Miss Dylan Shifts the Lens in 'Sweet Talkin' Guy'

Miss Dylan Shifts the Lens in 'Sweet Talkin' Guy'

Jan 27, 2025

Dylan and Spencer Wardwell premiered their debut project as sibling co-directors at Sundance Music festival this Saturday. The five-minute short film, Sweet Talkin’ Guy, stars Dylan as a trans woman on three all-too-familiar first dates, with each guy stumbling over their words as they unpack their attraction and fragile masculinity in frantic monologues.

In a world where identity politics have managed to flatten characters in the media into one-dimensional tropes, it’s easy to depict transness as either of two things: watered down for palatability or graphic for the sake of shock value. Dylan doesn’t want to do either. She wants to tell stories that just might happen to be told by someone who’s trans.

“It's really important to me for storytelling to be accessible, something that can translate into many facets,” she says. “I think it's all about the lens.” Rejecting formulaic narratives, Sweet Talkin’ Guy weaves Dylan’s own life experiences into the film without her ever saying a word, something she trusted her brother with from the beginning.

“I was very touched when she reached out with the idea and brought me on to help her bring it to life,” Spencer adds of their collaboration. “We're very much looking forward to making more films together.”

PAPER caught up with Dylan as she prepared for her trip to Utah to talk about the balance between representation and storytelling, working with her brother to share this experience with a broader audience, and the importance of avoiding tokenization.

Where are you, how are you, what's up?

I'm good. I'm in New York. I just flew in yesterday from my vacation. Sundance is taking up a large chunk of my brain space

It’s premiering at Sundance! Congrats. What does that entail beforehand?

There's been a lot more prep than I expected. This is my first film festival. Super honored to have Sundance be the first. It's been a lot of moving parts and prep. But I'm super happy to be doing it, because it's kind of an insane thing.

Was Sundance always the goal?

We submitted a lot of places, but Sundance was definitely the goal. And we're still waiting to hear back from some others, but we're very excited to premiere at Sundance.

I've already watched Sweet Talkin’ Guy like three times. The first thing running through my mind was that trans media can often feel either exploitative or satirical — it’s hard to find a balance while still being humorous and particular. So how did you find that balance, both in production and while you were filming?

Good question. It's really important to me for storytelling to be accessible, something that can translate into many facets. Being a woman dating, I think these kinds of things arise for everyone. Honestly, casting myself kind of makes it easier to not feel exploitative, because it's literally me when I'm like, “Hey, can you do this uncomfortable shot?” It's easier that way.

What was it like working with the male actors, shifting the focus away from what's typically portrayed in trans media and turning the camera back on them?

We wanted to really drive home that it's such a common experience that a straight man might find himself attracted to a trans woman. That’s where the monologue style comes into play with all of the jumpcuts. It was an attempt to really drive home that this is not a unique experience. Luckily, working with them, they're all friends of Spencer’s so that made it easier. They all have experience acting and are amazing. They’re just good people in general, and it was a great vibe on set. Love all of them dearly.

What was it like trusting your brother to help you tell this story? I know it can feel awkward or gauche to touch on dating as a trans woman, or, like, the topic of chasers.

Honestly, Spencer is one of my best friends, so it's pretty easy. Like, we queen out, you know? We're pretty open with each other, so it didn’t feel uncomfortable at all, even though it’s sort of a tense subject matter.

Your character doesn't say anything verbally, but I felt like she was very communicative in every shot. What was the creative vision when deciding how your character would communicate?

From the very early stages, my character wasn't going to have any lines. Like, they're not trying to convince me that they see me as a woman, they're trying to convince themselves. So really, they’re talking to themselves. It kinda came to me in an aha moment as a man was trying to hit on me while fumbling this proposition for a one night stand, and simultaneously grappling with his sexuality in this weird way. I think it just made sense to not have any lines. Like, in real life, when this happens, I don't really get a word in.

Touching on your own personal experiences, was there anything that you felt you wanted to keep for yourself or something you were wavering on how to deliver to audiences?

I guess I was deciding on the delivery of the final line, or like, how that should go, but ultimately I felt right. Like it just made sense.

I mean, it was perfect. Okay, also, we have to know: who was the best kisser?

[Laughs] Funny. There's like, simply no way I could go on record. I’ll say this: we're on a set and we're redoing the same scene multiple times, so there's no sex appeal at all. I'm a woman of romance, if this film says anything, and this, well it's a workplace. So it’s like any other job.

I also noticed in the credits, it said “Introducing Miss Dylan.” Are there some more acting projects in the works?

The number one priority right now for me is continuing collaborating with my brother. We want to really hone in on being a filmmaking duo. We've always talked about and dreamed about doing things together. We have a feature written that, while at Sundance, will be looking for funding in case there're any producers that maybe are reading this article. But yeah, ultimately, we want to tell stories. We're very close and want to continue collaborating. This process was so easy and fun, and hopefully we can make our feature shortly. But as far as acting goes, that is something I'm totally open to.

One of the best ways to overcome transphobia is by humanizing the trans experience. I feel like this film does that well, sharing a common experience that happens to be lensed through transness. What do you see for art and film as we enter another Trump presidency that's been so platformed by an anti-trans agenda?

I'm worried that it will regress into these tokenizing characters that always end up falling short of any sort of depth. They're often really altruistic in a kind of boring way. Not that I want them to be villains. I just want them to have a depth of character. In the feature that Spencer and I have written, the lead would be a trans woman, and nowhere in the script does it get brought up that she's trans, but a lot of her desires are driven by her wanting to be able to have a child as a woman. So it’s sort of just a woman's story. I think about a lot of movies or stories that are somewhat queer, like Romeo and Juliet as a queer story. Or The Substance came out this year. It's about body modification and plastic surgery — that fully could be a trans story that was written by a trans woman, you know? I think it's all about the lens. Leading into this presidency, I hope there's a little bit more depth.

Yeah, I think it's so important to shift the focus away from this untouchable platforming of our identities and just shine some light on the human experience. Anyway, I'm so excited for you. Super congrats on Sundance, and I can't wait for everyone else to see this.

So sad you're not coming.

I know I'm kicking myself in the leg

Maybe we'll be at another festival shortly. I’m so glad you liked it, love you.

Love you! Talk soon.

We wanted to really drive home that it's such a common experience that a straight man might find himself attracted to a trans woman.

Photos courtesy of Dylan and Spencer Wardwell

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