spotlight alex strangelove


then those who say, “I knew something was up” but don’t figure it out until they are 35, and then everything in between. (Laughs) What’s exciting about the time we are living in now, is that kids can come out in high school. In the movie, Alex the main character, goes to a pretty progressive high school with gay and bisexual kids, trans kids and gender queer kids. What that did, was not let the conflict be external, which then allowed me to focus on the internal conflict. The what am I into idea and that I can be whoever I want to be… How do I really feel about my girlfriend, how do I really feel about this handsome boy? Can I come out? That was really interesting to me and felt relevant for 2018. It just sort of dovetailed with what was happening in the culture. I think it’s kind of weird and cosmic too, that Alex Strangelove andLove, Simon came out within two months of each other. Were you aware thatLove, Simon was happening? I was aware from the script phase and knewLove,


Simon was getting made at the same time. I was familiar with the script and knew where we had similarities and differences and though we shared basic DNA, we were definitely different creatures. I think there is room for all of us and there are so many different kinds of stories to be told with LGBT characters, so many different tones, styles and genres. It’s so great that we’re living in an era that we haveLove, Simon, but we also haveMoonlight, Fantastic Woman, Call Me By Your Name, andAlex Strangeloveas well as so many others. Especially true when you consider the climate politically, which is so much about repression and subverting those voices. Thank god we have the arts to counter all that messaging. Absolutely. But look, this is where I have so much


hope. Yes, we have the politicians we do now, but “this too shall pass” is my attitude about that. We have things like Netflix, which is such a powerful megaphone that mainlines this kind of content directly into the veins of teenagers. That’s why it was such a perfect place forAlex Strangelove. On Friday, June 8, we’ll be blasted out into hundreds of millions of homes worldwide. You can be a closeted kid in India, Egypt, Russia or Salt Lake City, and you can fire up this movie on your laptop and hopefully relate to it. That to me is very powerful, almost more powerful than Donald Trump’s twitter rants.


WE SORT OF EMBRACED THE GENRE OF A HIGH SCHOOL SEX COMEDY, WITH ALL ITS FUMBLING ABOUT AND AWKWARDNESS TO THE EXTREME. THAT’S WHAT MAKES THEM RELATABLE TO ALL KIDS, REGARDLESS OF THEIR SEXUALITY.”


I remember vividly how much it meant to me to have access to what little LGBT content I had. Now, accessibility is so simple, it’s truly such a powerful thing. Was that another reason for choosing Netflix? Netflix just ended up being the right spot for it.


There are economic realities around making a movie like this and it took ten years to get this film made. We kept running up against studios that would not finance a movie like ours, without movie stars attached. We would get positive feedback, they would love the movie, but they just couldn’t see how to attach a star to it and wouldn’t finance it. Netflix’s model doesn’t work like that. They don’t


have big opening weekends that they need a movie star to promote. The content just goes on their channel and gets blasted out to the world. They told us to cast whoever we wanted and trusted us. It was such a thrill to work that way and it just took Netflix being invented for it to happen. The script forAlex Strangelove is actually much older than Netflix is, which is kind of funny. (Laughs) Tell us a little about how you landed on Daniel Doheny. He was such a perfect choice. It really was the most liberating casting experience


I have ever had, but also the most frightening. I had never cast a lead actor by doing an open casting call, where was this kid going to come from? Daniel did what so many have done, he sent a video to our casting directors. He had this light to him, behind his eyes and there’s a sweetness and innocence to him—maybe more of a naivete—but at the same time an awareness of a larger world. Quite frankly, he’s a kid who is believ- able as possibly straight and possibly gay. Since that was pretty much the centerpiece of the whole movie, it was really important that whoever we cast as Alex be


believable as a kid with multiple sexualities. One of the ways that I judge a film is how they make me feel, how the character feels viscerally. Watching this film left me feeling uncomfortable in a very real way...I could relate to the awkwardness completely. I’m always fascinated to understand how a filmmaker creates that experience. There is a huge tradition of awkward sex in


high school movies through the ages. We sort of embraced the genre of a high school sex comedy, with all its fumbling about and awkwardness to the extreme. That’s what makes them relatable to all kids, regardless of their sexuality. Sex in high school is awkward and weird, because they haven’t figured it out yet and it never goes the way you want it to go. I wanted to embrace that as part of the story, that it’s just part of growing up and being a teenager… the most honest version of that. One of the conflicts we hadn’t seen in the teen/sex comedy genre, is to include that struggle with a sexuality struggle. The sense of humor in the film is adolescent but it manages to be adult as well, which makes the film work for both teens and adults. Did you set out to reach that broader audience initially? I really hoped that would be the case. When you


make a movie about high school, the presumption is that it’s only for high school kids. I try to look at any movie as one that should aim for as big of an audience as you can get. Hopefully the sense of humor, even with the gross-out, high school hijinks kids like, that there is some sophistication so that if you’re over 16 you can laugh at it as well.


Alex Strangelovepremieres on Netflix onFriday, June 8. For more information, go tonetflix.com.


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RAGE monthly | JUNE 2018


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