Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

Getting 'Dirty' with writer/director Abe Sylvia
MOVIES
by Richard Knight, Jr., for Windy City Times
2012-01-18

This article shared 6381 times since Wed Jan 18, 2012
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


Out writer-director Abe Sylvia spent close to seven and a half years getting his debut feature, Dirty Girl, made and into theatres—at least some theatres. After a hot bidding war at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival where the film premiered and theatrical runs last fall in New York and Los Angeles, Weinstein, the movie's distributor pulled Chicago and other cities from its release schedule. Now, with the film arriving on DVD, movie fans in the Windy City will finally have a chance to check out Sylvia's energetic little road comedy.

The movie centers on a mismatched duo: Juno Temple as Danielle ( the title character ) , a cynical high school tramp shielding a heart of gold and Jeremy Dozier ( in his movie debut ) as Clarke, the gay, awkward and shy, overweight object of high school bullying. Outside of school, both Danielle and Clarke have their proverbial crosses to bear, too—a trampy mother ( Milla Jovovich ) mixed up with a conservative Mormon boyfriend ( William H. Macy ) for Danielle and a homophobic father ( Dwight Yoakam ) and mother in denial ( Mary Steenburgen ) for Clarke. When things reach an emotional breaking point the mismatched teens hit the road in search of Danielle's father ( Tim McGraw ) . Along the way they bond and, in one memorable sequence, Clarke loses his virginity to a hot male stripper ( played with sensual finesse by Nicholas D'Agosto ) .

Dirty Girl is set in 1987 in Oklahoma and has an autobiographical basis ( although the openly queer Sylvia had supportive parents ) . The movie is awash with bright, hot colors and the New Wave music that Sylvia, who started as a Broadway dancer before deciding instead on a career in film, remembered listening to as he was growing up during that period. Singer/songwriter Melissa Manchester, whose songs play a big part in the movie, also wrote ( in collaboration with Steenburgen ) a new ballad for the film that is being touted as a possible Oscar contender. The young filmmaker enthusiastically chatted about his movie and upcoming projects in an exclusive interview with Windy City Times.

Windy City Times: You had a terrific producer in Christine Vachon for your first movie.

Abe Sylvia: Oh yes, I did but, you know, no movie gets made easily and Christine actually has a favorite quote that she repeats from time to time. When people say, "I don't know how movies get made," Christine answers, "Producers are how" [ laughs ] and, luckily, I had wonderful producers to help make this happen. Everyone really believed in the script. We had a great team, all onboard making the movie we wanted to make.

WCT: You also had a great cast, starting with your lead, Juno Temple.

AS: Yes, absolutely. When I was going around to festivals people in the audience would say, "Where did you find that girl? She's amazing," and I would say, "That's the little red-headed girl from Atonement." There would be an audible gasp because she so got the character of Danielle and, in real life, she was a British boarding school chick but she's a real actress and is really able to transform herself. People don't realize how many times they've seen her in something because she's such a chameleon.

WCT: I understand you went through hundreds of auditions in L.A. to find the actor to play Clarke but you ended up finding him somewhere else.

AS: That's right. We just couldn't find him. We knew this kid had to feel incredibly real and my casting director finally said, "Let's open this up nationwide" and about a week later we got this tape from Jeremy [ Dozier ] ; he was a theater student at the University of Texas and he sent this tape that was utterly charming. He shot it in his dorm room after finals; he'd hung a bedsheet up on his wall and I think he lit it himself with a lamp and we flew him to L.A. He was terrific.

WCT: What sequence in the shoot stands out when you look back?

AS: The first day really stands out. When I pulled up that first day and all the trailers were there and that was so thrilling to me—and to see all these people there to create something that I had started writing on my laptop at a Starbucks not that many years before. It was pretty amazing.

WCT: One of the film's highlights for queer audiences no doubt is going to be the scene where Danielle and Clarke pick up the hitchhiker who turns out to be a male stripper and gives Clarke a night he'll never forget. Can you talk about that scene?

AS: It's a pretty magical sequence and the sequence of the film I'm most proud of, in terms of pure cinema. Nicholas [ D'Agosto ] the actor who played the part is a really fearless, wonderful actor and had no qualms about playing Joel—who I don't think is gay. I think of him as sort of omnisexual. He's one of those guys who will flirt with anybody, you know?

WCT: I got that—he's like the character Colin Farrell played in A Home at the End of the World.

AS: That's a really good corollary, yeah. We rehearsed that scene within an inch of his life because getting all of those elements on camera was going to be tricky. ( Joel does a strip tease while dancing on the hood of the car at a deserted drive-in theater. ) That whole sequence is about how as a gay kid growing up—this has changed a bit now—you fell in love with the movies but yet there were no images of yourself in the film.

There were no images to claim for yourself if you were gay; there were no images of the kinds of feelings you were having in the movie and so you would identify with the girl or whoever—a bit of a transference would have to happen. I want gay kids to come along and say, "Yes, I deserve romance and there it is in Dirty Girl."

WCT: It's wonderful to hear young queer filmmakers like yourself determine that this next generation will have images to call their own—that they won't have to reconfigure in their heads.

AS: The downside of this is that now sometimes I think gay audiences only want idealized images of themselves and they might not always be the most truthful depictions. It's hard because there are still so few films made with gay characters in the lead. And that means that every gay character on film bears the weight of being a role model or an image that we all have to look up to. It's unfair to the character. We don't put that kind of pressure on straight, white characters.

WCT: There's also a perception in general that gay movies are not as financially viable. I'm going to guess that you experienced some of that because you came out of Toronto with a hot distribution deal and then the film didn't get the greatest reviews in New York and L.A. and suddenly its distribution got scaled back a bit. Does that have to do with it being a "gay" movie or am I reading into that?

