Sebastien Tobler, Ken Kirby, and Leila Perry Want Us To Love and Let Go in This Time

Mixed Asian Media - May 27, 2023

By Jalen Jones

The day before I met with Sebastien Tobler, Ken Kirby, and Leila Perry, I drove down to Eagle Rock for lunch with my grandparents. I had grown up in Eagle Rock and the surrounding neighborhoods for most of my childhood, and — despite no longer living there — have always felt like a magnet was lodged in my head, constantly luring me back to that crested rock towering over the town. This unspoken, near-underground charm of Northeast Los Angeles is one that has captivated Sebastien Tobler, and partially inspired his latest film This Time.

Starring Ken Kirby and Leila Perry as Colin and Laela, past lovers who — after being separated over 20 years ago by the 1998 riots in Jakarta — rekindle their flame in the intimate pockets of Los Angeles. I met with the stars and director to discuss This Time, and to figure out how to love the past, the present, and the locations in between.

I love how unique the characters' backstories are in This Time. How did the locations play a role in this film?

Sebastien Tobler: For Jakarta, it sort of symbolizes how you move through all the sudden changes. It was just something that symbolized a moment in time. It was like a marker, or an event, and everything after that event is completely different. Think about the pandemic; life pre-pandemic compared to post-pandemic life. You're able to delineate your timeline and kind of say, “Oh, that was [pre-pandemic], and this is now. That's really important in this film.

Specifically Jakarta, also, because I lived there, and I knew a lot of students and international schools that had to leave before they even graduated. Graduation is like a rite of transition, and they're kind of robbed of that. It was really dramatic in terms of all those pieces. As it relates to the characters, they never had a chance to really have any kind of closure. All the countries I've ever lived in were each their own character. You form a bond to these places, especially when you're growing up and moving around a lot.

L.A. is special to a lot of people because of the mythology of it. That mythology is what Colin holds on to. He's struggling with departure again. He's struggling with the idea that, maybe this is the place and, you know, maybe the mythology isn't a mythology. Maybe it's real for [him]. We focus specifically on the east side of Northeast Los Angeles, which isn't ever really featured in most films about L.A.

Is there a certain charm that was specific to Northeast L.A. that you wanted to pick up on?

ST: I wanted to capture all the cultures that aren't given a lot of screen time or a lot of awareness in L.A. So you have a lot of Thai culture, Mexican American culture, and a lot of Filipino culture. There's just so much in Northeast L.A., but there's not a lot of focus on it.

After the ’50s, all the Filipinos started moving up to Eagle Rock — not many people know about that. And the charm of [these places] is kind of like L.A. in a nutshell. Gentrification is a real thing here. It's really everywhere. But here, in particular, Los Angeles tends to have turned a blind eye to historic areas, historic buildings get replaced very quickly. And there's a lot of change. And Northeast L.A., especially over the past 10 years, is experiencing a significant amount of gentrification and a lot of rapid change. All that ties in thematically — the rapid changes to the story tie in to the life experiences of the characters as well. 

You’ve said before that this film is as much a love letter to L.A. as it is to last love. Tell us more about that.

ST: The experience in Northeast L.A. is very different from a lot of places. A long time ago when I first moved here, somebody explained L.A. really well to me. They gave a trick to thinking about it — you’ve got to think of it kind of like an onion. You’ve got to peel each layer away until you get to what the core is of it all. And you're gonna cry your whole way through it; it's very difficult to get to the heart of Los Angeles. Some people along the way will kind of help you skip a couple of those levels, and get you to the heart of it.

I noticed some similarities between the characters and the actors. Ken, you also moved a lot while growing up. How do you think some of those habits that come with that kind of lifestyle show up in Colin?

Ken Kirby:There's a lot of it actually. I get asked all the time by my parents and people back home in Vancouver whether I’m going to move back eventually, and raise a family there. It's always a conflicting thought, because I also love Los Angeles. I've kind of created this new identity here. I moved from Vancouver to Hong Kong, and again, from Hong Kong to Vancouver. Then again, from Vancouver to Los Angeles. [With all this moving], there’s a feeling that's just in you, thinking about where you want to settle. 

I think you have to really be happy and content with your life — the things that you want out of it, and the community and the friends that you have. You really need that sense of community to keep pushing you forward, whether it's music, film, dance — anything in entertainment. Colin is in a life stage where he's transitioning. I was also having transitions in my life as far as like, my living arrangements, and I was maybe going to move from my current location and that was something that almost felt autobiographical at times.

Tell me about Leila and your character — who is also Laela, just with a slightly different spelling. [laughs] Besides having a similar name, you both are artists. Did you notice any parallels between the two of you because of that?

Leila Perry: As soon as I finished reading the script, I wrote down a million things that really resonated with me. A big one was her search as an artist. Your art ends up reflecting who you are, and vice versa. I definitely found myself more and more by being an artist. That's something that really resonated with me. A lot of themes too — rootlessness, searching for your home, belonging somewhere, belonging to somebody.

