Get to know Lío Mehiel, the trailblazing transmasculine artist, filmmaker, and actor whose talent has taken the world by storm. Lío made history by becoming the first trans actor ever to win the prestigious Sundance Special Jury Award for Acting for their exceptional performance in the film MUTT at this year’s 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

This achievement speaks volumes about their extraordinary acting prowess and the impact of their portrayal of Feña, a transgender man navigating a whirlwind of emotions in New York City over a 24-hour period.

Following its triumph at Sundance, MUTT continued its triumphant journey, wowing audiences and critics alike at Berlinale, where it was honored with the Best Film award. It also left an indelible mark at the Champs-Elysees Film Festival and Sundance London. Now, as the film gears up for a theatrical release this August, the anticipation and excitement are palpable.

As a Puerto Rican and Greek artist, Lío’s work delves into the deeper realms of creativity and “transness” as a philosophy. Their art goes beyond mere gender expression, exploring the realms of embodied creativity in a thought-provoking and profound way. Their commitment to the craft and their unique perspective make them a true beacon of inspiration in the film industry and beyond.

With a 90% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes for MUTT and a growing reputation as an influential artist, Lío Mehiel is undeniably making waves and breaking barriers. Their contributions to the arts and the representation of transgender individuals are empowering, and they continue to inspire and uplift countless souls with their remarkable journey.

As we eagerly await more fantastic performances and groundbreaking creations from Lío, we sat down with the multi-talented artist to get to know their early days within the industry, MUTT and next big moves…

Read the exclusive interview below…

Hey Lío! How are you doing?
I’m pretty good! I just got back home to LA from Sundance London, so I am a bit jet lagged. But it was worth it! 

When did you first get involved in film and how did you fall in love with the artistry? 
Around 2017, I got access to a mansion in Westchester that was about to be demolished. It was in perfect condition, empty, but just wasn’t selling. My background is in dance and theater, and so of course my first thought was to create some kind of immersive experience in the space. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the cost of that was prohibitive, so instead I made a short film for about $7000 with mostly people I found through filmmaker Facebook groups. The short is called Disforia, and initially I thought I was making it so that I could have a sample of my on-camera work to show potential agents and managers. But instead, I got sort of swept away in the making of the film and capturing the feeling of “coming home” as a newly out trans person, only to feel alienated and rejected.  My collaborator, Dulcinée DeGuere helped me to find the voice of the film in the editing process, and it was through that project that I really fell in love with filmmaking. I didn’t grow up watching very much film, nor did I study it in school, so it was a new art form to me that felt like it synthesised all the other work I was doing at the time – performance, video art,  installation, directing. 

As an artist, actor, and filmmaker, you work across a multitude of mediums. Do you have a preference?
I actually don’t really have a preference. I think “artist” is the best way to describe my orientation towards creativity, because it doesn’t imply a particular medium. I am driven more by ideas and images, and figuring out which medium will best suit a particular impulse – whether it’s a film, a poem, a live performance piece, or an installation. It perhaps makes building a career as an artist a bit more challenging, because my energy and attention is a bit more dispersed, but I try to remind myself that I am building my life, not just my career – and my life includes all of it. 

What themes do you gravitate towards and what messages do you strive to share through your work?
Right now I am thinking about the concept of “transness” as a philosophy, an orientation towards embodied creativity that extends beyond an individual’s gender expression. This exploration permeates my installation, film, and writing work, and to be honest feels like it might be more of a guiding idea for this chapter of my life. Witnessing all of this political debate around whether or not trans people should be allowed to exist legally under the state feels like it is a distraction from the real issues our world needs to be considering – namely, the climate crisis and the equitable distribution of resources. And so, my reorientation towards “transness” as an invitation to think creatively, to imagine beyond the perimeter of your body, beyond the narratives you’ve been given, no matter your gender identity, feels like a radical act in a moment of increasing (internalised) fascism. I hope that my work invites people to engage with questions around these themes. 

What initially drew you to MUTT and what was the audition process like?
I received an email about the casting call through a community of queer and trans actors I am a part of called ACT NOW started by the wonderful Rain Valdez. When I read the character description, my jaw dropped. I share so much of my identity with Feña, but it really wasn’t until I read Vuk’s script that I realised I needed to be a part of the project, I needed to play Feña. Vuk is not only a superb filmmaker, but he is also a poet, so the script itself was a joy to read. It is beautiful and heartbreaking, and unlike many trans stories we’ve seen up until now, the primary motivation of the lead character was not their gender identity – Feña is just a person struggling to navigate three relationships from his past, and yes, he happens to be trans. 

