Luke Benward and Ariel Winter On Revealing the Root of Toxic Masculinity with Live Action Short, ‘Boys’

Gun violence ravages America every day in different ways. Our phones blow up constantly with notifications of  new mass shootings, and kids are taught gun safety protocols in school. Luke Benward’s Boys tells an intimate story of a friendship taken to a dark place. With a remarkably capable cast, he tells a tragic story with sensitivity and danger.

When casting a film like Boys, you need actors who can handle the high emotional stakes, but it’s even harder with a global pandemic changing how directors search for talent. Luckily for Benward, he was able to find one of his performers through his management team.

“A lot of people were out of work when we were starting it. We started by making a list and then started to look who could come to set and bring that professional energy. We needed kids who knew how to operate on a set. Everything is riding on their shoulders, and I actually worked with August [Maturo] on Girl Meets World. He was really budding into this talented actor, and I wrote him a letter and pitched him the character. With Cameron [Crovetti], and I are with the same management company, and my manager is an executive producer on this. His character on The Boys has so many layers, and he’s going toe-to-toe with Nicole Kidman and bawling his eyes out on Big Little Lies. He liked the material, and we just got lucky with both of these actors. They really put the short on their backs.”

Boys is Ariel Winter’s first chance to produce. We know her mostly as a comedic actor since we saw her grow up on television, but she was eager to jump in and found the process invigorating.

“I used to be offended that people didn’t want to work with kids, because I was a child actor. It has less to do with the kids and more to do with the moms. I was nervous to be on the other side and be an effective producers. Was I going to be able to make everyone happy? We had wonderful and wonderful kids. The hardest thing about producing is waiting for it to get made. I talked to other producers and they said you could wait up until seven years to get it all done. We were lucky enough to make it ourselves. That was something I learned early on. It didn’t shock me, but it was challenging to hear.”

There is a huge moment at the end of the film that would intimidate actors of any age, and it’s impressive how Benward was able to create such a safe space for these young kids to work in. No matter how tough any kid presents himself to be, when something dire happens, we see the little boy inside.

“They each had their own little nuances, and I let them do their thing,” Benward said. “One thing that I wanted to do was make the set a sanctified place so they could own it. I was very strict about no work inside the set. We would do the work outside and then it could be calm when they had to handle those emotional stakes. You’re manipulating these emotions, and it could easily be knocked off the rails. Cameron was very contained in his rehearsal process, and we only did August’s coverage, about three or four times.”

I couldn’t stop thinking of the phrase ‘boys will be boys’ as I watched the short, and, honestly, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Benward’s Southern upbringing was something he was very conscious of throughout the filming process, and how the film ends is shocking. We allow young boys to get away with bad behavior, and we need to change how they see consequences.

“The goal was to set out real circumstances to allow people to dialogue. We didn’t want to pander our opinions in any way. We were striving with connection that a piece like this can create. The phrase ‘boys will be boys’ was the original title. I’m from the South, and I heard that growing up. It always felt like a cop out, and it was used for men to get out of things because it was their “defect.” When we found that phrase as the button for the end of the short, that hit me in the gut. Not only is he going through it, he now thinks he needs to brush it off. He thinks he’s okay and it shouldn’t affect him. It’s such a layered phrase that has caused so much pain that I think it drives home that last beat.”