Billy Porter’s directorial debut takes a look “at what we can be”
BY LUCAN FAIRWEATHER, IMAGE COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS
Billy Porter’s directorial debut, Anything’s Possible (previously known as What If), is a trans coming-of-age love story. An official trailer was released near the start of Pride month and it’s full of joy.
The romcom stars Black transgender actress and former assistant editor at Them, Eva Reign, as Kelsa. The story follows Kelsa, a trans girl navigating life as a high school senior, who’s classmate ends up falling for her. In an interview with Variety, Porter described the film as an “aspirational story” and “almost like a fairytale.”
“It’s a look at what we can be. That’s what we as artists get to do — look at what we can be and what we should be,” he added.
The cast also includes Tony Award winner and Hamilton star Renée Elise Goldsberry as Kelsa’s mother, and Abubakr Ali as Kelsa’s love interest Khal.
Reign previously spoke to Them in an interview about her journey from journalist to actress, and her experience of working on the film: “It’s ironic: The movie’s called ‘Anything’s Possible,’ but I didn’t believe it.”
She added: “My whole life, I’d wanted to be an actress, but even after I got that call I was telling myself, I’m a Black trans girl — I’m not going to be the lead in a movie. That’s not feasible. I’ll be lucky to play someone’s friend.”
Anything’s Possible highlights how important queer-positive and trans-positive stories are for the LGBTQI community, and how important it is to cast transgender people in lead roles.
The film will be released straight to Amazon rather than having a theatrical release.
Porter explained this decision, saying: “The only things that are doing well in movie theatres right now are Marvel movies and blockbusters.”
He added: “Eyeballs will be on it because you can watch it from your house. Honey, you can watch it from your phone if you want to. And that’s the audience that it’s for.”
Anything’s Possible is expected to be released on Amazon on July 22.
DIVA magazine celebrates 28 years in print in 2022. If you like what we do, then get behind LGBTQI media and keep us going for another generation. Your support is invaluable.
✨ linktr.ee/divamagazine ✨
