Hayley Kiyoko

And so, you know, it was important to me with my directorial debut to, like, approach it with a mature lens.

It's like they are, like, our lead.

She was 18 when we shot this.

Mm-hmm.

but it has this mature lens because they think they're like 35.

They think like when you meet your crush, you're like, this is the person I'm getting married to.

Opening weekend is vital for the gays, the allies, everyone to show up in theaters.

This has been a 10-year journey, which is wild.

It is—I don't recommend putting in—

10 years of energy into something because it's so intense.

Like it feels like a lot of pressure, but it's also so exciting for my community.

And we've been needing a story like this for so long.

Not initially when we released the music video and I saw the comments and people being like, this needs to be a feature film.

I was like, oh my gosh, I've never gotten to buy a ticket before.

And I go to a theater and get to see a movie like this.

Like, oh my gosh, we do need this into a movie.

And then I did the book because the movie thing wasn't panning out.

It was kind of like my Hail Mary of like, well, if I die tomorrow, at least the story will exist and live on.

And then that became a number one New York Times bestseller, which then catapulted.

We're skipping a lot of trauma, you guys.