This article contains spoilers for the film “A Beautiful Lie.”
Tarnesha Small and Tiffany Yvonne Cox have a lot in common. They’re both military brats. They both started their journeys in the film industry in the acting world. And they’ve both recently made moves to step behind the camera.
“A Beautiful Lie” – written, produced by, and starring Small and directed by Cox – premiered at the 2026 Black Writers Weekend. Now, it’ll be playing at the BronzeLens Film Festival on Aug. 23 at the Tara Theatre. The film stars Small as Teri Lewis, a woman with a seemingly perfect life. But, when an unexpected visitor shows up at her door, she starts suspecting her husband Daniel (Jon Chaffin) is lying to her.
Outside of her writing and directing work, the L.A.-based Cox is well-known for her recurring role on “Reasonable Doubt.” Small is a local actor, and known for her roles in projects like the drama series “Our Kind of People” and “First Family.” While both Small and Cox primarily focused on acting in the past, they both have recently turned to writing and directing as a way to create more opportunities for themselves. This is Small’s first time as a screenwriter.
“I feel like this piece is one where we have an artist that bet on herself. If we take anything out of this, artists – continue to bet on yourselves,” Cox said about the film. “Create. Do not wait for a job. Please stop doing that because those who are successful in this industry, they have a voice, they have an opinion, and they put it out there.”
Ahead of the screening, I spoke with Small and Cox about the film. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Both of you started in this industry with acting. Tarnesha, you also wrote the script for “A Beautiful Lie” in addition to starring in it. I’d love to hear about where this idea came from. Was writing something that you’d been waiting a long time to do, or did it come on quickly?
Tarnesha Small: I had dabbled in it a little bit. I had another filmmaker friend ask me if I wrote, and I was like, “No, no, I can’t do that. I have no idea where to start.” [Laughs] No, I’m just an actor. Eventually, it came to a point where I had no choice but to … create opportunities for [myself]. We went through so many different things – COVID, the economy, strikes after strikes. So the opportunities here became more scarce. I decided to take a leap of faith and figure it out. I was like, okay, we’re going to start with a short. It took me maybe about six months to complete it, and then I tweaked it. It took me a while to actually get into the mode of producing it. But it was out of necessity, initially. Now that I’m complete with it, I’m like, okay – what’s next? Let’s do this again! Even though it’s madness, and it’s so much work.
As far as the idea for “A Beautiful Lie,” do you remember what the nugget was that got in your brain that made you say this is the story?
Small: Initially, I’m trying to figure out, what story do I want to tell? What angle? You know, if you’ve seen one story you’ve almost seen them all. So I was trying to find a unique way to tell a really great story – to entertain people, and also to touch on really important topics whenever I can. This just got downloaded into me when I was asleep. I kept thinking about the writing and just the whole process, and immediately, it downloaded. I was able to write so fast, because I was holding on to different ideas, and that one just seemed to land. I felt like that was where I needed to go – God was telling me, “This is it. Here it goes, here’s the information. Go with it.”
Tiffany, how did you come on board for the project?
Tiffany Yvonne Cox: Tarnesha was connected to a writer on “Reasonable Doubt,” the show that I’m on. As she was developing this, she was looking for a director, and he put my name forward because he had seen me shadowing on the show, directing my own indie projects during the show, and getting hired on with different things. So that’s how we met. We did an interview, and I was attracted to this because I have a personal mission of exposing the world, one story at a time, and I thought this story did a really good job of bringing up an important topic, especially in the Atlanta area, when it comes to human trafficking. Seeing the lie that this man is telling, everything is hidden in plain sight. And then, boom – you learn that this is what he’s been up to? Oh wait, the character’s also most likely being trafficked? I found it attractive, and it just fit within my mission. I was like, you know what? Why not? We can figure out a way to make this work, and we did.
Speaking of it as an important subject, I think this movie also plays with genre in a fun way, even though it’s about something serious. I’d love to hear you both talk about playing within the thriller genre.
Cox: I’d never done a thriller before, so that was also attractive to me – like, we get to play with guns? [Laughs] Also, how do we make sure that we’re putting the Easter eggs in there before it tracks? But also, how do we show that this man is in love? Because, in reality, this world is really his world. This is normal to him. This is okay to him. So I was looking at it and was interested in the space of, how do we remain grounded? How do we simplify this?
The world in general, everybody believes that they’re right. Everybody believes that they’re right in the things that they’re doing and the way they’re going about it, and they will justify it. If I approach a thriller as a thriller, I feel like I would get into the trap. So I was approaching it more in a grounded space of the fact that everybody is justified in the thing that they’re doing, and why are they justified, and why is this okay? It was a thriller, but it made it a very grounded, normal piece. The harder thing, I would say, was I wanted to make sure the themes were highlighted – the danger was actually there. How do we unfold this? How do we peel the onion so that the audience knows something’s happening? But you don’t really know what’s going on until you reach the end. Which I think we successfully did.
Small: Yeah, I would agree. And when I wrote it, I didn’t want to tackle it as the standard trafficking situation. I wanted it to be some intriguing story about a relationship and the things that are hidden underneath relationships. There are things in our relationships that we choose to ignore. I wanted to approach it in a way [where there’s] this underlying thing, and then also there’s this amazing story that comes out of it, where you don’t expect this thing to be this bad, and it to be trafficking. It’s kind of a way for me to touch on trafficking without just blatantly being in your face … I wanted it to be discovered. I was very intentional about keeping that hidden until it’s revealed at the end. Which, when we screened at Black Writers Weekend, nobody saw it coming. [Laughs] Which was so great.
Yeah, my first thought was, he has a secret family. And that was not right.
Small: [Laughs] They were just yelling at the screen. Like, girl!
