Movies

“BFFs” follows two friends who discover some new feelings

Two seemingly straight best friends with relationship issues hit up a couples retreat for the weekend and, of course, pretend to be lovers. But Kat (Tara Karsian) and Samantha (Andrea Grano) get more than just the laughs they’re expecting—they get a dose of the kind of lesbian processing we’re all too aware of.

BFFs poses the question: Can you fall in love with your best friend in an instant?

The stars of the film are also its writers and producers—the hilarious Tara Karsian and Andrea Grano. We recently got to pick their brains on BFFs.

photo by Erik Hyler

AfterEllen.com: How did you come up with the idea for the movie and why did you want to pursue it from a lesbian angle as opposed to a straight one?

Andrea Grano: Tara and I have been friends for a long time and we tend to banter a lot. We were on the phone bantering, and I think I made an off-handed joke that, “We need to go to therapy.” And then I sort of joked that if we went she would realize just how in love with me she is. And she laughed and laughed and laughed, and said, “You’re the funniest person I ever met. Sorry we didn’t go that way.”

Then we went, “That’s sort of a funny idea for a short.” Two women who go to therapy together, but they’re just friends. We sort of flushed it out and started writing the short and realized that it was actually a feature.

I don’t know that we did approach it necessarily from a lesbian angle. I think we more approached it from an open sexuality angle. That if right place, right time, right person in your life, that those feelings could sort of emerge.

AE: Obviously because you’re both good actors we believe you as best friends in the film. But how long have you actually known each other?

Tara Karsian: I think it’s been 12 years. The first two were great.

AG: We’ve been riding the wave of the first two years for the last 10, right?

TK: Yeah, pretty much.

AE: How did you meet?

TK: Prison. Uh no. I was directing a one act and I lost an actress—no, I fired an actress. And I called a friend and said, “Do you have anybody who would fit this description?” And she said, “Yeah, the girl you sat across from at my birthday party.” And I said, “Who was that?” And Andrea didn’t remember me either, so we made such a huge impact on each other. She decided to grace the stage with her presence, and I directed her in a one act. Yeah Andrea, I’m leaving out the part where I hated you the first time I met you.

AG: But you know what? But you didn’t leave it out, did you? Because you just threw it in.

photo by Erik Hyler

AE: Okay, do you think it’s really possible to be best friends for years and then just suddenly realize over one weekend you’re attracted to each other?

AG: Do I think it’s possible to have a weekend where you go, “Wait a minute, why am I not with you?” Absolutely. I think that happens a lot. I think maybe less likely if you’ve lived your life as a straight woman or a straight man—same sex friends—I think it’s maybe less common, but I do think it’s very possible. Yeah, I do. In fact Tara, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.

TK: Well I was just going to say, we’re going to San Diego for one of our final festivals, and I was like, “Wow Andrea, this could be our final weekend to…” No, probably the same answer. I do think, and we’ve talked about this before, I think especially as you start getting older — we’re not, I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, we’re not 20.

Seconds of silence go by.

AE: Is that a pause for my reaction?

TK: Yeah, that was pause for your reaction, and you really failed. That was such a fail. No, but I do think that as you get older, I think in a weird way it becomes probably more possible because you’ve made decisions on what you will and will not deal with in relationships. So I do think it’s possible.

AG: I’m sorry, I don’t mean to highjack the interview, but does that mean you think people who do that are settling?

TK: No, absolutely not. Did I say that? Did I say that?

AG: I’m wondering if it was off the record implied.

TK: No, I don’t think that at all. I think certainly there are a lot of people, straight or gay, who choose relationships for companionship. I think it becomes more about companionship and stuff like that. That’s not to say that they can’t have the same amount of love, it’s just a different love.

