Nonbinary actor Quintessa Swindell has kicked all kinds of asses in film and television. Most recently, they star in the new Apple TV+ thriller Prime Target as a secret government agent. At the same time, Swindell is also stepping into a new frontier as a first-time filmmaker with their short called The Lily (เดอะลิลลี่) making its world premiere at Sundance. In it, Swindell directs, writes, and co-leads alongside May Petchompoo as a Muay Thai fighter facing off against their former childhood best friend (Petchompoo) in a final fight.
Ahead of the film’s premiere, Swindell and I discussed everything The Lily (เดอะลิลลี่), from getting inspired in Thailand, directing for the sake of art, and the importance of women fighters in film.
Rendy: What interested you in telling this story about these two separate boxers with this decades long beef set between them?
Quintessa: In 2018, I organized a trip to Thailand to do a bunch of volunteering. I’ve always been really curious about Thailand as a place and just how people live around the world and how distant we all are from one another, but how similar our life experiences are and can be. I feel like maybe recently a year and a half ago, I was just thinking about my time in Thailand, and then I was thinking about boxing, and then I had also come across maybe an article. The article was about a child fighting in Thailand, and I think I had just looked at this one photo of this young girl and was like, “Oh my God, I wonder what her life story is and I wonder if she even wants to be there, and is this a common thing of child fighting in Thailand, and how young can you be to be in a ring and how does that all work?” I just thought about her, and then I thought about “Who is she fighting?” And then I thought about, well, what if it was a girl from the US or what if she had the girl she was fighting was her best friend, and how would that work? So there were a lot of things I think at play when it came to the story of this.
Rendy: The short has a strong theme of duality, not just by its split screen, but the narration behind the two parties. What was that process like writing, getting into the different backgrounds of the characters?
Quintessa: I didn’t start with a hard script line by line. I just started with a bunch of images and a general idea, and the lines didn’t come until everything had been shot. I just wanted visuals. I saw the whole film, and that’s usually how I work and how I learn. Everything is visual and sensory, and then all of the words will come after because the movement, the actor will influence everything. I was also going through a very visceral experience in Thailand as we were shooting it. I was training twice a day every day and was thinking about my life and what I wanted. When I saw everything put together, I kind of took all of the things that I was learning and used that as a stream of consciousness.
I kept on thinking about hate and there’s so much polarity in the world, especially today. When I look at the division amongst people across the world, I just really wonder, who told you to hate this person? Why have you hated this person? And you’ve probably grown up with them. You don’t hate people as a child, in my opinion. You’re taught to hate. I just wanted to take a look at that and just explain two sides of a very passionate experience, and there’s no reason why they should hate one another because they love one another. And a part of the film too, in my head, they still love one another. And I wanted to look at just love and traditional Spike Lee shit.
Rendy: Ha. Yeah!
Quintessa: Love and hate.
Rendy: Just got to fight the power.
Quintessa: Yeah! Period. Period! I was like, where does that come from and where’s passion and all of that? And can someone who’s hate-filled be just doing one thing, but asking truly for another? So yeah, that was kind of the idea with the whole thing.
Rendy: How was it having to direct yourself kickboxing, especially within the final sequence and the training aspects.
Quintessa: It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. As a director, you really have to understand how to just work collaboratively with this whole team, especially when you have to step away and they’re going to do their thing. And so there’s so much communication that has to happen because we would, for the fight sequence, I wanted it all in one shot. It’s divided by two, and then it’s just those two tiles blown into one. It was hard because as we filmed it in one shot, we did it four times. Even in the fighting sequence, I’m pretty sure me and May got hit by the camera a few times, but I was like, whatever you do, just please don’t stop. If she cuts open my face, don’t stop. Just do not stop. It was so intense.
Then May, she is a trained professional fighter in Thailand. She was such a natural because we didn’t ask her to do anything that obviously she didn’t do. I also had a translator there. So he was also translating everything and making sure everyone was comfortable and aware, but it was so easy. We were meeting her where she was at. She wasn’t meeting us.
Though, I can’t watch the movie because I’m trained so much more past that point. When I watch it, I’m just kind of like, well, fuck. Because I would kick ass today. But also I watch myself and I know how much pain I’m in because I fractured my foot a few days before that.
Rendy: Was that from the shooting?
Quintessa: No, not from shooting. I was training every single day, twice a day, sometimes three times a day. But a few days before we shot the fight scene, I fractured it and I was like, “Well, there’s no way!” When I look at myself, I know that I’m so scared to throw a kick or a knee because I know I’m going to hurt my toe.
Rendy: Yeah. Oh my God. More power to you.
Quintessa: Facts, listen, you got to do what you got to do.
Rendy: Were there any references you took as inspiration when it came to finding the style or the rhythm of the fight sequences?
Quintessa: As far as fighting style? No. There was maybe one shot referenced from Ali with Will Smith, and that was basically it. As far as the fight sequence, it’s so difficult because there’s no Mohai fight films really. I mean, there are, but I don’t know. The thing that I wanted to do with this one is just make it as real as it could be, and as honest it could be. We were throwing real punches, real kicks, real knees, everything was real. And so the pain and the exhaustion isn’t fucking around. It’s like, holy shit. . But yeah, there’s so many fight films out there that I love, and there’s many that I fucking hate.
Rendy: Oh, I feel that. Let’s go to the ones you love and hate. This is a safe space.
Quintessa: Yeah, sure. My thing is like, well, I think it’s not really what I love and hate about fight films, but rather just films that portray female athletes. I think for me, it seems as though young women can’t really escape sensationalism even when they’re just the best at what they do. There always has to be some kind of side situation where that makes them hypersexualized or sensationalized or at the mercy of something that just takes away from the work and the sport. And for me, when I look at men portrayed as athletes in film, there is this side of sensationalism, but it’s not the same as women in sports and film in my opinion. And men get the better roles, the better characters, the better films, not just even when it comes to how it’s shot is better and more visceral, in my opinion. And for me, when I look at maybe Million Dollar Baby is one that is like, oh, okay, good. But still a little bit of sensationalism. And when in reality, there’s other men’s stories that are just straight up what they are sports films. So when I look at the future of women’s sports as portrayed in film, I just want more of the sport and more of the personal journey as it pertains to becoming the best. Not at the expense of a guy or whatever.
The Lily is interesting because it’s with the presence of the father or the influence of the father, but it’s like the girls deal with their hate. It’s not really involving the dads too much or any type of sensationalism. I just wanted a straight up story and a straight up fight in a way.
Rendy: Well, is this something a feature you’d like to develop? Is this something that you like to develop as a feature later down the line?
Quintessa: 100%. It’s crazy because I’ve started having those conversations now. The only reason why it was shot is because I wanted to. It wasn’t like a short film. It was basically a proof of concept. Because I feel like when I talk to people about projects, I’m very esoteric and floaty, and I’m like, oh, this and this. And a lot of maybe people are like, I don’t know how that could work, and how would that look? And I was like, you know what? Well fuck it. Let me just go and film it for you.
Rendy: Yeah, it’s like alright…here you go.
Quintessa: Yeah, exactly. It’s like, do you kind of see it now? You know what I’m saying when I told you the two girls? But yeah, so that’s something I definitely want to pursue, but I think in the future, it’s just kind of finding two people. For me, if the Lilly were to be developed into a feature, I would definitely want it to be the most gruesome and brutal and bloody fight that’s probably ever been made.
The Lily (เดอะลิลลี่) is now streaming as part of Short Film Program 4 on the Sundance online platform.
