Economist-turned-actor and filmmaker Patrick Wangthe director and star of the gay sleeper hit In the Familycouldn't be farther from convention. A conversation with a civil-rights attorney inspired Wang to write his first feature film about issues faced by unmarried gay partners.
This gay custody drama depicts an Asian-American contractor, Joey ( Wang ) , who loses his partner, Cody ( Trevor St. John ) , to a car accident and faces moral injustice when Cody's sister, Eileen ( Kelly McAndrew ) , takes Joey's assumed son, Chip ( Sebastian Brodziak ) , into her care as prescribed by Cody's final will and testament.
The first 30 festivals to reject the film surely must have noticed the verbosity of Wang's somewhat unchained aesthetic and loose script, but the critical reception took a 180 once the movie premiered at the Hawaii Film Festival last year. Wang spoke with Windy City Times on the phone from his Chicago hotel room.
Windy City Times: Is it true you were on Saturday Night Live as a guest actor?
Patrick Wang: Yes. It was right after the Winter Olympics and I played a friend and fellow Olympic athlete of skier Jonny Moseley, the host of SNL that night. I got to throw up on Jonny Moseley.
WCT: Your claim to fame!
PW: [ Laughs ] Yes, in classic high-brow Saturday Night Live style.
WCT: Getting down to In the Family, why set this story in Tennessee? What makes this story specific to Tennessee?
PW: I'm not sure it has to be in Tennessee, but there were a lot of lovely things that came out of it being there. I know a lot of people in Tennessee, but I haven't spent a lot time there. Western Tennessee is, in my mind, a neutral territory in some ways. It's not geographically very confined. Martin, where the movie takes place, is not a tiny town. There's a university there and people from all over the world.
WCT: It's in the Bible Belt, but we're also in the Bible Belt here in Chicago.
PW: It's never one thing. You could be in the most religious towns of the Bible Belt, but you'll find a range of people and a range of a opinion, even people who, within their lifetime, will shift those opinions. I think in the "average," we miss the range of people in a place.
WCT: How would you describe the nature of Joey and Cody's relationship and the way it blossoms? Why did these scenes come at the end and not the beginning?
PW: I love mystery. This is how we get to know people in life. We see them in their present moment, but we don't know their stories. We don't know how they fell in love, the darkest moments in their lives, the moment they met. Hopefully, there is enough information that it feels satisfying, that you're getting closer to understanding these characters' life experiences.
WCT: Why did you choose to have Joey and Cody neglect to transfer guardianship to the other partner in Cody's will?
PW: There's this point in the screenplay where Joey talks about finding this "fill-in-the-blank" will. Cody is such an organized and responsible person, and he knew what he had to dowhat should have been done. It's a tough for so many people and so many couples to talk about their mortality.
For Cody, having lost his wife, I think it made it very hard for him do this, more so than if he hadn't lost a partner before. Also, hard things get away from us when life is really good. I think he was too seduced by that wonderful thing [ Joey ] to turn and think of what happens when one of us dies; what do we do about custody. It's frustrating, and from what I understand, it happens quite a bit.
WCT: Why not take In the Family to a John Q and Denzel Washington level where Joey goes on the run with Chip while Cody's family pursues him across the country? Why not raise the stakes higher and increase the pace?
PW: That's the movie thing to do. My view of movies, and the big disappointment for me in movies, is that there is a lot of drama in our lives and I don't think it gets addressed. Those big escapades are what is presented to us as drama, but there a lot of people who are peaceful, whose first reaction isn't fight, fight, fight. I wanted to follow the path of people who take a different approach, but their instinct isn't to fight and create Hollywood tension and drama. I don't think that's in the style of a lot of people. [ Laughs ] It does happen, no doubt.
WCT: Maybe a version of that.
PW: For the most part, life takes place in a different register, and think we need solutions there too and pictures of that. It's great there are those kinds of [ Hollywood ] movies. I'd like to contribute a different kind of movie.
Wang will be in attendance at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., for screenings Saturday-Sunday, April 21-22.