Billy Porter and Eva Reign discuss the ‘Anything’s Possible’ scene that left production divided
WARNING: Spoilers for Anything’s Possible ahead!Billy Porter’s much-anticipated directorial debut Anything’s Possible has finally hit streaming, and the wait was all worth it.The story follows trans teen Kelsa (Eva Reign) and her budding crush on artistic classmate Khal (Abubakr Ali) that develops into so much more, as well as the trials and tribulations surrounding their high school courtship.As touching as the romance driving the film is, another relationship runs even deeper throughout — that of Kelsa and her mother, played by the one and only Renée Elise Goldsberry.Their sweet, easy relationship suddenly finds itself in choppy waters when she discovers the YouTube channel Kelsa has been using to document her transition journey and demands she take it down.
On top of that, Kelsa’s situation at school has taken a turn for the worse, and her mother doesn’t feel it’s safe for her to be exposing that much of her life on the internet.According to Porter and Reign, the scene was as divisive for those creating the movie as it was for the two characters.
Porter found himself having to firmly contend that Kelsa’s mother’s decision was justified not only by her daughter’s transness, but by her age and Black culture.“That was a bone of contention inside of the putting together of this film,” he reveals to Queerty. “This is a Black family, this is a Black mother, and this is how mad I had to get in the conversations about this.”“I literally had to say in this fight, ‘Please, somebody look me in the face and say that if your child – your BLACK child – in this world right now, today, was posting her transition online without your knowledge, you wouldn’t lose your mind.
