Earlier this month I spent the day in Los Angeles filming the music video for Toosii’s single, “Favorite Song” and I had the best time working with Toosii and the incredibly talented production teams.
This was the first music video I have done since 2021, when I filmed “Only One” with Khea, Becky G and Julia Michaels, and I forgot how much I love the creative process of music videos! My favorite part is that when you’re shooting, everything can feel a bit disconnected as an actor. You’re getting a script and direction, and of course I had heard the song, but the team had this vision for the video that ultimately came together in a way I couldn’t have even imagined!
Working in production this way has given me a whole different perspective on movies, television, concerts, and pretty much all aspects of entertainment. The people I have been lucky enough to work with in this industry – including the artists, gaffers, directors, grips, makeup artists, etc. – are so good at what they do that even though I’m on set watching them do their work for hours at a time, I forget until I’m on set that a lot of it is smoke and mirrors.
I’ve seen skilled videographers make tiny rooms look huge. Hairstylists have clipped what felt like 4 lbs of extensions into my hair to give me 8 inches of hair I don’t *actually* have. People I have met the day of filming act as if we’ve been friends for years on camera as soon as the director yells, “action!”. The reason we forget this isn’t real life when we’re watching is because we’re supposed to.
I was especially reminded of this when the music video dropped this week and so many people in my comments expressed concern about the fact that I was playing Toosii’s romantic interest in the video. People were really worried about my boyfriend and how he felt about it, which I thought was sweet, mostly.
I understand that acting isn’t a “normal” line of work and situations like this one require me to be extra reassuring with my boyfriend, and do my best to consider his feelings when I’m working. We talked about the situation before I agreed to do the video, and he 100 percent supported me. Sure, it was weird, because I hadn’t appeared in anything like this since I’d been dating, and he had never been on set to see that intimacy scenes really aren’t all that intimate.
But the real story is that though it looks glamorous, we shot our “bedroom scene” for the video in a 10-foot-by-10-foot room with a handful of other people in this tiny space with us – including the director, the cameraman, assistant director, photographer, hair stylist and a few others – to try to get the right angels for the scene. The director, Damien, posted this video to his IG where you can see how many people were working together to make this scene what it was. It was supposed to look romantic and I’m glad it did! But behind the scenes, there was a lot of laughter and jokes.
Other people were so concerned that I was naked in the bathtub scene, which I never was—again, it’s all about the angles. I had a strapless bra and shorts on the entire time, which you couldn’t see from the angle the scene was shot, because you weren’t supposed to! We had to appear very comfortable, and luckily, we both were! Toosii was the ultimate gentleman and I absolutely loved working with him. We talked about our personal lives and connected on how funny it was that there were so many people hovering over us and they were somehow going to make it, and us, look cool.
When you’re shooting, all of the frames feel a little disconnected, because most of the time, you’re not shooting them in order. I spent much of the day in a room with my mom and the hair and makeup artists, just hanging out and talking until it was time to shoot my scenes. We were at the Million Dollar Theater in Los Angeles which was so cool inside and out (although definitely drafty on a cold L.A. day!). The architecture and history of the building was absolutely incredible and I couldn’t help but try to channel Old Hollywood. We shot a couple scenes of me there, then moved to another location not far away to shoot the house scenes.
When we finally wrapped the shoot at 1 a.m. – after a long 12-hour day – Toosii and I made a fun video for TikTok and had everyone laughing (I think we were all delirious at that point!).
When I saw the “official photos” from the shoot this week, I was stunned at how everything looked, which made me even more excited to watch the video to see how it all came together. My older brother and I sat together and watched the premiere, along with the thousands of other Toosii fans, and were so inspired by how the story came together. The video is now at No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and climbing!
I had so much fun filming and am so incredibly grateful to Toosii’s team and his label for including me as his “video vixen”. I walked away feeling like I had made a bunch of friends, which is always my favorite part of working with new people. I’m looking forward to doing lots more acting moving forward, and can’t wait to share it with you all when I do. If you haven’t seen the video for “Favorite Song” yet, go watch and comment if you’ve come from the blog. I love to see who’s reading.<3
