michael the PDF and roll out.
Cassi: What changed?
Lily: Honestly in large part it was a casting thing. I was tired of seeing the same types of actresses on screen, and was like, if this fucking movie is about a white girl in overalls, I’m going to kill myself. [laughs]. It was really important to me that [Harper] was a woman of color. I think that oftentimes there’s this sort of expectation that everyone is white unless proven otherwise, or that if an actor of color is involved suddenly the whole story has to be about oppression or something. When I pushed for Harper to be Asian, we got a lot of: “Oh, so how does the fact that she’s Asian color the story?” or “Oh, so it’s about racial discrimination.” I’m like, no, it’s not! It’s important to me that Black and brown actors are able to exist in spaces that are not about oppression or race overtly. So I really went to bat over that. And then ended up being like I wanna be in it, so Michael made me audition--
Cassi: Oh, wow.
Lily: Yeah! So I ended up auditioning to be in my own movie, and then was also overseeing auditions for people who weren’t me. It was extremely weird. [laughs] As far as the pivot from being a writer to everything else, it’s super magical to see your role come to life. It didn’t really hit me until the movie was done, because in the process we were doing rewrites, I was helping producing, I was raising money, just all the day-to-day stuff of hiring crew, and scheduling lunch, and hiring an attorney. If anything, it was embarrassing to be there on set on the first day and not know any of the lines because I didn’t have enough time to look at the script because I was so busy doing everything else [laughs]. Shoutout to Joseph Bricker, my costar for being very prepared and keeping the boat afloat while we were shooting.
Cassi: Shoutout to you. That is so much; you’re literally involved in every aspect of the film! The fact that you also scanned auditions for Harper’s part is so funny. You’ve done a lot, which leads perfectly into my next questions. First, how long did it take to actually film?
Lily: I believe we shot for twelve or thirteen days. Fifteen days total, with two days off. It was a very quick shoot; the script runs about eighty-six pages, the film is like eight-two minutes. It’s very dialogue heavy, so that’s what we expected.
Cassi: So about two weeks on set doing an incredible amount of work every single day. What did you glean from the whole process?
Lily: A million tiny things. But big picture, I would say two things. The first being really recognizing what your role actually is as a producer, and I use “producer” in a slightly more fluid way because it’s a very small project. If we had an actual budget, right, there’s a big difference between being a creative producer versus a line producer. You would not be the person ordering lunch—that’d be someone else’s job. So I was sort of redefining my role as a producer, and as I get ready to move into the director space down the line, just on set leadership as a whole. But I learned that it’s your job to be a good boss.You’re not there to prove that you’re the best artist that has ever happened; you’re there to treat people with respect. You’re there to make sure that you break for lunch at six hours, and that food is hot, and that people don’t get kept late and that they get paid on time. That’s your job. Those are the things that make your crew like you and make people want to work with you again, and that’s just as much if not more than what we see on the monitor.
So that was the big thing, followed by the fact that -- honestly, I’m a pretty judgemental person -- [laughs] As I think many artists are. And it’s easy to have this attitude that like, “other people’s work is gonna be shitty and mine is gonna be great.” And I think this project taught me that it takes a village just to make very bad art. If you successfully make okay art, or if you’re lucky enough to witness other people making some okay art, that is important. The amount of love, time, money, and free labor that goes into art: that is a labor of love. There’s no other way that that happens. I don’t think you need to pretend to love everyone’s art, or that you should get automatic brownie points just for making something, but I think I have a greatly increased level of respect and admiration for people who are working on projects. I really want to be that guy that if I have a friend of a friend, or a friend of a friend of a friend whose crowdfunding or working or something, I want to make sure to do what I can to help. Sometimes that’s giving twenty dollars, or plugging their campaign, or volunteering your time. I’m really protective of my time, and I don’t have a problem saying “no,” but I want to be able to really be an ally and advocate of other people's work.
Cassi: I’ve never really heard producing spoken about in that way, it makes a lot of sense. So while you’re thinking about all this, taking on more jobs than a producer on a larger film might have, what were you noticing about going back between acting and producing? Would you do it again?
Lily: I know I’m a much better writer than I am an actor, but acting is to me, the most fun. I’m not saying everyone can do it, but compared to the other stuff, it’s way easier. I don’t think Michael or I have any significant regrets about the project, given the amount of money we had, but I know it was hard for us having me try to act and be creatively involved (in production) at the same time. And I think that hindered the movie in certain ways. Lots of people write and direct, so you can totally do it all, but I would rather be really good at one job than half-ass it at a bunch of jobs. For me, writing and directing/producing are really natural together, but I don’t know that it’s vital to me to act in my work.
