New film Mutt follows a trans man’s rollercoaster 24 hours in New York

This interview took place before the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike:

Actor, filmmaker and artist Lío Mehiel’s work is marked by change. Both in film and as a visual artist, they delve into transness as a philosophy of transcendence – both within and beyond the body – and play with its inherent contradictions. This year, their project Angels, an ongoing collection of stone sculptures of trans people on which they are producer and creative director, debuts at LA’s SIZED Gallery. An exhibition launch alone would, presumably, be enough to make 2023 a major year for Lío professionally in and of itself. But in January they became the first trans person to win the Sundance Special Jury Award for Acting, having “charmed, seduced and compelled” the jury with their performance as Feña, the starring role in the new trans-led indie Mutt.

Set to premiere in August, the debut feature from writer-director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz follows Feña through a relentless 24 hours in New York City, through Ridgewood and Brunswick and across the state line to Newark Airport. A nuanced portrait of transition in various forms, Mutt treats its central players with tremendous grace even as they hurt each other, lash out and break things. Hindered and helped by a trio of characters from his pre-transition life – his ex-boyfriend, his little sister and his father – Feña grasps for connection at every turn.

Lío’s performance showcases the humanity of Feña’s character, framing him neither as victor or villain, but as a bruised and tender young person trying to navigate life in an incessant city. We spoke with Lío about Mutt’s ‘inbetweenness’, people’s capacity for change and treating your imperfect characters with grace.

From the title down, everything in this film is about inbetweenness. There’s such a deep humanity to it – that most people’s lives are not one extreme or the other. Did that connect with you?

Lío Mehiel: Absolutely. Feña identifies as a trans man, whereas I identify as nonbinary transmasculine. So the inbetweenness I really understand. I’m the whitest person in my mum’s family, and I’m the brownnest person in my dad’s family. In every aspect of my life, there is a contradiction that I’m sitting in between. It felt really exciting to explore Feña from that perspective because I think people have a view of transness as being binary and that trans people can be categorised as a monolith. In actuality, for me transness feels like an invitation to creativity.

Mutt also doesn’t present binary transition as being some kind of destination, or something that can ever fully be completed. How does that link to your own artistic practice of exploring transness as a philosophy?

Lío Mehiel: Cole Doman, who plays my ex-boyfriend in the movie, talks about this really beautifully. From his perspective this is a story about transition, in a broader sense, not just related to gender identity. Each of the three supporting characters is in moments of transition. In a way, picturing Feña within these three relationships invites people to recognise that everyone is always discovering themselves anew if they let themselves. I have family members who have literally said to me, ’I can’t change, I don’t want to change.’ And I’m like, ‘Wow, you have maybe 40 years of life left, and you’re not going to change. Does that mean you’re not learning?’ Because when we learn, we change. There are so many amazing benefits to being curious in the world.

How did you approach taking on this performance of a trans experience different to your own?

Lío Mehiel: It’s interesting. I don’t feel wise enough to pin myself down. I am humble in the face of how much I have changed even over the past five years of my life, even in the past six months of sharing this film. There’s a part of me that’s a trans man, and then there’s a part of me that is discovering my femininity. Which is not mutually exclusive, but I’m discovering my femininity for the first time in a really authentic way, because I feel more comfortable in my body.

It was a privilege to be able to explore Feña specifically because he shares some life experiences that Vuk has had. It felt like by taking on this role, what I was really doing was trying to honour Vuk’s experience and vision, even though it’s not completely autobiographical. I understand what it feels like to be misgendered and have to constantly defend who you are. That’s really at the crux of a lot of what Feña feels like he has to do. That’s something I think most people who don’t fit into a cis-white heteronormative structure feel like they have to do, even if they’re not trans people.

Did working with a trans-led team free you up to focus on other aspects of the performance?

Lío Mehiel: Absolutely. I didn’t have to explain myself, so Vuk and I could talk about the things that Feña is afraid of, the things that trigger Feña, the things that Feña has a soft spot for – the way that he loves his little sister and would do anything for her. But also, sometimes he wants to slap her, you know what I mean? Not literally, obviously. But just in the way that you feel towards siblings. We got to talk about the specifics of the relationships and the insecurities and the desires that all human beings experience.

It didn’t have to be about how to honour or portray or represent transness. Because Vuk and myself agreed that we’re not trying to speak for the whole community. We’re just trying to share this one experience and in that way contribute to the plethora of voices that we know to exist now and want to exist in the future.

Feña’s father is portrayed with such tenderness, even as he misunderstands. Can you tell me a bit about the relationship between your characters?

Lío Mehiel: Part of what drew me to this script was the way Vuk was able to capture the chasm between loving someone and having the tools you need for them to receive that love. It’s so true to our moment, in that I really do think most people would receive and love a person who shares that they’re trans if they felt like they understood how to do that. The funny thing is that to love a trans person is just to love a person like you would anybody else. But because people feel like they don’t have the language or they don’t ’understand’ – which is kind of not even true, but they’re taught by the media, and by other institutions that it’s this other ’thing’ and they don’t get it – there’s a shame that comes up around that. That causes people to be fearful and aggressive, and defensive. And I don’t actually think that’s representative of how they really feel.

What was so beautiful about the relationship between Feña and his father, Pablo, is that you see the dad trying so hard to just protect his kid and to love his kid. And because Feña is also imperfect in these exchanges, he’s lashing out because he’s feeling triggered and not using the best language to like, invite his dad in. You see them trying to love each other and trying to connect and then failing, and then eventually they succeed.

This sense of being between two cultures, and slightly cut off from one through circumstance, is a major part of the film. How important was the film’s representation of the Latinx experience for you?

Lío Mehiel: I’m only speaking for myself, but both Vuk and I are people who have white privilege because we have light skin and we’re perceived as white. In a way, our mixed ethnicity is erased in that. I take that as an invitation to have more responsibility for my role in the world. I think Feña sort of occupies that same space, where he does have this mixed ethnicity background and has an immigrant father, but he is a native New Yorker, you know what I mean? He identifies as an American in a way.

I was born in New York but lived in Puerto Rico until I was five. Transitioning into school in New York once I came back was an experience of feeling like an outsider and wanting to disavow my otherness. Spanish was my first language. But I was so ashamed, I didn’t want to be speaking it at all. And as a result, I’ve lost some of the language. For me as a Latin person, in the US, this feeling of otherness causes you to have a chip on your shoulder. But then there’s also this feeling of pride. Like, ’You don’t know the complexity of who I am, because you’re not reading that on me, but it’s inside of me.’ The amount of that experience I’m already bringing to the table was what was needed for it to be communicated in the story.

Mutt is out in US cinemas from August 18.