In honor of its virtual premiere, we spoke to Hanna Gray Organschi, Carys Douglas, and Victoria Pedretti about the short, F*ck That Guy.
Growing up can be a lot, and when you’re a teenager on the verge of a whole new litany of experiences, the overwhelm is real. Relationships are changing. You’re not quite a kid, but barely an adult, so you really don’t know any better. It can all be a lot, especially for Frankie, the protagonist of writer/director Hanna Gray Organschi’s latest short film, F*ck That Guy. With her friend, Angie, in an entirely different stage in her life, Frankie is racing to catch up to her.
What does that mean exactly? For Frankie, it means proving that sex doesn’t mean a gosh darn thing. And, like any good older friend, Angie humors the teen in trying to dispel the mystique around that magical first time. Of course, things don’t go entirely as planned, but that’s life. And life is not always easy to understand, especially when the things we hear growing up don’t always make sense in the end.
Ahead of the short’s virtual premiere on November 15, we talked to Organschi and actors Carys Douglas, who plays Frankie, and Victoria Pedretti, who plays Angie, about the new project. Throughout the course of the conversation, we discussed how the setting makes a major impact on how the story develops, the complexities of growing up, and the hidden meanings behind the phrase “I miss you.”
Hanna, what was your thought process while writing F*ck That Guy in setting the story in the early ‘90s versus, say, the aughts or present day?
Photo Credit: Willa
Hanna Gray Organschi: I was a ’90s kid, and feel very formed by the ’90s. I have also thought so hard about what was going on with my young parents in the 90s, and what it was to be them. And, as an extension of that, I have a pretty rich, imaginative kind of world around what adolescent me might have been then, and how I would have navigated things that I did navigate, and what kind of different ages of me could have been with that very particular set of circumstances.
In terms of ’92 specifically, it was just this incredible kind of culture clash moment. This huge push for progressivism, this kind of entrenched traditionalism that didn’t want to budge, this really kind of provocative, sexy music and fashion, these things that I just really love and feel formed by as me, and that felt really kind of delicious for us, for a setting, for this particular dynamic.
I think that a coming of age can happen at every moment. It happens today. It happened 10 years ago and will happen 10 years in the future. So I felt aware of, when we did dive into that, what that would mean for the story. What would that mean for the characters. And really trying to honor that so a number of reasons.
This short does so much, and it’s just so thoughtful. It made me go, ‘Man, this really was what it was like at 17,’ when we just all wanted to grow up really quickly, and having the older character witness the younger character with that sense of knowing really resonated as an older viewer looking back.
Organschi: I’m glad it resonates. I feel like we, I don’t know, it’s a weird thing to feel like you’re on the cusp of something, because it’s really, really exciting. I’m not going to say what it is. It can be really exciting. It can also feel really flattening. It’s a disorienting moment. Really, really caring about someone who you feel like your dynamic is going to shift with has been at every kind of phase of my life, like the Earth-shaking kind of thing. So, trying to figure out how to explore that was definitely, really, I don’t know my way in, with these two people,
The line “I miss you” is said a couple of times by Frankie to Angie, with the meaning behind it evolving from beginning to end. There’s so much buried in that phrase that we really only scratch the surface of it in a span of fifteen minutes. Can we talk about the evolution of what is a seemingly innocent line?
Photo Credit: Willa
Carys Douglas: I think it’s like, what do you say when there’s so much to say? From Frankie’s point of view, I don’t even know if she has the understanding, [or] like the words to explain how she’s feeling. I think it’s a connector. It’s reaching out and trying to say, I love you. I am going to miss you. But because it’s present, and it always changes the meaning for me, because, as you said, there is so much buried underneath it, but it’s like reaching out. It’s trying to connect with somebody on a whole bunch of different levels, and with so much nuance that I think the short does kind of show. That’s my take.
Organschi: To just build on that, because I am with you, what it was for me writing it, I feel like sometimes I’m nostalgic for a moment that I’m currently living. I’m worried about that moment leaving, and so it’s hard for me to be present, and so I can communicate, sort of in this grasping way, about almost like what future me is feeling, and that takes me out in this kind of like strange and ultimately, less connected way to that current moment.
What I think is happening for Frankie, when she first says, “I miss you to Angie,” is sort of like grappling with feeling already it’s slipping away, this dynamic and this phase, and Angie’s sort of literal. What I love about how we return to it is that Frankie, in some ways, is falling back into that, but Angie doesn’t let her off the hook. Angie really does understand what it is to be connected in that moment and be really present.
And so, there’s a shift, hopefully, in what that means for both of them, and that feels so I don’t know, it kind of takes my breath away, that kind of power of a friend to yank you into the present. And that feels like what Angie offers in a kind of a firm and such a loving way, hopefully toward the end of [F*ck That Guy].
Victoria, what are your thoughts?
Victoria Pedretti: There’s often a lot of subtext in the way that we communicate. I think about it a lot as an actor, and in this case, it’s a very rich subtext that Angie, at first, isn’t able to hear so clearly, and I think that that’s because of the kind of unsteadiness that exists in this really strange moment in their friendship, in which you know, things are about to change.
By the end, I think even though things are definitely going to change, they can both really feel this love and this strong core of their friendship is so is so present in things going wrong, and I think that maybe not so suddenly, but she’s able to understand more fully, or be open to and present with the subtext and the complexity of what’s going on in Frankie and has understood it coming from it as the older person.
In terms of navigating the tornado of internal emotions, can you, Carys, talk about navigating the rapid journey of emotions Frankie goes through in such a short time?
Photo Credit: Willa
Douglas: When I look back at how I felt during that time, starting college and leaving, just my experience of that, every oscillating emotion had equal weight. Everything felt so important, serious, and scary. In retrospect, when I look at the older people in my life who may have witnessed me during that time, I look back with such kindness and softness, because I know that they saw and experienced it as well. As a 17-18-year-old, you have this tendency to think maybe that you’re so alone in that, and that all these emotions you’re kind of having to weed through by yourself.
In terms of acting, [F*ck That Guy] was my first film. I was 19 at the time, so there was this desire for me to do well. I was surrounded by women that I’m very inspired by, like obviously Victoria and Dagmara [Dominczyk] as actresses, and Hanna is such a leader. There was a lot of truth in that nervousness, curiosity, and excitement, and hopefully, that played towards Frankie’s experience as well.
Hanna really explained to me that it’s trusting that we’ve all had these experiences before. And so, finding that soft view of being able to look softly onto myself as a 17-18-year-old, and see, in retrospect, how real all those emotions felt, that helped me kind of get into Frankie’s shoes.
I like that you said looking back with softness. Because I think most, I think all of us, it can be really hard to do that, depending on like, how possibly cringe we might have been. But I really like that this is the ending point for the interview of just looking back with softness and a kindness, which we can all do a little more of.
F*ck That Guy will have its virtual premiere November 15, 2025. Watch the trailer here.
Images courtesy of Willa. Read more articles by Sarah Musnicky here.
