Jasper Cole has more than 100 screen credits to his name as an actor, producer and writer. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the gay cult-classic Get Your Stuff, Windy City Times talked with Cole—who was been in everything from TV's Everybody Hates Chris to the film MacGruber—about how the themes of the movie still translate today.
Windy City Times: Hello, Jasper. What are you up to these days?
Jasper Cole: Tonight is the big Palm Springs film festival so I am driving out to the desert later on.
WCT: What film are you promoting?
Jasper Cole: I have a new film in preproduction called Betrayal of Trust. It is a screenplay that I wrote and produced. My producing partner is Denise Boutte, who stars on Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns sitcom. She's starring in the project so it has been a passion project of ours that is finally moving forward.
WCT: That's great.
Jasper Cole: I am still promoting MacGruber that is out on DVD. I have a guest spot on HBO's Funny or Die. There's a lot coming out this year.
WCT: You are a busy guy!
Jasper Cole: [Laughs] Very lucky…
WCT: You have done over a hundred movies and TV shows?
Jasper Cole: That's what they say. It's hard to believe. I have done a lot more TV than film. It's combined.
WCT: For the movie Get Your Stuff, where did the name come from?
Jasper Cole: Originally this was a play. Max Mitchell is the writer and director. It was his play that he had done in Florida. In the movie, when the kids were placed somewhere the mom would show up and say, "Get your stuff, we're leaving." That was the tagline.
WCT: That makes sense now. How did you get involved in the film?
Jasper Cole: I had a co-producer, Carl Peoples, and we met Max to produce it. We brought on Jim J. Bullock and Elaine Hendrix, who played Cat the mother. We had very little time to put it all together. We shot this in seventeen days on a shoestring budget. It was a great Producing 101 lesson.
WCT: I bet.
Jasper Cole: The year prior to this I had worked at Paramount and produced a pilot called Texarkana coming from the studio system where everything is done for you and you have the money to suddenly being independent where you literally doing it all. It was a great education.
WCT: How is it to look back at it 10 years later?
Jasper Cole: It's amazing. The movie was way before its time. From the year 2000 with gay marriage and adoption, that whole issue has exploded in the last 10 years. At the time it was pretty provocative, not as many people were doing it and it was harder. The movie has only gotten more popular with DVD sales. It has done even better internationally. Maybe it's because Europeans tend to have a more open mind about certain things. It has lived on particularly well in the past five years.
WCT: I don't know of a lot of movies that deal with that subject.
Jasper Cole: Exactly. The times are catching up with the movie. It is a sweet family film where the couple just happens to be gay. It is the story of families that are made not always born. It is about who comes into your life and what happens afterward. I notice now in my own life where gay couples are out with their kids. It is common practice now.
WCT: All the time gay celebs go on The View and talk about their kids, like Alec Mapa and Melissa Etheridge.
Jasper Cole: Neil Patrick Harris.
WCT: Elton John just adopted one!
Jasper Cole: It's great how it's reported now like any other couple that have children. It's not such breaking news when Ricky Martin has twins. There are some that you forget about because it's no big deal.
WCT: We have come a long way.
Jasper Cole: I remember when we did the festival circuit and sitting on these panels after the screenings. People would lay us out: "What are you thinking?" It would be some right-wing bible person but sometimes it would be a gay person saying we were trying to be like straight people. That was the point.
WCT: Kids have been the bridge over to the straight world because it gives us something to have in common.
Jasper Cole: It's the older generation that is resistant to the whole gay-marriage issue. The younger generation doesn't have a problem with it as much.
WCT: My 12-year old niece is one of the most open-minded people I know about the LGBT community.
Jasper Cole: Max and I talked about making Get Your Stuff a pilot for a TV show. I am in a better position now to get something made. The series could pick up where the movie leaves off, living together and making it work with kids.
WCT: You are openly gay in Hollywood?
Jasper Cole: Yes, but because I am character actor [so] no one really cares. I have never been in the closet. If you are not the leading guy then people don't care.
WCT: How did you end up with the mean-guy roles?
Jasper Cole: I turned a certain age and started looking like a mean person. I got old and haggard. I have embraced it—no Botox here!
Visit Just Jasper at www.jaspercole.com; to purchase Get Your Stuff visit www.tlavideo.com .
