LOS ANGELES, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Steve Zahn and Jillian Bell, who play parents to a child who comes out as a trans boy in Cowboys, agreed that neither of their characters are the villain of the film.
"There's no villain here," Zahn said in a Zoom interview. "They both have this incredible love for their kid and they're just trying to figure it out."
Bell's character, Sally, initially isn't supportive when Joe (Sasha Knight) comes out as a trans boy. Zahn's character Troy's support for Joe is so strong that he feels he has to take Joe away from Sally.
Troy and Joe leave town together on horseback and take off across Montana with a goal to cross the Canadian border. Sally doesn't take this sitting down, though. She reports it as a kidnapping to the police, and a detective (Ann Dowd) leads authorities in pursuit.
"Joe's steering the boat," Zahn said. "The connection is so powerful that no matter what this kid tells me, I'm good with it."
Bell said she worried that writer/director Anna Kerrigan's script would present Sally as the film's villain. After reading it, the 36-year-old actor came to realize that Sally needs to understand herself before she can understand her son.
"In some of these moments, she's not doing and saying the right thing, but she's not an awful person," Bell said. "She's a person who's made mistakes and comes to realize that eventually."
Behind the scenes, Bell wanted to show Knight more support than Sally shows Joe. Bell noticed that Knight, a trans boy, became uncomfortable when hair stylists added extensions for scenes in which Joe presents as a girl.
Bell said she shared with Knight that she prefers her hair short, too, but that once the film was over, they could both do their hair however they want.
"I'm so unlike the character I played," Bell said. "I didn't want to have this constant tension with a child who I adored."
In preparing to play Sally, Bell said she developed a backstory with Kerrigan. They decided that Sally was a beauty queen at 19 or 20, and since she had Joe, she had struggled with her weight. Bell felt Sally didn't love her present self.
"I believe that she thinks that women should look a certain way, act a certain way and look very beautiful," Bell said. "Holding onto the birth of her child, and the deterioration of who she thought she was, was something that I could connect."
In relation to Sally's identity, Joe's certainty that he is a boy is threatening, Bell said. Sally initially believes Joe wants to be a boy because he admires Troy. Sally worries Joe's transition is a reaction to not wanting to be like his mother.
"When her kid announces 'I'm actually a boy,' it spins her into this place of what did I do wrong?" Bell said. "If anything, she comes to realize that this kid truly knows who he is and that's a beautiful thing."
Cowboys is available in virtual cinemas and video-on-demand Friday.