Slamdance ’26: Mechi Lakatos and Lucy Sandler Talk Improvised Madness of “Danny Is My Boyfriend”
Mechi Lakatos and Lucy Sandler are the mad geniuses behind Danny Is My Boyfriend. It’s a delightfully lo-fi odyssey across Los Angeles in pursuit of revenge. The two play exaggerated versions of themselves. Mechi, an awkward babysitter, and Lucy, a recovering codependent, discover they’re both dating Danny. Their scrappy, unqualified quest for revenge will remind viewers of Abbi and Ilana from Broad City, who could be considered their East Coast counterparts.
In Danny Is My Boyfriend, Mechi and Lucy are strangers. The real-life Mechi Lakatos and Lucy Sandler, who serve as lead actors, writers, directors, and producers of the film, have known each other since 2018. Neither remembers when they realized they would work well as a creative duo.
“I indirectly hired Lucy to direct a project I was writing, but it was sort of like, oh, this director I know is available. It wasn’t like I knew anything about her. It was kismet. I would say we became best friends immediately during and following the shoot,” recalls Lakatos.
“I don’t think there was ever a conversation about collaborating or working together. I feel like that’s really important to know. It’s just a shared relationship to creativity and process that has brought us to work together, not any sense of wanting to work together. I feel like we’re on the same journey and we like being on it together,” explains Sandler.
The inspiration for Danny Is My Boyfriend came less out of a story idea and more out of a frustration with the industry at large. It’s no secret to anyone even tangentially related to the film industry that it’s experiencing a rough patch at the moment. It’s difficult when this creative outlet is proving to be more stressful than it is enjoyable. Danny Is My Boyfriend is Lakatos and Sandler’s conscious decision to fall back in love with the artform.
Courtesy of “Danny Is My Boyfriend”
“At the time, we just made this short film that we wrote together and I directed it,” says Sandler. “It was very traditional in terms of the infrastructure piece. It’s a very serious subject matter, we spent a lot of money on it, and we’re experiencing a burnout from going through that process and being like, well, what’s the point?”
“We really wanted to find a way back into having fun and just make a film with our friends with no connection to the end result,” Sandler goes on. “What if we could actually be present in the process without having any intention for where the film was going to go? Just allowing it to truly be an experiment in the way it was when we were teenagers.”
“We were in a park and Lucy was feeling sad,” Lakatos jumps in. “I was like, well, we should try to make a movie. Then we immediately started telling people we were making a movie this summer so we couldn’t go back on it.”
“I feel like from the moment we decided we were going to do it to the moment we shot it was probably only a few months,” adds Sandler.
“I feel like that was also part of what made it work, because making a movie takes such a long time and it’s constant waiting,” says Lakatos. “We were like, great, let’s do this right now. The immediate reaction is, but we can’t, there are all these other things and reasons why we can’t. We sort of were like, we know those doubts are going to come up and we are committed to ignoring them. When we’re done with the movie, we can go back to agonizing about all the things we were previously agonizing about.”
What Lakatos and Sandler have yet to mention is that Danny Is My Boyfriend is improvised. The duo outlined each scene’s underlying purpose and the sorts of plot advancements that needed to happen over the course of the improvisation. The rest they left up to their actors and wherever the scene guided them.
Courtesy of “Danny Is My Boyfriend”
“We had ideas about some things we could talk about in this scene that would get us where we needed to go,” states Lakatos. “We would share that with our cast, who would sometimes read the outline and sometimes wouldn’t. We never had any problems when we were actually shooting the scene of it not happening the way we wanted it to or anything like that.”
“It’s important to know that we’re not improvisers and we’re not comedians, so we don’t know what we don’t know,” Lakatos goes on. “We were not doing a bunch of stuff that maybe we should have been doing, you know? But we didn’t know that we should. We were going off of our instinct.”
“It’s interesting, because I feel like it was easy to tell we had something funny when we were watching other people,” adds Sandler. “But when we were in a scene together, it was very challenging. Sometimes we’d stop and be like, that part was really good, but do this faster and add this and say this this way, and maybe switch the order of this. Unfortunately, because of our skill set, I feel like oftentimes it would just cause us to fumble more. and what we actually did the first time would end up being the thing we used. There weren’t very many scenes that we stayed in for more than I’d say, four takes probably.”
“We would do really long takes and just let the conversation evolve and go lots of places that didn’t end up being part of the movie, but maybe there was a moment in minute one and a moment in minute six that were great,” explains Lakatos.
In order to create these improvised scenes, Lakatos and Sandler always had two cameras running. They used the dual cameras as a means of capturing the real reactions of their various scene partners rather than cobbling together reactions from multiple takes. It creates a more natural, seamless feeling for the viewer.
Grace McIntee is the editor of Danny Is My Boyfriend and described the project as a “dream.”
“She also revealed that she didn’t know what we were doing the whole time we were filming, and she thought we were just doing a weird summer project,” recalls Lakatos. “Even though she had signed on to edit, she refused to read the outline until it was actually time to edit.”
“We took a lot of Grace’s advice, too, because I think we needed those outside eyes so much,” adds Sandler. “We obviously did almost everything on this movie, so to have her be like, here’s the humor, here are the good moments, it was so instrumental.”
Courtesy of “Danny Is My Boyfriend”
The characters of Lucy and Mechi discover they’re both dating Danny because of his dog, Paul Wall, played by Lakatos’ real-life dog, Bodie. He looks to be a pit bull mix of some kind, one of those sweet, gentle giants.
“He’s extremely emotional,” Lakatos says. “Unfortunately, due to his sensitivity, the film set environment was not for him. He was really mad about it, even though he mostly was just kind of in the scene, but not really doing anything. We cut him from the third act because we felt like we were torturing him.”
Danny Is My Boyfriend is finishing up its run at the 2026 Slamdance Film Festival, an event known and beloved for its dedication to championing independent cinema. For many, Slamdance is more than just a festival. It’s a reminder of the community film is able to create.
“I learned at the screening we just attended that all the films are first-time either short or feature filmmakers, which I didn’t know, and I thought that was really cool,” says Lakatos.
“It really does feel very cozy and everyone’s very sweet,” adds Sandler. “I think this was a festival that we always thought would be a good fit for our movie. Danny Is My Boyfriend is obviously not traditional in any sense. We were just grateful that there was a space where it could find a home. I think what’s cool about Slamdance, too, is that every festival has a built-in and particular audience. These are people who are going to appreciate and enjoy our film. It’s so important to be around like-minded filmmakers, of course, but also to have your movie shown to people it will speak to. It’s so amazing.”
“I’m excited to hear people laugh and get to watch it with an audience,” continues Sandler. “I think making a comedy alone in a room gets very tedious and you’re like, I just want to watch it and giggle with my friends.”
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