AS: I hope not; I don't think so. If our research showed us anything our movie scored very high and audiences loved it. I don't think it was a gay backlash so much as it was—

WCT: I'm just wondering if the "gay movie" tag was part of it?

AS: I honestly don't think so. I've seen the movie with so many kinds of audiences and that has never been my experience. The movie aims to please and you get past the fact that I made a movie where the two lead characters are ostensibly in the Hollywood vernacular "unlikeable." There's no middle ground with this movie. The people who love it, love it and the people who hate, hate it.

WCT: So what's up next, Abe?

AS: I'm writing a pilot for HBO with Josh Brolin attached and I'm very excited about that. I can't really talk much about it but one of the lead characters is transgender.

WCT: Love that.

AS: I'm working with Claudia Shear on a film adaptation of her play, Dirty Blonde, and I literally finished a draft of that this week. I'm very excited about that—it's about Mae West and the people who worship her. [ Laughs ] I like making movies about iconoclastic women. My fascination with Danielle is not so far off from women who aren't afraid to be themselves.

WCT: Well, we look forward to more of those women in your movies.

AS: Thank you.

See www.abesylvia.com .


This article shared 6381 times since Wed Jan 18, 2012
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

JP Karliak morphs into non-binary character for Disney+'s X-Men '97 2024-03-22
- series X-Men '97, a revival of the popular X-men: The Animated Series that's both continuing the ongoing mutant storyline and breaking new ground along the way. The character of Morph now looks more like the comic ...


Gay News

WORLD Uganda items, HIV report, Mandela, Liechtenstein, foreign minister weds 2024-03-21
- It turned out that U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam traveled to Uganda on Feb. 19-27, per The Washington Blade. He visited the capital of Kampala and the nearby city of ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Queer musicians, Marvel situation, Elliot Page, Nicole Kidman 2024-03-21
- Queer musician Joy Oladokun released the single "I Wished on the Moon," from Jack Antonoff's official soundtrack for the new Apple TV+ series The New Look, per a press release. The soundtrack, ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Lady Gaga, 'P-Valley,' Wendy Williams, Luke Evans, 'Queer Eye,' 'Transition' 2024-03-15
- Lady Gaga came to the defense of Dylan Mulvaney after a post with the trans influencer/activist for International Women's Day received hateful responses, People Magazine noted. On Instagram, Gaga stated, "It's appalling to me that a ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Jinkx Monsoon, Xavier Dolan, 'Frida,' Lena Waithe, out singer 2024-03-08
- Two-time RuPaul's Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon is headed back to the New York stage, joining off-Broadway's Little Shop of Horrors as Audrey beginning April 2, according to Playbill. The casting makes Monsoon the first drag ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Queer actors, icons duet, Hunter Schafer, Oscars, Elizabeth Taylor 2024-03-01
- Queer actor Kal Penn is set to star in Trust Me, I'm a Doctor—a film that chronicles the final days of actress/model Anna Nicole Smith, whose overdose death in 2007 at age 39 sparked a tabloid ...


Gay News

Dorian Film Awards: 'All of Us Strangers' takes top prizes 2024-02-27
- February 26, 2024 - Los Angeles, Ca. - For its 15th Dorian Film Awards, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics fully embraced All of Us Strangers, writer-director Andrew Haigh's fantastical and tear-inducing tale of two ...


Gay News

SAG Awards honor Streisand, few LGBTQ+ actors 2024-02-25
- Queer entertainers made their mark—although not a major one—at the 2024 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, held Feb. 24 in Los Angeles. The event was live-streamed on Netflix for the first time. Indigenous and Two-Spirit actor ...


Gay News

WORLD Caribbean ruling, Pussy Riot, Russian raid, Canadian warning, anti-trans bar 2024-02-23
- The top court in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines dismissed a challenge to colonial-era anti-gay laws, Reuters reported. Javin Johnson and Sean Macleish—two gay men who had pushed to decriminalize ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Kristen Stewart, Rock Hudson, Talia Keys, 'True Detective,' Marvel comic 2024-02-23
- At the Berlin Film Festival, Kristen Stewart defended her photo shoot for a Rolling Stone magazine cover that went viral and divided audiences on social-media platforms, per The Hollywood Reporter. "The existence of a female body ...


Gay News

Second Glance Productions hosts LGBTQupid Soiree 2024-02-16
- In celebration of Valentine's Day, Chicago based film and media production company Second Glance hosted The LBGTQupid Soiree. The event, which was focused on spinning attitudes on this particular day, was presented at The iO ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Elton John, Hannah Gadsby, video game, Jennifer Lopez, queer thriller 2024-02-16
Video below - Sir Elton John has sold his Atlanta home and is now auctioning off more than 900 of his personal items that were kept in the 13,500-square-foot condo, The Daily Mail noted. The massive collection includes rare ...


Gay News

GALECA announces nominees for the Dorian Film Awards 2024-02-07
--From a press release - Feb. 5, 2024 - GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, consisting of over 500 entertainment critics, journalists and media icons, today announced the group's democratically chosen nominees for its 15th Dorian Film Awards. All of ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ JoJo Siwa, Tom Holland, Bowen Yang, Pet Shop Boys, Mariah Carey 2024-02-02
- In the wake of Nigel Lythgoe exiting So You Think You Can Dance, queer personality JoJo Siwa is returning to the series, per Deadline. Siwa, who was a judge on season 17 of the Fox show, will replace Lythgoe, who left ...


Gay News

Leather Archives & Museum announces 2024 Fetish Film Forum 2024-01-27
--From a press release - CHICAGO, Illinois—After a wildly successful inaugural year, including a 10-film series at the Leather Archives & Museum and a 5-film series at FACETS, the Leather Archives & Museum is thrilled to announce the continuation of Fetish ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.