Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters isn’t just a glossy, sugar-spun fable about capitalism and the issues within the fashion industry; it’s also an entertaining flick that reminds us of the importance of community. In his infinite wisdom, Riley knew the best way to tell his story would be through a diverse, predominantly female cast. Among the heavy hitters are Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, and Taylour Paige, who make up the Velvet Gang, a crew of boosters who serve as the Robin Hoods of fashion, stealing from stores to sell to the community at a discounted price. Demi Moore co-stars as the billionaire faux-girlboss, while Eiza González plays a retail worker fighting for better wages, and Poppy Liu portrays a Chinese factory worker pushing for better conditions for the colleagues who make the clothes. I sat down with Eiza González and Poppy Liu to talk about I Love Boosters, their favorite moments on and off the set, if they got to keep any of their rad clothes, and how it feels to be a part of a film that feels larger than life.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Kit Stone: I watched the movie with you all at the Grand Lake screening in Oakland, and it was great. A Boots Riley film feels like a flavor rush. It’s like this genre-bending, hilarious, political, creative work. What was the atmosphere like on the I Love Boosters set?
Eiza González: It was incredible. We had such a good time. You’re talking about some of the realest women on set, not just as actresses but as individuals. So the conversations were as real as they got. And they’re women who really have a strong point of view and a standpoint of who they are as individuals. So it was incredible. We were having really deep, profound conversations, and then we’re just talking about the Spice Girls. It’d run the gamut. We had such amazing chemistry and got along so well.
Poppy Liu: It felt like summer camp
EG: It did.
PL: Because the context also is that we were all living on the same floor of a hotel that is an extended stay.
EG: We were there for a while.
PL: Yeah, months.
EG: So it was really awesome. And then he [Boots Riley] would always tell the most interesting stories even between scenes and sets. And we were always asking him questions like, “How did you do this?” Or, “What was that like?” And it was just incredible. We had a really good environment.
PL: Yeah, it was a lot of shits and a lot of giggles.
KS: I always wondered, as actors, when you’re a part of a project that has this kind of a potent message in it, when you watch the film or even just think about it, how does it resonate with you personally as creatives who help bring it to life?
PL: It feels so special. Boots is such a cultural zeitgeist person. I feel like he is the reference for what revolutionary art, in this day and age—that sort of filmmaking at the level he’s doing it, plus an ethos of social justice—looks like. Honestly, it feels surreal to even be part of it. I keep saying, even if I wasn’t in it, I would literally be the biggest fan of this movie.
EG: I feel like we both get the chance to really vocally speak about important subjects. And it’s funny because I feel like it resonates within our community as well; we just happened to tap into very important subjects. And what I love about him, and I’m sure you agree, is that he never feels preachy. He’s a guy who’s just like, “This is what I feel. I have a strong point of view. I have a strong idea of what I stand for, and this is what I’m going to portray, but you take out of this whatever you need to take out of this. Learn what you need to learn, and have fun while doing it.”
He’s not heavy on his subjects. He’s influential in the way he’s always been as an artist: just setting a tone, setting an idea, standing strong, standing on business, and then letting it sink in the way it needs to sink in. And I think that’s the type of filmmaking we need more of nowadays, especially in the time we’re living in.
PL: Yeah. I also think I have a lot of respect for him because I feel like he is someone who really walks the walk, too. Yeah, the trendiness of being into social justice or whatever, he’s been doing this forever. He has an activist background. Even being in Oakland and seeing how tapped in he is with the community here. And I have friends in Oakland who run nonprofits here. They’re doing stuff with the community, and they’re like, Boots has always been that guy. So he’s not putting on airs about it or using it as a trendy backdrop for blah, blah.
EG: He has movies with a message and stands on it.
PL: Yeah, He faced many of the questions himself for speaking about Gaza, for instance, but that doesn’t stop. So I just have so much respect for him as a person, too, that I’m like, yes, you actually live the values of the stuff that you’re writing.
KS: That’s why it comes off so authentic when you watch it. And as you said, that’s why it doesn’t feel preachy. Okay, this might be one of the most important questions. Did you take anything from the set? Because if I were on set, I would have grabbed a couple of monochromatic outfits. You guys were both wearing super stylish clothing, too. Did you boost anything?
EG: Yeah.
PL: I couldn’t keep some of my faves.
EG: I know, same.
PL: But okay, I was saying the thing about taking stuff from set is, honestly, that on every job you’re on, you really have to become besties with wardrobe. If you’re a bestie with wardrobe—
EG: That’s true.
PL: …and you’re besties with hair and makeup—
EG: You’re on the other side.
PL: …It’s not even boosting. They were just giving shit to you.
EG: When I had my first fitting, I couldn’t believe it. And the thing is with them is they ran the gamut when it came to clothes. It was like vintage Prada and Alias. And I was like, “Whoa, girls, you really are deep in the fashion,” but it was quirky and cool and had a point of view. And so I would’ve loved to steal my jumpsuit.
PL: Shirley Kurata, who was the costume designer, did Everything Everywhere All At Once. She’s a visionary. The costume associate, Lindsey Hartman, I love her. She’s my stylist now. I met her on Boots’s set. And I’m obsessed with her.
EG: But what you’re saying is that you got more pieces than all of us when we wrapped. That’s what she’s saying. She got more clothes than all of us.
