Reverend's Interview from Outfest: Ready? OK!

My early fave movie being shown at the 26th Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, a.k.a. Outfest, is the perfectly delightful Ready? OK! This GLBT must-see, written and directed by James Vasquez, premieres at Outfest this Friday.

Its plot centers on young Josh, a fifth-grader who desperately wants to join the all-girl cheer squad at his Catholic school. Carrie Preston (who also co-produced the film) plays Josh’s loving but often flummoxed mother, Andy, and Michael Emerson plays their gay neighbor, Charlie. He is so unconditionally supportive of Josh that, when the students are required to dress as their favorite religious figure for Halloween, Charlie makes the boy’s dream costume: Maria Von Trapp!

It amazes me that Emerson and Preston aren’t yet household names, especially in gay circles. Emerson made his mark off-Broadway in 1997-1998, giving an extraordinary performance as Oscar Wilde in the acclaimed Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde (which I was privileged to see). Preston, Emerson’s real-life wife, was (around the same time) stealing the show every night in the play Straight-Jacket, as a naïve secretary tricked into marrying a closeted gay actor in 1950’s Hollywood. Preston and Emerson co-starred in the enjoyable 2004 film adaptation of Straight-Jacket, in which the two give more assured and memorable performances than the lead actors did.

Both have made guest appearances over the years in such popular TV series as Law & Order, Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, The X-Files and Arrested Development, and Emerson won a 2001 Emmy for his role on The Practice. Preston has had supporting parts in GLBT favorites Transamerica (playing Bree’s/Felicity Huffman’s sister), My Best Friend’s Wedding and the campy remake of The Stepford Wives. They remain the kind of actors whose faces we readily recognize, yet we don’t recall their names.

I believe that’s about to change. Over the last two seasons, Emerson has caused a stir on the hit TV show Lost as Ben Linus, leader of the mysterious Others and chief keeper of the island’s many secrets. And Preston has several high-profile movies awaiting release: Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Duplicity, by Michael Clayton writer-director Tony Gilroy; and the film version of the Broadway smash Doubt, acting alongside Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Preston and Emerson about their work on Ready? OK! But first, let me get a couple of things out of the way for my fellow Lost fans: yes, it was cool and a little creepy to hear the voice of Ben coming through my telephone and, no, he doesn’t know where Ben moved the island to at the climax of the recent season finale.

CC: What drew you both to Ready? OK!?
Preston: James (Vasquez) and I were at Julliard together. When he first started talking about a germ of an idea he had about a little boy who wants to be a cheerleader, I really wanted to develop a character who showed the mother’s/parent’s coming-out process.
Emerson: I’m friends with James and I like his aesthetic, his artistic mission of showing social outsiders but not in a glamorized or sexualized way.

CC: The “gay neighbor” character in movies and on TV has become something of a cliché. Did you have concerns about playing such a role in this film?
Emerson: I liked Charlie’s drollery and humanity. The gay neighbor is a type that’s out there, but I thought Charlie’s peacefulness and quiet centeredness set him apart.

CC: There’s a lovely scene in the film between the two of you, where Charlie is fitting a dress on Andy. Does being married to each other add something different to acting together?
Preston: Yes. James, Michael and I talked a lot about that scene and how it should be the scene where Andy breaks apart. It was made easier and meant much more to play it looking into the eyes of my partner of thirteen years.
Emerson: It did make the scene easier to play and added to my character’s serenity. We know and trust each other. Interestingly, the role of Charlie was bigger and more detailed in earlier drafts of the script, but much of it was deemed excessive and unnecessary as we developed it. It seemed appropriate for the character to become simpler.

CC: The young actor who plays Josh, 10-year old Lurie Poston, is great in Ready? OK! What was it like for each of you to act with him?
Preston: We got really lucky with him. We saw 30-40 boys in Los Angeles and Lurie was really the only choice. He’s really natural and was so easy to work with.
Emerson: You always approach working with children with a little trepidation. A lot of the time, a great performance by a child can be attributed to a great director. But Lurie was so natural and so easy to work with.

CC: You’ve both done a number of GLBT-oriented projects. Is this an area or audience of particular interest to you? What draws you to such films and plays?
Preston: For me, I feel that these are the stories that are still finding their way to the screen and to a general audience. With our production company, Daisy 3, we are trying to make movies you can show to parents and others who aren’t LGBT themselves.
Emerson: It just happens to have worked out that way with the roles I find interesting and my artistic circle. And it might be that my “skill set” inclines me toward roles where I kind of float along or play characters who skirt gender norms and expectations. I also love to play comedy, and parts where I have a few comedic zingers as in such films as Straight-Jacket and Ready? OK!

