After moving to Atlanta with his friend Harlow Elizabeth, Milo Richards was looking for a way to break into the Atlanta film scene. Now, having just finished his short film “Fishy,” he might have found a way.
“Fishy,” directed by Richards and co-written by Richards and Elizabeth, follows a trans woman named Hazel facing down her anxiety as she competes in a local pageant. Leading up to and during the competition, she becomes overwhelmed by visions that she’s turning into a fish.
Elizabeth stars in the film alongside Atlanta drag icons such as Nicole Paige Brooks and Stasha Sanchez. “Fishy” was filmed at the drag restaurant Lips Atlanta. Richards said he was proud to make a film that featured a cast and crew that represented Atlanta’s LGBTQA+ community.
“It’s hard, as a filmmaker sometimes, to feel seen as a queer person,” Richards said. “It can be challenging to abandon some of yourself before walking into the room. [But] 47 percent of our team were trans identifying, and 90 percent were a part of the LGBTQ community.”
“Fishy” is now in post-production and gearing up for a 2026 festival run. Rough Draft Atlanta recently spoke with Richards about the making of the film. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Before we sort of dive into the film itself, I’d love to hear a little bit about you and how you got into the film industry and decided that this is what you’d like to do professionally.
Milo Richards: I moved to Atlanta in January of 2024 after graduating. I moved from Richmond, Virginia, and upon graduating, I knew I wanted to move to pursue film. In coming to Atlanta, it’s been a lot of meeting people and finding the people that I align with professionally and going from there. This project has been a year in the making. I wrote it about a year ago with my co-writer, Harlow Elizabeth, who plays the lead in “Fishy.” We bounced ideas off of one another, and finalized it last year. This has been what I’ve been working on since grounding myself a little bit in Atlanta.
How did y’all initially meet and what were those initial conversations about the story?
Richards: We moved together from Richmond to Atlanta, and both her and I had an upbringing in performance spaces. We both started as actors. Both she and I are trans, and in moving and not knowing anyone, our only outlet to have work or gain access into nightlife spaces was to do drag. She and I had already done it prior. When I started doing it, I kind of started to realize that it wasn’t necessarily something that I aligned with, and that I just wanted to be classified as an entertainer or an actor instead of having these intricate labels. I think a lot of the time, as trans people, there’s that way of thinking, where you have to kind of put yourself into a box to gain access to the work. I think she started having similar kinds of [feelings], that it was deeper than just being a drag queen, and she was just a woman. I think that was something that she had already known, but she didn’t really get to fully access that part of herself because she was so invested in a persona. I think she and I both had that same like-mindedness, and that’s how this project was born.
Drag is a performance, but there’s also this interesting tension within that of expressing an inner identity. I’d love to talk about the fish of it all. If I recall, in theater, there’s this idea of flopping like a fish – I think someone even says something to that effect when Elizabeth’s character is freezing onstage. But it feels like there’s something a little deeper as well.
Richards: For this film specifically, not only was it she’s kind of coming into herself, like a fish out of water – we’ve heard these things before – but on a more introspective level, in the drag community and the trans community at large, “fishy” is a term that is commonly used. It’s intertwined with “passing,” so that term in itself has this other layer for queer people, where people sometimes are called that, kind of alluding to, “You look like a ‘real’ woman.” So the whole layer of the fish allegory and the metaphor here is she’s trying to become more of herself, but she’s having these hallucinations that are kind of taking over and manifesting into her life in this way.
That’s really interesting. Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m pretty sure the version I saw has a tentative score, effects, and that kind of stuff. But the fish makeup looks amazing.
Richards: That was about an eight hour process … When we were in our space, they brought in Harlow, and I was like, “Oh my God!” I knew it was gonna look great, but I had no idea it was going to look that incredible. I’m really grateful for our special effects team to have made the illusion possible, because we see Hazel’s character in three different lights throughout the film. We see her as herself, as a drag entertainer, and then as this entity of the fish. There are a lot of layers, especially within such a short film, of finding yourself and all of these different layers of herself that are presented throughout the film.
Speaking of that shorter runtime, was there anything that you were working on – you and Harlow or either one of you separately – that you wish could have made it in the film, but there wasn’t enough space? Or has there been a thought of turning this into something larger?
Richards: That was definitely the conversation from the beginning, is that this has potential to be a larger thing. But I think as we made intricate cuts and as we were writing it together, we both decided that it might just live as an independent entity, because I think we get to the point throughout the duration of the short. But there were a lot of things that were sacrificed in the writing of the piece. Like I said, this is a very personal story, and some of the actual interactions between Hazel and Chad, who is her dresser – who is played by Nicole Paige Brooks – those interactions are very based on a real situation where she was getting ready and her dresser is trying to talk her off the edge. So all of [these] things are integrated into a real life experience for, honestly, both of us.
I assume there’s such a big anxiety – I recently watched “Queens of the Dead,” and I thought that film did a very good job with the central character portraying the anxiety that comes with going on stage. And then, with this added context, it must be so overwhelming at times.
Richards: Absolutely. I think a lot of it can be taken for granted, because putting forward a persona is a lot easier, sometimes, than coming out as just yourself – stripping down those layers and coming into oneself. This film really is for anyone. It is about a trans person, but I think that we’ve all, similarly, have experienced moments where we might not feel like ourselves, or that the world might perceive us in a way that we don’t necessarily align with. So I think it’s really important that this story is just for everyone.
You mentioned that you started out in the acting space. I’d love it if you could talk about making that transition from in front of the camera or on stage to behind the camera, and what the challenges of that have been.
