AVAN: The industry really only seems to respect a film about your identity. Like, if I wanted to make a film about being a mixed brown guy who wants to be an artist and then make up some shit about how my brown father doesn't want me to but my white mother does, I could get that movie made in 35 seconds. But the central reason they’re making that film is to commodify our bodies, and I refuse to do that. Ironically though, that’s [a big theme] of the movie, but I refuse to sell myself to a studio that way. HAYLEY: I always feel like that too. I want to be like, “Let me just be in the movie and be Black. Don't make me being Black the movie.” So what I loved about this was that it was just me as Mouse, and Mouse could’ve been anyone. It wasn't about my struggle as a female and all that shit. It was just like real life.
AVAN JOGIA & HAYLEY LAW for Paper Magazine (May 2023)
— story by Sandra Song, photography by Sam Ramirez
“That's why you're doing this? You found me online?”
“Nah, you accepted my request. You wanted more likes. You opened your door to a monster.”
“Fuck you! You're just a pervert with a God complex.”