Cassi: It must be hard to even settle into the role you're playing, let alone the balance of having multiple roles on set, so that totally makes sense.
Lily: Definitely.
Cassi: I saw that When Harry Met Sally (1989) was one inspiration. What other films and artwork inspired and informed Like Love?
Lily: Yeah, When Harry Met Sally was a big kicking off point for us, though I imagine anyone who made a romcom after 1989 would say that. [laughs]. There was 500 Days of Summer, Julia Stiles from 10 Things I Hate About You, Hailee Steinfield’s character in Edge of Seventeen. But ultimately, we really went back and forth about whether we were going to market it as a romantic comedy, and we ended up calling it an “anti-romantic comedy,” which I think was good… Like Love is really a story about consent. And I think that when we hear “consent” we think it’s a story about rape. It’s not a movie about rape, at all. We wanted to ask how we can show a man and a woman could love each other, but not be in love, and in the end are just friends and the audience could cheer for that.
We also talked a lot about, like, why do women say “yes” when they mean “no”? We’re taught that we owe it to men to be nice to them, or flirt with them, or sleep with them, because if we don’t people will think we’re a bitch. Like, we should always “give him a chance” even when we know that’s not what we want. It’s this thing where we end up saying “sure” instead of “yes”, and that’s not the same thing.
Cassi: That’s such an important theme to touch on, especially the nuances of consent. Switching gears a little bit—I heard there were a lot of stories about funny moments on set, and I’d love to hear one.
Lily: We had a whole day dedicated to the sex and intimacy stuff (there’s not a lot of actual sex in the film), and it was like the worst day on set, because we were behind, and everyone’s grumpy, and of course it's a hundred degrees in August. And we had purchased an Anthropologie duvet cover for the scene, this $300 duvet, and by the time we were done it was just drenched in sweat. Not just mine, but like, the lighting guy and the makeup artist and my scene partner. And we ended up returning it because it was so expensive and we needed the refund. [laughs]. And now somebody has that in their house. [laughs]. So basically the moral of the story is that you should wash your linens when you buy them.
Cassi: Hey, when Like Love blows up and is huge, that person’s gonna feel very, very lucky.
Lily: Totally, yeah.
Cassi: Speaking of Like Love blowing up, if you were going to pitch live love to an audience, what would you tell people to convince them to check out the film when it’s out for streaming?
Lily: What I have found is that I’m getting a clearer picture of how big of a village it takes to get something made. You know, our crew crashed on my boss’ floor and borrowed my grandma’s car and my dad made most of our food. My mom was on set every day, too, kind of like our bonus PA. Even understanding the money that people can make off of it… which is essentially very little. It’s really hard to make art, that’s what I would tell people. I think we really take media for granted now, because there’s a bottomless pit of stuff to watch on **insert streaming platform of your choice**. But you have to remember that that stuff is made by real people! It takes literally hundreds of people to make a really okay thing. I don’t think that means you have to like something, but it helps you understand the work that goes in.
As far as why you should care about [Like Love], specifically… There are stories we don’t tell, about sex, and platonic love. I’m not as interested in romantic love, but I’m really interested in friendship and sex and attraction and how those things can go together, or not. I think Like Love is a film that offers this. We have a pretty one-dimensional narrative about what love is: that it’s eternal, that it’s heterosexual, that it’s monogamous, that we know it as soon as we see it. And I wanted to give credit to friendships as something that is beautiful and dynamic and worth caring for, even if it’s not the trope we’ve grown up with.
Cassi: Those are great reasons, and you definitely sold me. One last question: you talked a little bit about directing and writing, so what’s coming up for you in the future?
Lily: Oh wow. My agent asks me this all the time and I’m like, “Who’s to say?” [laughs] I’m getting ready to direct, for sure. I have a short film in pre-production, and am working on some TV pitches. I don’t know specifically what the future holds, but I’m really grateful for the experience of making Like Love right out of college. It was by far the hardest, scariest, most implausible, dysfunctional process I can imagine. And I can’t wait to do it again.
We definitely can’t wait for Lily to do it again, either. You can find her on Instagram, or stream Like Love for free on Amazon Prime.