Richards: I started out as an actor in Richmond. I was doing Shakespeare professionally, and that was my forte. I was really blessed with experiences as a high schooler to be able to be stepping into a professional setting at a young age. But I do think that, as I was kind of coming into myself, there were a lot of other layers throughout college that I felt, as an actor, were a little limiting. There are not enough roles for trans people a lot of the time, and a lot of the time, it fits into a very niche box of someone presenting this uncomfortableness. A lot of the time, I’m not interested in playing those roles. I’m more interested in the fun, the joy, and the messy in between. That’s how this film had its break. This is my third film that I’ve made, but this is the biggest one in terms of production and budget and having all of these things solidified.
I made the transition from acting into directing like, in high school. I was directing plays. That was where I found my niche. And in college, I realized I could do it on a bigger scale, and do film and TV. That really resonated with me, because while I still love the theatrics of everything, I think I’ve really found a visual language that resonates with me behind the camera, that feels so intimate, and that can be something that I can keep for the rest of my life. That was really special to me.
Speaking of that visual language, did you have any cinematic references, or were there movies that you were thinking about as you were making “Fishy?”
Richards: Absolutely. The A24 movie “Aftersun” was a really big piece of inspiration for me. Just the cinematic stillness of being away, and the isolation that film really encapsulates, was a big one for me. Same with “The Holdovers,” if you’ve ever seen it. That film, for me, did the same thing. That’s the inspiration for the beginning of the piece. When we get into the pageant, I would say a reference was “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” That was one we looked at a lot. Then as I started sending the script off to people, people were like, “This really reminds me of ‘Black Swan.’” I was like, “That’s honestly a good point I never thought about.” I rewatched “Black Swan,” and was like, “This is a fantastic point of reference for this film.”
An interesting thing with this piece has been seeing it grow and develop throughout the duration of it. It’s a completely different script and story all throughout each stage of production. We’ve had actors coming into this space who are actually of this lived experience. As drag entertainers and drag queens, they are coming from a unique perspective that is more grounded in the room and what the situation may entail.
It was a blessing to have Nicole Paige Brooks and Stasha Sanchez. They both have such a large community impact on this film. Stasha Sanchez is a pageantry legend. She’s a former Miss Continental, and she’s had a show in The Heretic that is the longest running Black cast in the United States. She just has such a large community footprint and such a great impact on this story. She brought such an energy. I can’t say anything but good things about her. She brought such a unique presence to the room. She was on HBO Max’s “Legendary.” It was awesome to have her. Nicole is a hoot and holler. She is so funny, and very much, to my point, has the same kind of relationship with drag. She’s been in the game for a very long time. It was really important to me that these were not just actors, and these were people who, even if they didn’t have the experience really on camera in this vein, they were present throughout.
I feel like if you’re a performer, even if you’re not used to being on camera, you’re aware of how your body works. You’re aware of what you look like, so it’s easier to make that transition.
Richards: I think that the transition for some of them, it was – I can’t speak for everyone – but in directing them, I think there was a little layer of, no, the camera’s rolling right now. This is happening. This is it. This is the moment right here … When we shot this stuff on the stage, it was perfectly fine, because everyone knows what they’re doing. But when you’re out of those kinds of intimate moments, and there are not people there to applaud, it’s a completely different ballpark. It was a little more heavy lifting, but it was so worth it. We shot this throughout four days. The entire film was shot in four days, and it was a tough four days. But it was absolutely incredible.
How exactly did Stasha and Nicole end up on board? How did you make that contact?
Richards: Since I had been performing in Atlanta, I knew of these people. I reached out to Nicole, and she already knew my face. Actually, when I sat down with her – she’s so funny – she said, “I’m supposed to be meeting with a director!” And I said, “That’s my script! That’s my script in your hand.” [Laughs] She was really interested in the project, and was saying how it was important to her to be involved, especially with her trajectory right now on “Drag Race” and coming back for “All Stars.” I think she was honestly the perfect person to consider for the role.
I actually saw [Stasha] perform at The Heretic, and I had been looking for this role for a really long time. I just saw how she commanded the room. And honestly, at the show that I was at, it was kind of early on into the night, and there weren’t as many people there. So, the interactions that she was having with the people really stood out to me. I emailed her after I saw her that night, and she took the role.
Wow, that’s amazing. Always send the email.
Richards: Right! Always send the email. It’s fine to get a no every now and then, but just send it! It’s been a super eye-opening experience for me, honestly, just to feel trusted to be able to tell a story like this. I’m so grateful that we were able to get them.
You filmed at Lips Atlanta, is that correct? And you used to bartend there, or you still do?
Richards: I still bartend there right now. That’s the other thing – just the community resources that you might not think are available to you. I was writing this, and I was like, I think it needs to happen here. That has to happen. It was honestly incredible that we were able to tell the story at Lips, because a lot of the queens also work there … I think it all speaks to a bigger thing, that these things are actually happening in the south, and there is still nightlife available and accessible to people, even with everything going on.
What is next for this film as you look toward the future?
Richards: We just won a grant from Film Impact Georgia. They gave us some money to be able to have our first screening at the Tara. Right now, we’re in the process of submitting it to festivals. We’re hoping to have its world premiere early next year, and we’ll have the screening available to people at the Tara. We’ve submitted to South by Southwest, and Sundance, and the Atlanta Film Festival. We’re gearing up for more submissions as we approach that final cut. It’s really rewarding, and I think that I have a good head on my shoulders about the whole process. I think that it will be an impactful film, and a vessel for educational purposes – just to be able to talk about this more. Especially being artists in the south, it’s very important to spotlight these things, because I know there are so many people who might feel this way or have this awkward, in-between phase, where you might not look how you’d like to present yourself. It’s important to continue these conversations and honor those spaces where people might just not feel how they present.