CC: Does either or both of you have a particular message you’d like to send to the GLBT community?
Preston: Try not to label anybody, whether in terms of sexual orientation, politics, et cetera. In this film, Josh simply is, and it falls to his mother to accept him for who he is.
Emerson: I’d just like everybody to try to break formulas and formulaic thinking. There’s too much of that out there.

CC: What are your plans for Ready? OK! beyond Outfest?
Preston: We are in talks with distributors regarding a potential theatrical release, but we don’t have delusions of grandeur because it is a small film. At the very least, it will get a DVD release.

So, dear readers, get ready for Ready? OK! (watch the trailer here), in theaters and/or on DVD soon.

UPDATE: Ready? OK! is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade.

Reel Thoughts Interview: That "Garcia" Guy

Little Somerton, Arizona, a dusty town not far from Yuma and the Mexican border, played host to a favorite daughter filming a very personal story, How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer. Much like Falling for Grace and Bonneville, Georgina Garcia Reidel’s film is an independent labor of love with some impressive star power. America Ferrera, Elizabeth Peña and Steven Bauer, along with the enchanting Lucy Gallardo, all bring to life the story of three generations of women searching for love and sex in a small town where nothing happens.

It’s a quiet, languidly paced character study where the heat, longing, and desire for something more are palpable. Bauer, the Cuban-born actor best known for sizzling performances in Scarface and Thief of Hearts, plays Victor Reyes, the comically macho town lothario and video store owner. He catches the eye of lonely mother (and butcher shop owner) Peña, at the same time as her mother (Gallardo) is striking up a friendship with benefits (free driving lessons) with her gardener, and her daughter (Ferrera) is exploring her sexuality with the new bad boy in town.

Bauer is a true contradiction to his swaggering action star persona. The grandson of a German concert violinist (who escaped the Holocaust) and an opera singer, and whose parents fled Cuba as Castro took over, Bauer is a talented musician who is constantly playing guitar or singing when not acting. He loved working on Garcia Girls and can’t say enough great things about the experience of making the film, the people in Somerton he met, and his excitement that Reidel’s film is finally getting distribution and recognition, three years after it garnered a Grand Jury Award nomination at the Sundance Film Festival.

"For some reason, I have a real affinity for the desert and I just loved that small town feel in Somerton and Yuma," Bauer explained. I was able to speak to him right before he left for the International Women’s Film Festival in his hometown of Miami to show the film.

NC: How was it being this huge burst of testosterone among all those women?
SB: Well, that was fun, that was really fun. Needless to say, I was flattered and honored to be chosen by Georgina for that part, and I just had to try to be humble (laughing), just try to retain some humility and not get too carried away there. It really was a great time, and all of the actors were really into the piece. We were all supporting Georgina in her first feature. I’m just so excited that it finally got distribution. It’s been an uphill battle for her. I don’t know if America’s burst of stardom had anything to do with it …

NC: What did you base Victor’s swaggering machismo on?
SB: Oh, gosh. You know, I’ve known guys like that. I’m always observing types, especially men, and the different form and variety of game that men have in dealing with the opposite sex. God, this is a particular type, because he’s a married man who’s not giving up his day job (laughing), he’s the married guy who still wants to be in high school and is just trying to put as many notches on his gun as possible. And he’s got a way of doing it, because obviously he has a radar for the ones who are vulnerable. It’s a social comedy so it’s not written quite that cruelly, but he’s not the nicest person in the world. I tried to play him with some humor. I did approach it, the arrogance, that he considers himself one-of-a-kind, so unique that "no one can resist me". I thought that would be kind of funny without playing the character too clownish or too much of a stereotype. I tried to be a little subtle with it.

NC: Yeah, your body language was so great.
SB: Oh good, you picked up on that. I liked the way the scenes were cut. And of course, Elizabeth and I had great chemistry together. Every time they yelled "Cut!", everybody was laughing. We’re playing it seriously and I’m swaggering, and the director is cracking up. She was going, "Oh my god, you’re so sleazy! You’re such a creep! You’re such a creep!" I had to tell them to stop making me laugh. It was really fun doing it!

NC: Your pictures from Sundance show you with this big warm smile, but your characters are usually these tough military types. Which one’s closer to you?
SB: (Laughing) I’m that warm person. That’s me. I was raised in a very loving family, so when I came to Hollywood, it was quite a culture shock for me. I really had to learn the way of the world quickly.

How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer opens today in limited release.

UPDATE: How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer is now avaiable on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Interview by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.