Reflections, Rewrites, and Raw Truths: Exit Interviews Finds Beauty in Emotional Honesty

By Dwight Byrum

When Garrett Abdo sat down to write Exit Interviews, he wasn’t chasing a breakout hit—he was chasing clarity. “It wasn’t to make a film,” he told me. “It was to make a mirror.” That mirror, messy, vulnerable, and often achingly familiar, now takes center stage at FilmOut San Diego.

Shot in a pseudo-documentary format that blends fictional interviews with intimate monologues, Exit Interviews centers on Robert, a filmmaker confronting his past lovers in search of answers—and maybe, healing. The premise is deceptively simple: what if you asked your exes what went wrong? But under Abdo’s direction, that question becomes a vessel for something deeper. What results is a layered and emotionally intelligent portrait of queer love, heartbreak, and self-discovery.

Tuc Watkins, who stars as Robert, delivers a performance full of restraint and revelation. Playing a man searching for emotional closure required Watkins to confront his own instincts. “It forced me to think about relationships where I didn’t get closure,” he said. “It stayed with me.” He described the experience as one that challenged him not to judge his character, but to simply listen and respond. “I enter conversations with an agenda,” he admitted. “This role reminded me that unless I check that at the door, I won’t learn anything.”

Actor Joseph Haro, who plays Donny, a tender, open-hearted character, was originally in the running for a different role before Abdo intervened. “Garrett said, ‘You need to play Donny,'” Haro recalled. “I was like, oh. But Donny was dealing with things I was dealing with. It just found me at the right time, like all great art does.”

Haro’s scene serves as a thematic turning point for Robert, laying the emotional groundwork for the film’s climax. “Our scene sort of had the kernel of the theme,” Haro said. “Just because it didn’t work out doesn’t mean love didn’t exist.” The nuance of that idea, of love lingering beyond its expiration date, echoes throughout the film like a quiet aftershock.

That honesty, both in front of and behind the camera, defines Exit Interviews. Abdo calls the project his “most expensive therapy session.” He wrote the majority of the script while traveling through Spain and Italy, sometimes overcome by the emotional toll of reliving past relationships. “I was curled up in a hotel bed in Barcelona, bawling my eyes out uncontrollably,” he said. “It just ripped me apart.”

Despite the film’s deeply personal roots, Abdo was intentional about making something universally resonant. “Each character has an emotion attached,” he explained. “And while none of the scenes are one-to-one depictions of my life, the emotions are real.”

To achieve this balance of specificity and relatability, Abdo relied on the collaboration of his cast. “You have to let actors do their job,” he said. “If you go into it thinking it’s not a collaboration, you’re going to make a horrible movie.” That trust paid off in performances that feel lived-in and raw.

Abdo, who spent decades in comedy before pivoting to film, credits his background with shaping the movie’s tone. While early drafts skewed dark, humor found its way in naturally during revisions. “We had to lighten it up,” he said. “You can’t have people jumping off buildings in the middle of the movie, we had to get them to the end.”

That blend of levity and introspection is what makes Exit Interviews stand out, even in a crowded festival circuit. The film’s visual structure, a story within a story layered with flashbacks and shifting camera formats, challenges viewers to reconsider what counts as closure, or even truth. “You’re going into the documentary, out of it, then back in again,” Abdo explained. “I love that rhythm.”

For Haro, the experience was just as transformative. “This feels like redefining what success is,” he said. “We’re going to be at a queer film festival, making queer art with queer artists, and that used to feel impossible.” He described the premiere at FilmOut San Diego as nearly indescribable, a powerful contrast to the fear he once felt hiding parts of himself to get roles.

As Exit Interviews makes its local debut, it arrives not just as a film, but as a conversation, a chance for audiences to see themselves, reflect, and maybe reach out to someone they used to love. As Watkins put it, “It’s easy to watch this film and think about your own relationships. That’s the mark of something honest.”

Abdo hopes this is just the beginning. With new projects already in the works, including a genre-bending horror film and a script centered on a comedy club manager, he’s not done experimenting. But for now, Exit Interviews stands as a deeply personal triumph, a reminder that sometimes the stories we’re most afraid to tell are the ones worth sharing.

Exit Interviews screens this month August 21-24 at FilmOut San Diego. The full cast, including Haro and Watkins, is expected to attend.