Cox: I’m so sad I have yet to be able [to see it]. I live in L.A. … and it just happened that I’m directing this thing right now. I thought it was going to film in Atlanta, and it’s not – it’s filming in L.A., and the next one is in Hawaii. So I have not been able to [see it], and that’s the best.
Small: That’s the best part, right?
Cox: You get to see how the audience is responding. Like you saying that you thought it was a secret family, I’m like, “Oh really? Okay!” [Laughs]
Tarnesha, I’m curious what it was like for you having to act in something that you wrote. And Tiffany, from the opposite side being an actor yourself, what is it like working with actors as a director?
Small: It was amazing, but it was challenging, to be honest, because obviously this is my first time tackling this, so I had many hats to wear. Tiffany did a really good job of trying to keep me in my actor mode, which is a hard thing because I’m responsible for so many different things … Also, my crew did a really great job of handling things that I didn’t know were happening while I had to be on set. It was really nice, and it was a very huge learning experience. I know that I’m able to build off of what I experienced with this first film, and will be able to apply it to my next. So it was really exciting.
Cox: I wish every actor [could do] what Tarnesha does and what I do, because you just get a whole different perspective on creating. So, me approaching directing, having an acting background, I just feel like I’m very sensitive to the artists – and I hope Tarnesha and the rest of the cast felt it. I wanted them to have their space to do their work, to feel safe, to try something different. I know there was one part where she was crying, and she’s on the ground – I kept on asking Tarnesha for more. I was like, “This is your moment! Milk it!” [Laughs]
Also, as an actor, I recognize what I’m asking of people. Something I’m also very sensitive about is intimacy. Intimacy done went off the rails on the television – now you’re seeing everything! And, as an actor, I also recognize what I’m asking of the actors when I’m saying, “Do you feel comfortable doing this? We’re coming up with this particular topic, it could trigger something.” What I’m desiring to do is bring the knowledge and the experience as an actor of them having to do sensitive things. What I’m asking you to kiss your partner, for him to touch your butt, for you to have a gun thrown in your face, as a Black person – I am coming from a gracious space, knowing the history and the prep it takes to do that.
For both of you, what were the more – whether it be logistically, or emotionally, or physically – challenging aspects of the shoot. I was thinking about the stuff with the gun, and Tarnesha, I don’t know if it was you or a stunt double, but you’re thrown around quite a bit in that scene.
Small: I’ll say, speaking on the throwing part, that was a little challenging – trying to make it look realistic without really harming myself and not being able to see what was going on in the moment. That was a little challenging.
I guess a bigger challenge would be to remove my producer hat while I’m in actor mode, and all the other titles. That was a bit challenging. But it was, like I said, really cool, because Tiffany was really great at trying to keep up on task and trying to keep me in the moment, which was really lovely to have.
Cox: I had two moments that were super challenging. One was the moment when she’s in the bathtub because, as the director, I block it out beforehand so I know what the coverage is. And something that I did not consider was when she stands up, how much we cannot see. What I mean by that is also, you can’t see the mic. We can’t see the mic. We don’t want to see modesty garments, modesty garments being that they cover anything that we usually don’t share with the public. There was a moment where I was like, “Oh no, everything I planned for blocking is not going to work.” But that’s when you lean on your team members. I turned to our [director of photography] and I was like, “I need help. What I planned is not going to work, and I need help.” Also, there was only so much space in the bathroom … so I’m like, the ideas I had in my head were not going to work.
You’re doing a short film. You have a limited budget, and you really don’t want to go into overtime and tax the crew that’s already volunteering so much energy and time to do this. It was a thing of needing to make quick decisions, lean on other experts that are in the room, and go with it. I was like, I pray when we get this edit that I have something to work with, and we did.
The other challenge – and it’s just going to be a challenge anyway, you just know it’s going to take a lot of time – is whenever you have more than two people talking, more than three people talking. So the gun scene, I took the advice of another director friend. She was like, go around the world. We have a thing called coverage, and that means you need to make sure that you’re seeing every single person with what they’re saying … There were about 10 people we had in that room. I’ve got to get to all of them, and we only have so much time to shoot this. We have something – I’m getting a little bit into the weeds now – where you don’t want to cross the line, because eye lines start to get off and crazy.
This is the beautiful thing about shadowing, where you’re working with seasoned directors – the wonderful Anton Cropper, thank God for this man. He’s the producing director on “Reasonable Doubt.” We had talked about scenes like this, where I was like, “What do you do?” And he said, “Don’t worry about the line, let that go. What you have to do is tell the story in the moment.” The story at that moment was new information about trafficking, and [the husband] being a whole different personality, a threatening personality … I was very highly prepared, but still we were in the moment with 10 people getting all of the coverage, telling the story. You have to lean into the things that you discover while you’re there. So that was just a new experience for me.
I love hearing about advice like that. Tarnesha, this being your first time writing or having something you’ve written produced, did you get any advice from writer friends that stuck with you?
Small: Yes. To take one thing at a time. It’s so much, from the writing aspect and then when you move on to trying to assemble a team, that’s a challenge. Then when you go into the next part of just post-production and then raising funds – that’s always a challenge for filmmakers. They’re always looking for ways to support their film and get the funding for it. That was a challenge.
There were so many different things and so much paperwork involved. One of my executive producers, Schwanda Winston … She gave me a lot of little tips. I was able to call her constantly, asking her for advice – what am I doing, what is this? It was every other day, as we progressed in the process of producing or creating the film. There were so many different things that kept popping up and she kept calming me, talking me off the ledge.
“A Beautiful Lie” plays at the BronzeLens Film Festival on Aug. 23 at the Tara Theatre.