PL: Well, there was one day I remember, I think me and Taylour were the last two on set. It was near the end, and they were wrapping up everything. Because they have to do their spreadsheets. No one wants to f—k anyone over, whatever. But they were like, “There’s a box full of stuff,” and they’re like, “It’s just unaccounted for.” So they’re like—
EG: And you were like *does a grabbing motion*
PL: Oh, yeah, it was amazing. We just went over, and they were like, “This box is unaccounted for, and do what you will with that.”
EG: I wasn’t there, sadly. I missed all of that.
KS: So funny. Was there one scene or one moment filming when you suddenly felt like the weight of what the movie is saying, where you were like, “Oh, this isn’t just a scene, this is the point”?
EG: I mean, all my scenes. My character’s pretty straightforward.
PL: She talks in Reddit science.
EG: Yes, she really is a Reddit scientist. 100%. Violeta is on Reddit 24/7, just conspiracy theories.
PL: She’s on Twitch. She’s streaming 24/7.
EG: Yeah. Just smoking vapes. No, but I did. I did. I think that whole speech explaining dialectical materialism and really breaking down what that means for the future, for the past—the scene was larger and longer, and eventually a piece of it made it into the post-credits, where we really expand on the concept we’re trying to explain.
But yeah, I think my motivation in the story is really that she’s a social activist. She really is an activist and a voice for the minority. And so I did feel it. I had a brief time of having fun with the girls—they’re having so much more fun sometimes than me. I was feeling FOMO. I was like, “I want to go there. I want to be changing outfits 40 times a day.”
But yeah, both of our characters really address important subjects. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he casts two minorities in these roles that touch on very important subject matters, and within our cultures as well. So we’re not trying to be heavy about the subject, but it brings a weight to it, and it really brings a realistic take.
You walk the streets of the Bay Area, and there are Asian women and Latin women, and it’s a conglomerate of humans who have really experienced life. So I felt, within the casting itself, he was taking it really seriously—he was making a real movie with real people touching real subjects. And without feeling, again, preachy. It just felt authentic.
PL: I was sharing earlier about how it was really meaningful, also the interracial solidarity piece, too. And that I was like, it feels so significant that there’s this alliance, this China and US alliance, allied by class struggle because ultimately, that is what unites all of us.
And also, there’s the history of Black and Asian relationships and stuff, and how historically they actually were in so much collective solidarity with each other. And had an aha moment of, “Wait, our struggles are not so dissimilar, and we really need an ally.” And that was really, I feel like it got wedged apart largely by I think the government with anti-Blackness and the myths of the model minority and creating this hierarchy of being a person of color measured by proximity to whiteness, all of this stuff.
And I think a lot of that still exists. I know, especially in Asian American culture, still. So I feel like seeing this story about just my character, just in this foursome with three Black girls, and we all came through a teleporter into Oakland. But it was like, oh, we actually have so much in common because what we share is shared struggle and, honestly, a shared oppressor, and that unites us way more than anything else. And I feel like that lifts the veil on a lot of these manufactured ways of keeping us —
EG: Separated.
PL: The oppressed people of the world are separated from each other. And I don’t know, I’m now waxing poetic about it, but that definitely felt really meaningful when I read it—
EG: Yeah, it wasn’t a coincidence. He gets it. He really understands it. And again, I think being from Oakland and being from the Bay Area, you’re living a different reality too from these bigger cities, and he’s just stayed true to where he’s from. And he’s as real as it gets. He’s talking about subject matters because he really believes them, and he really lives them. He’s not trying to pretend to be some kind of woke person at all. He is a real beacon of light in this generation, and as a filmmaker as well. I think more filmmakers with that strong point of view, while making it fun, need to exist.
PL: And not to get too nerdy. I just learned about it, but it’s like Malcolm X read Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book and was really inspired by the communist liberation in 1949. There’s so much actual global solidarity that is so powerful. It’s so powerful that I feel like the imperial powers of the world are trying their best to make people not realize or not create those coalitions because of the power in that. So anyways.
KS: It’s like Eiza was saying at the screening on the panel, it’s all about unity. And when I look at the film, it’s no accident that there are all of these people of color against this one thing, different struggles, but the same struggles. And if we all help each other do it together, then we can all get out of that. That’s absolutely right. You didn’t film together every day. When you watched the film, what’s the one scene for each of you that you were like, “Oh my gosh”? A scene you didn’t expect to turn out quite like that.
EG: The LaKeith. Yeah, LaKeith. I think, for all of us, it’s the LaKeith one. We obviously don’t want to spoil. We were like, “Holy shit.”
PL: We get snippets of it. I think I saw the miniature of it.
EG: I didn’t see anything. I just read it. So I was not mentally ready to see it. And I think what struck me the most is how long it goes on for.
PL: It’s so long.
EG: It’s so long. And I love watching it with an audience because I love seeing people’s physical jerking reaction, and you just see real humanity come through when we’re watching this scene. It’s brilliant. I think it’s brilliant. And I love that he doubled, tripled down. He’s like, “I’m going to make this scene really long.”
PL: Yes. It’s like while I’m watching it, I can mentally hear Boots in the background going —
EG: (mimicking Boots Riley’s laughter) “He, he, he, he.”
PL: Yeah!
EG: It’s such a joy to watch that scene. And even when Naomi’s saying all the lines and they’re going back and forth, it’s so funny with Cash. I think it’s so brilliant. That scene is so good.
PL: It’s so fun. It’s so camp.
I Love Boosters is now playing in theaters.
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