NOTHING TO SAY
Narrative Feature
Project Type: Narrative Feature
Project Status: Pre-Production
Writer/Director/Producer: Taylor Brogan
Producer: Elise Laplante
Producer: Michael Dean Hebert Lead (Bridget): Olivia Scott Welch
Lead (Nick): Daniel Doheny
LOGLINE
High school friends Bridget and Nick reconnect as adults and try to figure out how to love each other without hurting themselves.
SYNOPSIS
‘Nothing to Say’ consists mostly of conversations between Bridget and Nick as they navigate the imbalance of feelings in their relationship. The story takes place over the course of a few days, as Bridget is crashing at Nick’s place in LA while she interviews for a job in the city. Nick is thinking – “hey, we’re adults now, and if Bridget gets this job, we’re finally going to live in the same place, and we’re finally going to be together.” But Bridget doesn’t know how she feels about Nick. She was in love with him when they were younger, but he broke her heart, so she forced herself to get over it. Now, she’s not sure if she’s able to find the feelings she used to have for him. She WANTS to. After all, she loves Nick, really. They know each other. They speak the same language. It’s easy with Nick. And yet… There’s something missing.
Bridget begins the movie with a real sense of hope that she might actually fall back in love with Nick. But, about halfway through her visit, Bridget and Nick share a drunken kiss, and in that moment, their feelings are solidified: Nick finally believes he and Bridget have a real shot, and Bridget knows for sure that she doesn’t want to be with him.
What complicates it further is that Bridget lands the job in LA. She doesn’t want to lead Nick on, so she's got to be honest. When she finally tells Nick that she doesn’t want to be with him, he feels like she led him on anyway. They hash it out, saying all the unsaid hurtful & true things they’ve kept buried. And it’s…cathartic. Now Nick has a hard pill to swallow - he can stay mad, or he can keep Bridget as his friend. The next morning, as Bridget is packing to leave, Nick apologizes for lashing out. It hurts, now, but he’ll get over it just like she did so many years ago. Once the dust settles, the real shape of their friendship emerges. They’ll be okay.
MORE ABOUT THIS PROJECT
This is a film about love and friendship, about friends who never got the timing right, about the heartbreak of not reciprocating romantic feelings. This film is inspired by my relationship with my best friend from high school, who I’ve known since I was 14. I love him deeply. I was IN love with him, when we were younger, but after several years of one-sided pining, I had to force myself to get over it. And as soon as I did, he realized his own feelings. The feelings I used to have for him are gone, and that sucks.
So many of my favorite films are about the-one-who-got-away (Past Lives, La La Land, the Before trilogy), but those stories are usually about external forces in life getting in the way of true love or whatever. The characters love each other, but they're on different paths. The obstacles are largely external or situational. In my experience, the greatest heartbreaks of my life have not been the result of living in different time zones or having incompatible ambitions, but about a simple imbalance of feeling. One person just wants the other a little bit too much, or not enough. This particular kind of heartbreak is a ubiquitous feeling that’s underexplored in cinema. And it's the kind of heartbreak I plan to explore in this film.
Meet The Filmmakers
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Taylor Brogan
Writer/Director/Producer
Taylor is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker. She grew up in Northern Virginia and graduated with honors from the University of Chicago. Her first writing job was on a PBS Digital adaptation of Frankenstein that has since been scrubbed from the internet, but it got her into the WGA at 22. She’s spent the majority of her career in TV writers’ rooms and most recently wrote an episode of AMC’s Lucky Hank, starring Bob Odenkirk. She’s a fan of figure skating, Shakespeare, cold weather, and post-punk.
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Elise Laplante
Producer
Elise is a writer & producer born and raised in Florida. She has produced numerous shorts and has worked behind the scenes on television shows such as Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Yellowstone, Star Trek: Picard, as well as feature films like The Duff. Last year, the proof of concept she produced for the musical The Fitzgeralds of St. Paul made its debut via Playbill. She teaches in the Cinema department at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita and volunteers with Young Storytellers in Boyle Heights.
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Michael Dean Hebert
Producer
Michael grew up in Northern Wisconsin. He went to school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied film and philosophy and helped run the student comedy paper. He first started production work in Madison, making commercials for MillerCoors, before moving to LA to pursue filmmaking. He is currently a Manager of Development Production at Netflix Animation. Prior to Netflix, he worked at Disney on Encanto, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. He has produced two short films going to festivals in 2026, and in addition to ‘Nothing to Say’ is also producing the feature film ‘Baby Sister’ through CFA.
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Olivia Scott Welch
Lead (Bridget)
Olivia is an American actress born and raised in Hurst, Texas. She is best known for her starring role of Sam Fraser in Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy, as well as starring in the Prime Video series Panic. Other credits include indie features Shithouse and The Sacrifice Game, and TV series like Lucky Hank, Unbelievable, and Modern Family.
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Daniel Doheny
Lead (Nick)
Daniel is an actor and writer from Vancouver, Canada, best known for his starring roles in the 2018 films Alex Strangelove and The Package. He has worked in features, television and theatre for the past decade. He has written for television and film, and performs his own work on stage.
Your Help
NOTHING TO SAY is a fiscally sponsored project of Cinematography for Actors, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Your donation will be tax-deductible!