The story was inspired by my own college experiences at Brown University. I wanted to examine issues of identity, by taking “complicated” theories of identity construction and filtering them through the sensibilities of a teen comedy.  The film is able to tap into teen audiences without being intellectual or esoteric. 

In the beginning, Bob Greenblatt and David Janollari set this up at a studio, but we ultimately decided it would be best served in the world of independent film.  Judd Payne and Matt Rhodes brought it to Sam Nazarian's company, where we finally got the green light.  We were in production less than four months later.

I called every director I knew and joked with them about needing a crash course in film production.  I gathered some of the best people in the business around me, and managed to gain the trust of the crew.  Overall, the production’s strength was in its cohesion.

One of our first thoughts was that we wanted Rachel Dratch to play The Drunk Chick.  We loved her work and knew she would bring us her own special gift for the grotesque. We got around the age difference by explaining that she had been a perpetual student since 1991. Other personalities emerged more slowly, as we began to humanize each character while still paying homage to the teen movie genre.  Ultimately, we hope that the ensemble will be accessible to teens, which includes such campus icons as Miss American Pie and the rebel-without-a-cause. We took to Sam Huntington immediately, because he seemed to be an American teenage everyman - not overly glib, but funny in a self-deprecating kind of way.  He embodied all elements of the persona. Kaitlin Doubleday, who worked with Steven Spielberg on “Catch Me If You Can,” jumps off the screen.  She’s a wonderful actress, and brings a touching vulnerability to her performance. Soap-and-water clean, she plays every American boy’s dream girl. We were very lucky to cast Heather Matarazzo and John Goodman, who gave us a wonderful opportunity to bring power, color and vibrancy to their roles.  Roger Mussenden cast the principals in three weeks, in one of those rare pre-production scenarios in which everything seems to fall magically into place.  Casting the locals was a different story. We scoured university drama departments, and ultimately ended up with wildly enthusiastic neophytes who brought passion and a curious espirit de corps to the project.

Securing a location for a gay-themed, “dirty” teen comedy isn’t easy.  We actually wrote a clean version of the script to see if that would help move things along, but didn’t manage to lock down a location until two days before we were ready to shoot.

Shooting indie comedies is tough; at one point, we were forced into a seedy building near downtown that has sustained substantial water damage.  We finally found our perfect jazz club with a piano that had preportedly belonged to Duke Ellington.  The sorority houses were from the civil war era, with bullet holes in the walls, and corresponding memorial notes to the victims, still intact.  We did constant battle with the rain; lightning hit a crane at one point and shut us down for the day.  At times, we barely had time for one take before being beset by another storm.

Getting recognition at Sundance was a nice validation; the actors felt that all their sacrifices were worth the effort. Bryan Singer (producer, director) managed to catch the film, and was so taken with Sam Huntington’s performance that he was cast as Jimmy Olsen in Superman Returns. 

David Codrone, our editor, was able to work miracles.  We were on the same page creatively.  He understood our limitations, and managed to finish the film in less than five weeks. 

The film should appeal to both straight and gay audiences. We hope that people see nuance in the provocative elements of the material.  The idea that Coming Out is difficult has been done ad naseum, but once you’re out, what then?  Gay culture is a commodity that is hard to shake.


My entire family is Mormon; I grew up in Hawaii.  The work I do is challenging to them, and the time I spent at Brown University informs the work.  Who you are is not necessarily integral to your background and surroundings.  If identity is forced upon you, it’s difficult to grasp that the world converges around you to iron out which camp you must belong to.   Whether we’re gay or straight, identity is not always stable as we might think.  The instability of “gayness” is a concept I wanted to explore; there is no genre for it because it’s an unpopular notion.  I also wanted to approach teens at their level without making the issues overly complicated or clouding the narrative. The big question that went around in my head was this: Can you make a film about deconstruction and fluidity of identity for the mall crowd in the Midwest?  Perhaps the best way is to get teens to talk about this after the end credits, even if it’s only to discuss character choices. If I’ve succeeded, this will be a coming-out narrative that challenges the way gay cinema has been characterized in the past.

I’ve been asked, “Is this really a gay movie?”  I don’t know how to answer that for anyone else. A better question is, do we really need to define what a gay movie is?  What are gay characters, really?  What is gay sensibility?  Is a gay agenda always about pursuing an activist lifestyle and social rights?  Are we so frightened of homophobia that we can’t examine the larger questions in public?  Perhaps the larger questions are best examined during the movement of gay cinema into the mainstream, as greater numbers of people feel freer to take a look.   
-- Ryan Shiraki