AG: What you’re attracted to changes. And I think if that happens simultaneously for two friends, then I do think it could create a sort of bubble. In our movie we try to do a forced situation where these two women were forced to look at their own issues, and you know how sometimes when you’re like in an intense situation feelings can bubble up or be misinterpreted, or however you want to look at the movie, that was our goal—to make it intense enough that it was somewhat believable that these women might go, “Oh.”

AE: So Sam jumps from relationship to relationship, whereas Kat’s long-term relationships eventually always end. What do you think it is about these two people that would make them work together? If they can work together.

AG: I think whenever you have that thing where you jump from one relationship to another, or you’re sort of a serial monogamist and as soon as it gets too real or too boring you jump—I think they’re all based in the same. It’s usually fear.

If two people realize that and have that sort of commonality of opinion or commonality of fear, I think that could draw two people together. I think that could work.

TK: I do think the beauty of possibly getting into a relationship with a friend is that you know all of their—I always say the thing that you fall in love with a person for is usually the thing that you hate about them at the end. So I think if two friends were to get into this relationship, they know everything about each other, you know? That would also probably be ultimately what would destroy the relationship.

What would make those two characters last in a relationship is their sense of humor, which is like two 12-year-old boys. Laughter would make their relationship last. But everything else would probably not.

AE: Then do you believe Sam and Kat are genuinely attracted to each other? Or is it just a condition of their environment?

AG: In that moment, for that weekend, I do believe they are genuinely attracted to each other.

TK: I’ve often described it like being at a wedding, and you end up hooking up with somebody from the wedding. It’s because you’re so involved in the love that’s happening around you, and the romance and all of this stuff. And then you end up sleeping with someone from the wedding and then you go, “Oh my god, what did I do?”

Everybody in their life at one point has done something because of not only the environment, but the mood.

AG: But here’s the difference, these two women love each other. I mean genuinely love each other as friends. So you have that base in the movie. That’s why it’s sort of a loaded question. I think it’s a little bit of both in this case.

TK: Oh I think so too!

AG: No you don’t. You just dismissed it as drunken wedding shit. Whatever, we’re breaking up. I’m done. Sam just broke up with Kat—it’s an exclusive!

TK: I think everybody has had that moment, gay or straight, where you’ve looked at someone you’re very close to and gone, “Huh. I wonder if I could ever be with that person.” Not just sleep with that person, but actually be in a relationship with that person.

AG: I will say this. I think those characters left for the retreat as friends. I don’t think they left with this like hidden agenda.

I think our approach to it was that they were bona fide friends. They didn’t harbor a secret attraction. But that being said, I do believe when you’re very close friends, male, female, whatever, there’s a level of attraction. You’re attracted to their personality. You’re attracted to them on some level—whether it’s a sexual attraction or not, there’s a level of attraction or else you couldn’t spend intimate amounts of time with somebody.

AE: You know, Kat owns a Jeep Wrangler.

TK: Okay, this is actually brilliantly funny. The director said we had to have a convertible because of the way that we were shooting those scenes. And literally one of our PA’s said, “Oh, you can borrow my Jeep Wrangler.” And yes, she was a lesbian. And I said, “Oh my god, you’re kidding? This could not be a more lesbian car!”

AE: Exactly. And you let that happen in your movie. That’s foreshadowing! Isn’t that foreshadowing?

AG: Yes. It’s my theory Kat all along was attracted to Sam and this weekend allowed it to come out.

AE: My last question is one that I feel you’ve been trying to avoid. So we’ll see if you’ll answer this — do you believe these two kids will actually get it together and really make a go for a relationship?

TK: No, we’re not going to answer that.

AG: I always joke that this is a litmus test for how romantic you are. The romantics are like, “They totally end up together.” And then the sort of, if you want to call them realists/pessimists, are like, “There’s no way. They leave there and they go back to being friends.” We kind of like the idea that people walk away with whatever they kind of need to or want to.

BFFs is playing at FilmOut San Diego on May 30. Visit the film’s website to find out when it’s screening at a film festival near you.

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