Born and raised in Los Angeles, Gaskill's interest in filmmaking began with a love of still photography, which she researched for her PhD in Spanish literature. She wrote and directed her first short film based upon a fictionalized retelling of the early relationship of her Japanese grandmother and American grandfather, who met during the U.S. Occupation of Japan after WWII.
During Covid lockdown she turned the camera on herself while developing her fictional alter-ego and character Fannie Templeton, ex-WWII spy in France and unwed mother who returned home to Connecticut to raise her child alone. She never divulged the name of the father, but many suspected a field operative known by alias, Nathaniel.