I grew up moving a lot as well. I was constantly searching for my identity, being mixed. Moving from Hawai’i to Texas was such a culture shock. I had no question about identity in Hawai’i, because everyone's mixed, and everyone's Asian. But as soon as I got to Texas, everyone was like, “What are you,” and that really put me into my head and made me feel really “other-ed” for a huge part of my life. Laela is working on this art piece, and through it is searching for her home, her belonging, and her identity. She's kind of ruthless and wandering, moving around constantly. 

In my life, I’ve learned that belonging is never something anyone else gives you. It's like a feeling that you have. I think that feeling is something that maybe Laela finds through the film, with her reckoning with the past.

I love that you bring up the whole “being mixed” thing, because I feel like that's really central to this film. Was it intentional for the main characters to both be mixed, or was that just a coincidence?

ST: I think it's always been foundational for me. It’s a safe assumption that in anything I do, that's a foundational piece. I didn't realize I was really focused on the third culture kid aspect of this at first, but it’s very focused on the idea of having moved around so much in your formative years. I was really sinking my teeth into that with this story, but as I was developing the characters, I was starting to realize how it was all so second nature to me. When I sat down with Ken and Leila, they were pointing out a lot of the things I took for granted. It's just always been such a part of my identity, I never really thought to call it out [explicitly]. We had a very, very collaborative process.

And there were certain scenes where I think both [Ken and Leila] were like, “Hey, this would be a great place to address what it's like to not fit in emotionally, as a mixed-Asian person, and not just physically, as a third culture kid.” There's a scene in the car where Laela and Colin discuss what it's like not being seen as mixed. Some of those words are Leila Perry's words, and it just fits. I'm very, very grateful for that. Sometimes you're blind to what you are. And you forget that the rest of the world sometimes is blind to that as well. We actually ended up using some of the Mixed Race Bill of Rights as dialogue in certain scenes.

I didn't want to go into this project with the intent of an exact message to share. It was more like, “I've got questions I got to answer. And I'm going to answer it with these two people. They're gonna find me the answer.” Throughout the process of creating anything, you're rewriting your artistic statement. I think that that's the big takeaway to this whole thing — that it's beautiful when you unintentionally are focused on something. Then you realize, “Oh, that's what I'm trying to say.” So going into it and not thinking about the fact that you are mixed race, but still writing from a mixed-race perspective, that makes it a lot more authentic and emotional.

I noticed in this film that there was this tug of war between love and nostalgia. I wanted to get all of your thoughts on this emotional battle that’s so present in This Time.

LP: You can definitely live in ideas of the past and not recognize what's really present. I think if you love someone, you probably will always love that person. But you have to recognize that the past doesn't exist anymore, even though it does influence us. So you can't just hold on to these old ideas. You really have to embrace what's present.

KK:You can be nostalgic about something that maybe wasn't even a positive memory because it's just something of the past. Leila nailed it on the head, sometimes you have to let go of that. Otherwise, you can get swallowed by that feeling, wanting to get back to it. For the characters, it's like a constant tug of war between a nostalgic love of the past, and needing to move forward.

ST:Somebody once told me that when you fall out of love with somebody, it’s because you've fallen out of love with the idea of who they were. When you fall out of love, you've forgotten who they were when you fell in love. And I think that can be a good thing. I think the idea of a person shifts — they can change. That's why in this story, those two are very intertwined for me. We mentioned letting go. I just read somewhere that giving somebody space is the hardest thing you could do, if you love them so much. I think it's the same thing with memories and the idea of who they were, and allowing that to change as well. Love is sort of embracing that nostalgia and the present at the same time. They are intertwined.

Going in to watch This Time, what do you hope audience members will gain from their viewing experience?

KK: I kind of like what we were just talking about, like you can remember the past and you can be static about it. And it can be a part of you. But you also have to move forward. And it's all part of what shapes us. So it's OK, wherever you're at in that process. Don't be afraid to love your past. And don't be afraid to love your future. Love is love.

LP: Just as the characters discover in the film, sometimes you don't realize there's something just under the surface that you're still carrying. I think seeing them go through this experience could probably bring up ideas of where that is for you.

ST: I want audiences to leave, and then maybe like a few months from now not remember if it was a memory of their own that they've experienced, or if it was actually a movie they went to go see. I want them to have it be a part of their lives. That's always my goal with my films. That was the format of this, to be very immersive in terms of memory. I think that it's good to go into that range of emotions. It's good to dredge up the past, to then let it go and move on. I hope that they get the feeling of that journey with these two characters after leaving the theater.

Ready to remember? Learn more about where to watch This Time on Sebastien Tobler’s website, and follow him (@sebastien_tobler), Ken Kirby (@mrkenkirby), and Leila Perry (@euphoriahart) on Instagram.