Eva Reign has the starring role in Billy Porter's sweet coming-of-age romantic comedy "Anything's Possible," and though she's relatively new to acting, she gives a magnetic and charming performance.
The film, which comes out on July 22, stars Reign as Kelsa, an animal-lover who dreams of becoming a nature cinematographer and who also sometimes vlogs about her experiences as a trans girl. It follows her relationship with Khal, played by Abubakr Ali. The film is based on a viral Reddit post written by a boy worried about asking out a trans girl he's crushing on, and the film definitely does justice to the sweetness of the source material.
For Reign, the role was an opportunity to take a deep dive into a character. "Playing Kelsa was like playing an alternate version of myself," Reign tells POPSUGAR. "People oftentimes advise against using your own life experience when diving into a role. But me and Kelsa, a lot of our life experiences align. And I don't mean just us being trans, but also we both have moms who work in the medical industry. We both were raised by single moms. We both have a love of clothes and fashion." However, she adds, "I wouldn't say I was as much of an animal person as Kelsa, because my mom really hates animals, so that was never going to happen."
For Porter, "Anything's Possible" was a project designed to present a vision of what could be. "This is an aspirational story. It's almost like a fairytale," Porter told Variety of the film, which is his directorial debut. "We know that. 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."
For Reign, making the film also required some imagination — but she, Porter, and the cast made sure to ground the performance in history. "I had to imagine what life would've looked like, had things been a little bit different," Reign says. "But Billy always wanted us to base it in truth. There are a lot of kids today who are growing up in these very supportive environments with parents who really only want the best for them, just like mine wanted for me."
Reign grew up doing theater in her hometown of St. Louis, but she had relatively little professional experience prior to "Anything's Possible." In the future, she hopes to be a part of sci-fi and fantasy projects, and she wants to direct. But right now, she's just enjoying the ride.
"Billy wanted this film to be something devoid of trauma. So I really had to start there, and I had to really, really think of what are Kelsa's hopes, what are Kelsa's dreams? What lies beyond just this page?" Ultimately, she says, "it was a lot of fun."
