How ‘Triggered’ Director Tara Westwood Brought Home The Fight for Gun Violence Protection

I haven’t been able to shake Tara Westwood’s Triggered for a few months. Gun violence in America seems to be at an all-time high, and her film confronts the realities of pain, trauma, and grief. By asking ‘What would you do if you lost a loved one to a random shooting,’ Westwood taps into something raw and emotional and shows how the ripple effect can send waves right to your front door.

Westwood’s short centers on a Senator and her husband (played by Westwood herself and Robert John Burke) who are awakened by two intruders (Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Caitlin Mehner) with a dark and painful agenda. The less you know going into Triggered, the better. This would make for a remarkable double feature with Fran Kranz’s Mass.

At the top of our conversation, I admitted that I haven’t had much in-person experience with firearms. For a lot of Americans, seeing or holding a gun is primarily seen on a movie screen in an action sequence. Westwood told me that every time Triggered screens, it immediately gets a polarizing reaction.

“I know it’s hard for people to watch,” Westwood said. “When we screened in Cleveland, there was a woman who had lost her son to gun violence. How people respond to the end will show what people are bringing into the film when they sit down to watch it. Are they a parent? Have they ever experienced gun violence in a way? There’s a myriad of ways this can affect people.”

Some viewers might think they want to avoid Triggered because of its subject matter, but for others that same trepidation is testimony to its importance. I first saw the film at the HollyShorts Film Festival at home, and I am very eager to see this on the big screen with a crowd. The ambiguous ending will get you talking.

“I chose this topic because I am passionate about gun violence prevention,” Westwood said. “The best way to bring people into a conversation about it is to leave the film ambiguous. You automatically get people to talk about it, because of all the tragedies that have been happening. Sadly, there isn’t a time in America when this film is not important. It’s more needed, because, now people are so sad of these horrible things like Uvalde. I mentioned at HollyShorts that people do this gesture with their hand when they want to say, ‘Oh, I can’t talk about it.’ If someone can watch Triggered and be separated enough and we can make them feel, that’s how conversations can truly start.”

Not only does Westwood star as one of the quartet, but this is her directorial debut. Handling such heavy subject matter and directing on top of it and putting oneself through the wringer emotionally is something even the most seasoned directors might hesitate to approach. Westwood’s passion shines in both her performance and her choices behind the camera, and she was thankful for her cast and crew.

“Everyone said yes, and I was so blown away by that” she said. “Isiah and I talked a lot about the film, because he wanted to make sure that it wasn’t about a Black man putting a gun to a white woman’s head. That’s not the film is about, and I told him that I wanted people to have more empathy for his character than mine–and I think they do. I remember when the Newton Brothers came on board, and I freaked out! I love them so much. For me, the fact that everyone was so willing to participate for this film was amazing.”

Before a confrontation ensues, Mehner’s Virginia pokes her head into a child’s bedroom. The swirling lights immediately suggest an innocence that needs to be protected, but Virginia is hardening her resolve. In just a few seconds, we learn so much about this person’s pain and regret.

“Initially, it was written to see the kids in the room, but for a couple of reasons I didn’t want to do that,” Westwood reveals. “We shot during COVID, so that would increase the crew and we would have to have parents there. I ultimately decided against that, but I wanted to establish that there were children sleeping in the home. It was important to me. Thomas Dunn had written it in that it was Virginia that went to the door, but I didn’t want to show them. I spoke with Caitlin [Mehner] about how her character would feel seeing that child. You see a wave of sadness and then resolve on her face, and it gives her strength to carry out the plan. As an actress and director, it was fun to watch her play that moment. But it all plays out on her face.”

The circumstances around Virginia and Whitlock Jr.’s Ohio is fascinating. How much did they talk? How much did they share of their experiences with each other before this night? Westwood encouraged them to build some of their characterizations together.

“They had the script separately to provide backstory, and I told them some things in advance so they could build it together,” she said. “They met at a grief meeting where parents lost children to violence. I don’t think it was obvious that that is where their plan was going. I had a director friend who I respect read the script, and he suggested that they should be wearing balaclavas and they are part of an underground army. He thought it should be all about anger. That’s not what I wanted, so it was super important to me that Isiah and Caitlin were coming from a hurt place. Caitlin thought her character owned a gun, but she’s not someone who would never do this. Maybe she went to a shooting range every so often and maybe she just wants to shoot pheasant? I had to find a sweet spot between being an actor and being a director. Letting the make those choices was something that I liked doing as a director.”

I admitted to Westwood how frustrated I feel that people don’t seem to want to try to change something just to see if it will prevent violence from occurring. There was a segment on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee shortly after the Uvalde tragedy where attendees of the National Rifle Association’s annual convention said it was “too soon” to speak about recent mass shooting.

“I always make sure to use the words ‘gun violence prevention’ and not ‘gun control,’ because as soon as you try to control someone, they want to break free,” Westwood went on to say. “I grew up around guns on a farm in Canada. There wasn’t an epidemic of violence, and 80 percent of NRA members agree there should be some changes. Even they, too, want there to be more change, and it bewilders me that it’s not happening. A little changed after Uvalde, but so much more needs to happen. Even the Red flag laws, because there was that mother in California who called the police, and nothing was done. It can’t be frivolous, because someone could just call the cops and accuse someone. Have those laws in place, but there can be consequences if someone tries to use that law for the wrong reason.”

“I don’t know if anyone knows what they would do when they are confronted with this trauma. We talked about whether they think their characters had guns or maybe this was the first time they held one. At the end of the day, neither one of those people would’ve held a Senator at gunpoint after breaking into their homes. They are asking for guns while they are holding guns–the irony is not lost on any of us. Some people might think that what these characters are doing is unrealistic, but I wanted to confront the idea of not know what you would do until they have to face that level of grief. We don’t need more violence in this country. What I wanted to do was explore empathy–for all four of these characters. Let’s feel empathy for everyone in this film. That goes for the people who are holding the weapons. Most people have experienced loss at some point in their life, and we should, collectively, want to help ease that pain.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX71ZnW399o