Out writer-director Jonah Markowitz is justly proud of his first feature film, Shelter ( which opens Fri., April 4, at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport ) . It's an appealing queer-themed, love story that focuses on two hunky surfers in sunny California: Zach ( newcomer Trevor Wright ) and Shaun ( played by Brad Rowe, who is familiar to gay audiences as the object of Sean Hayes' lust in Billy Hollywood's Screen Kiss ) . Markowitz talked with Windy City Times about the film as he drove through L.A. traffic.
Windy City Times: Congratulations on your first feature as a writer and director. That's quite an accomplishment.
Jonah Markowitz: Thank you so much. We're all very proud of it.
WCT: Shelter has characters that are into surfing. Is that in your background?
JM: I started surfing when I did a movie called Blue Crush. I worked as an art director on that movie so I started doing that. More than anything, I wanted to do a film that fell in love doing something that was sort of very traditionally 'male'—something that men do to bond and usually out of doors—like hunting or camping or dirt biking or snowboarding or surfing that had that element as well as being an urban environment.
WCT: You sure it wasn't just an excuse to spend lots and lots of days around nearly naked hunks? [ Laughs ]
JM: Well, living in California that's sort of a given. It served a couple of purposes, I'll just say. [ Laughs ]
WCT: As a surfer yourself and being integrated into that subculture a little bit, is it a group that's particularly homophobic? My guess is that it would be a little more laidback.
JM: I think it's both. I think it's like anything else in the sports world, you will find both. Mostly it's about people out there surfing because that's what they love and they're not really interested in what other people are doing.
WCT: I'm a middle-aged gay man so, at this point, coming-out stories for me are a dime a dozen. [ However, ] even as I'm saying this I know these are still important stories to tell, right?
JM: They are. But I think differently then they used to be. I think that the coming-out story is a different story now, and I think you can see that in Shelter in the way that Zach's friends react to him. It's more like his friends are upset that he never told them in the first place.
WCT: Yes, yes—that's a huge shift culturally. Let's talk about casting for a moment. Were any openly gay actors considered? I know that there are not very many, but I'm always curious about that.
JM: Some did audition, yes. I don't really ask people if they're gay or straight when they walk in the door. It's just not how I like to conduct any business because I don't appreciate when people do it to me so I didn't know and it wasn't important to me. Actually, in my opinion, straight men seem more comfortable auditioning for gay roles than gay men do.
WCT: Why is that?
JM: I think it's just the pressure of being an out actor in Hollywood and the stigma that goes along with that. If you're straight and you play gay and the question 'Are you gay or are you straight?' gets asked you can answer that you're straight and not be afraid that you're going to be typecast, which a lot of gay actors are afraid of.
WCT: Harvey Fierstein said to me 20-plus years ago when doing press for the Torch Song Trilogy movie, 'I've got a thousand gay stories I want to tell.' What are some that you'd like to put on the screen?
JM: There are so many stories that I want to tell and I don't know if they're gay stories or not gay stories. I'm not sure what that means. I want to tell stories about love and about life and passion and loss. I think those are the stories I want to tell whether it's two men or a man and a woman or three women or eight men and twelve women—
WCT: [ Laughs ] That sounds good! You can call that one Shortbus.
JM: Exactly [ Laughs ] . I just want to tell stories we all can relate to.
WCT: Is there one that you're working on?
JM: I have a couple. There all across the board. I've got an adventure script I'm working on, a sci-fi script, another family drama. Some of them have gay characters, some have all gay characters, some have no gay characters. I'm just trying to figure out what the next right choice is.
WCT: I'm going to switch paths for a moment. I know your background includes a lot of different kinds of films working as an art director and production designer and that includes Meet the Fockers. Any Barbra Streisand stories?
JM: I don't, actually; I wish I did! But I didn't have that much contact with her and I'm not going to make something up. [ Laughs ] I'm sorry. If it was my choice, of course, I'd have plenty of stories.
WCT: I know there's a short time window between the film being in the theaters and on DVD. Why should people make the effort to go out and see it on the big screen?
JM: What's really revolutionary is that here! TV gave us a theatrical release on this movie and there are so few gay movies that get that. They actually financed the movie, and if people want to keep seeing movies like this in theaters it's very important that they go out the week that it opens to prove that there's an audience for movies like this. They want to go to the cinema and see their stories up on the screen. They want to support these kinds of films because that's how these movies wind up getting made.
WCT: And I also think it's a great date movie.
JM: And it's a great date movie. You're guaranteed to get laid if you go see it. [ Laughs ]
