Honey Lauren’s Mistake, which closes the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival this week, opens with a birth, and parents making a decision: Their new baby has both male and female traits, and they have to decide if their child is a boy or a girl.
The baby is born in the 1940s, when there was even less information or discussion of intersex births than there is today. It is set mostly in the early ’70s, when the child has grown up into Lawrence, or Larry. Played by Dominic Bogart, an ex-college football player known for American Primeval, Larry is fueled by testosterone, and prone to violence — until he goes so far that something has to change.
Lauren, who also stars in the film as Larry’s aunt, Peg, named the character after herself. As a child, she spent a year identifying as a boy named Larry. Her parents were on board, but the rest of the world often wasn’t, and Lauren eventually went back to living as female. Later she would learn details of her own life that gave her a better understanding of her feelings, which helped her shape Mistake.
We talked with Lauren about writing and directing Mistake, casting decisions, and a surprisingly emotional moment in a tobacco field.
Honey Lauren on Making Mistake
MovieMaker: You say in the press notes for Mistake that you spent a year of your childhood living as a boy named Lawrence, before you finally got tired of fighting to be recognized that way. You also note that under a recently expanded definition that would include ”a difference in sex linked traits or anatomy,” you yourself would fall under the definition of “’what is intersex.” Can you talk about how these experiences affected your work on the film? And just for clarity, do you identify as intersex?
Honey Lauren: While it’s been decades since I was Lawrence, that “identity,” that time in my life, still lives inside of me and feels like yesterday. I know Lawrence will always be a part of me and was the driving force for my “need” to write Mistake. I also found my fixation with the boys’ white T-shirt and the way Larry was dressed, almost an obsession. Also, the way Dominic’s arms looked coming out of his 1970s short sleeves… the physical images all played a part in both how this film was shot and cast.
I myself was born with differences. One I knew about at three years old and another, I didn’t find out about till later in life, in my child-bearing years. And it wasn’t till three months before principal photography, as I was doing the very last pass of research, that I came to learn that my differences fell under the umbrella of the expanded definition of what is intersex. Intersex is a spectrum. I do have intersex traits. I am intersex.
This discovery was inexplicably soothing to me and I remember feeling that my whole life finally “made sense.” I can’t tell you exactly how this affected my directing Mistake, but I’m sure on some unconscious level, this discovery about myself gave me a confidence going into my work.
MovieMaker: You’re in the midst of a great festival run. Can you say how audiences have responded to the film, including older audiences in red states?
Honey Lauren: I worked to tell Mistake with a compassionate view of each character… Mother, Father, Sheriff, Lily, Larry, Aunt Peg, everyone. I believe that with compassion, the way this movie will make a person feel can change the way they think. I am happy to say, I’m not wrong about this. I’ve seen it. And so I seek, without hesitation, the broadest audience possible.
I am grateful that Mistake has had a distinct and powerful impact upon everyone who has seen it. Literally everyone. Regardless of the color of their state or the pronouns they use, the reception could not have been better. I am excited to say Mistake has been invited to festivals around the country and Europe.
It is hard for me to speak to the success of Mistake. The response has been so strong, I fear people will think I am fluffing my own pillow. And so, I seek all audiences that they can decide for themselves the quality, and value of the film. This film speaks for itself, so I am most comfortable simply asking that it be seen.
MovieMaker: Casting can often be so scrutinized — I thought Dominic Bogart was excellent as Lawrence, and have zero issues with his casting. But did you ever second-guess whether a cis man was right for this role?
Honey Lauren: Being born intersex is a congenital difference. If I was casting a role where the character had a congenital heart condition, I would find zero need to find an actor with a congenital heart condition. I cast many queer actors in this film who played cis-gender people. Should I have only cast them in queer roles? Absolutely not.
At the same time, I recognize that in this world of cancel culture, which is driven by emotions leading to unreasonable demands such as telling the industry what actors, particularly unknown actors, are allowed or not allowed to play, it is a risk to not submit to such social pressure. So, I suppose, the short answer is I took the risk. I did not second-guess my goal to have the very best actor play the role for every part.
MovieMaker: I think River Gallo’s Ponyboi is the only other film I’ve seen with an intersex protagonist. How did you feel about potentially introducing the concept of being intersex to many audiences?
Honey Lauren: I think introducing intersex characters in the narrative form, as opposed to
documentary, is almost necessary at this juncture. I say that because of the challenges in
healthcare and human rights that people with differences are facing in the world at this
time.
I cannot tell you how many people I spoke to who had no idea what intersex was, or that it even existed. And it wasn’t just the cisgender community! I believe that Mistake is educating and affecting without preaching. And that’s important, if you want people to hear. All this said, I had zero agenda writing this film and making it. I am a storyteller. I wrote the outline for Mistake 23 years ago and the script 11 years ago. And at the same time, I do recognize and honor the relevance of this
story.
MovieMaker: I may have missed something, but I believe you set this in an unnamed part of the South. Why didn’t you want to set it in a specific state or town?
Honey Lauren: You are completely correct. I set this “somewhere in the American South” as a choice. I wanted to create a world and bring people into it. That was my goal. No distractions. That is my goal with all my screenplays. In the case of Mistake, I was not setting out to point the finger at a specific place where this story would “happen.”
MovieMaker: What was the biggest challenge in making this film, and how did you overcome it?
Honey Lauren: We needed a tobacco farm. And not just any tobacco farm — I wanted yellow, bright yellow tobacco! The farm and the tobacco are nothing less than a character in the film. By a miracle, an old friend of mine who moved to the South found me a farmer who was willing to let us shoot. A private tobacco farm, how rare is that?
But here’s the thing, we needed to get there before the tobacco was harvested for the year and the SAG strike broke out, so we were delayed. I needed to shoot before his last field was harvested —there were six fields — and navigating with SAG to get their interim contract was not an easy task as there were so many films they needed to work with and they only had so much manpower for the work demanded.
In the end, we made it to the farm just as they were starting to cut the last of their six fields. We only shot three days in the South, two b-roll days and one day with a few actors.
I remember the night we shot the tractor scene with Father, Matt Bogart — worth noting, Dominic’s brother played his father — and Mother, Kay Lenz. I looked over to Darryl, the farmer, and he was crying. I soon realized they were tears of joy and gratitude.
When I asked him why was he crying, he told me that this was the last year, after 30 years, that he would be harvesting tobacco and we were on the very last field! It was too expensive for a private farmer to keep it going.
He loved this beautiful plant and was amazed at the scene we were shooting, as he was known to stroke a huge yellow leaf and call it “beautiful” as Father is depicted doing in the film. He told me how happy he was that we were getting it on film. It was truly a moment I’ll never forget.
Mistake screens Wednesday at the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival. You can read more of our film festival coverage here.
Main image: Dominic Bogart as Lawrence in Mistake. Panik Piktures