I sent Vuk an audition tape, and shortly after he reached out saying that he was going to stop the casting process and just work with me for a little while to see if I might be the right fit. I went to New York to do a screen test and shortly after got the part officially. It has been a dream come true, perhaps a dream I didn’t even know I had – to make my feature debut in a film written and directed by a fellow trans person. 

Do you have a favourite moment from filming?
Finally, a lot of people ask me which was my favourite scene in the film to shoot. It was the laundromat scene, of course. I think that scene is a fan favourite as well. It was our first overnight shoot of production, and so everyone already had a buzz about them – gearing up to stay awake through the night. Vuk made it a “closed” set for the filming of this scene as it is quite intimate and vulnerable, meaning only the necessary people on the team were present. The atmosphere was quiet and focused, and Cole and I had to douse ourselves in water and run from down the block into the laundromat (so that we started the scene soaked from the “rain” and out of breath) probably twenty times over the course of shooting the scene. We mostly shot the scene all the way through rather than breaking it up into smaller pieces. Playing out the whole scene meant that both Cole and I were given the opportunity to move through the emotional arc of the scene in full quite a few times. I don’t know, there is something magical about doing that – you get to really explore all the little nooks and crannies of a scene, connect with the emotions more deeply each time, and get into a flow that is a rare thing to access when acting for camera. I think that approach allowed the scene as we see it in the film to feel grounded and real in a way that audiences really connect with. I don’t want to comment too much on the subject matter of the scene just in case people haven’t seen it. 

Congratulations on the Sundance Special Jury Award! How did that moment feel?
Well, I wasn’t able to be at the award ceremony, I was home with COVID, but that aside, receiving this award has been the honour of my career thus far. I am a huge fan of Sundance, and have always dreamed of working on a feature film that premieres at the festival. To have my debut feature not only be accepted into the festival, but also be recognised in this way is the cherry on top of the cherry! It has been amazing to see how our audience for the film has grown, because of the attention we got through the award. And even cooler is the thought of younger trans and non-binary actors who read about me winning the award, and feel more confident entering into this career path and industry – like, “oh yeah, there is space for me here.” 

As the first trans actor ever to win the award, you are such an inspiration. Was it a goal of yours to make an impact in this way or did you sort of fall into the position of being a role model?
I couldn’t have anticipated that I would gain a platform through acting in this film – it’s a tiny indie film with a trans guy as the lead – but in a way, it feels perfectly aligned. MUTT is a film that represents so much of what I believe in, and I feel honoured to be one of the spokespeople for it. While MUTT doesn’t claim to speak for all trans people and their experiences, it does tell one person’s story, and through that, adds a beautiful shade to the many colourful voices speaking about our community. I don’t know if I would call myself a role model just yet, but I definitely am a rigorous thinker, a hard worker, and am committed to bringing the full force of my energy to building a more equitable, sustainable world. 

We’d love to hear about Angels! Could you tell us a bit about the collection and the piece currently on display?
In 2021, I collaborated with sculptor Holly Silius and photographer Kobe Wagstaff to create PHANTOM FEEL, a mixed media piece centred around a stone sculpture of my chest made six months after I got top surgery. You can see my newly formed scars protruding from the stone. This project allowed me to see myself clearly for the first time. There I was, suddenly rendered in stone; my body tangible and permanent, a feeling few trans people in today’s world get to have. The amount of self love I felt through that experience inspired me to create ANGELS – a sculpture collection of gender expansive people in collaboration with sculptor Holly Silius and amazing artists like Emma D’Arcy, Jari Jones, Rain Valdez, and others. 

Alongside building the collection of sculptures, I am also doing a lot of photo and installation projects using the sculptures and the themes of ANGELS along the way. I just finished an installation and performance piece called angels of a drowning world, in which I installed the stone piece of my chest inside the Salton Sea, a man-made toxic lake in the middle of the Mojave Desert. I invited trans photographer Wynne Neilly to come out to the desert with me and photograph both myself posed nude and the piece in the water. One of those images was selected to be part of a show called SAINTS + SINNERS at Guts Gallery – an amazing queer run art space in London. That was one of the coolest things I’ve worked on lately. 

Are there any other art forms you’d like to try next?
I am really eager to get into creative direction for immersive concerts and music experiences with my collaborators Dulcinee DeGuere and Russell Kahn as part of Voyeur Productions. We spent our final year in college and the few years after collaborating to create large-scale, multimedia installations that combined live performance and immersive projections, and I would love to get back into that! Our last piece Arcade Amerikana was in 2018 in NYC. 

Interview and photos were completed prior to the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike.