GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

AUGUST 21, 1998

Evenings Out

Tommy's big Hollywood break

Indiana native Tommy O'Haver offers a glimpse at the gay Everyman

by Scott Seomin

"It's a lot of me in that movie. I've fallen for about 50 straight guys, but I don't pursue them anymore," sighs a two-thirds joking, one-third serious Tommy O'Haver, the 29year-old director of the new film Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss. "There's a lot of longing..." O'Haver trails off, as if he's thinking of a particular unrequited love. "When it comes down to it, it's about romantic idealism. I'm always trying to woo somebody. I like to think of my movies as 'pitching

Woo.

Critics and audiences, however, will think of O'Haver's film as funny and bittersweet, woo notwithstanding. In this comedic love story, Sean P. Hayes plays Billy Collier, a gay, 26-year-old struggling photographer living in Los Angeles. After meeting the very pretty Gabriel (Brad Rowe), Billy develops a crush— only to discover that Gabriel has a girlfriend "back in San Francisco."

Is this blond Adonis a true hetero? Or is his journey to self-discovery starting later than it usually begins? Answering these questions becomes the shared quest of the audience and Billy as the leading man's feelings for Gabriel deepen.

This playful premise isn't really new in cinema; in fact, O'Haver says Billy's story structure was inspired by the 1949 William Wyler classic The Heiress.

"You can't tell if Montgomery Clift really loves Olivia de Havilland, and it's kept ambiguous until the end," O'Haver says. "It's the same with Billy and Gabriel."

It is this ideal that should

film appealing to a wide

1.

make the

audience as it takes the prototype of a melodrama with a 1950s woman and applies it to a millennium-approaching gay man.

"I think Billy is enough of a human character, an Everyman, that anyone straight or gay can relate to him. I want people to forget that Billy is a gay man experiencing these things because the situation could happen to anyone," O'Haver said.

Billy' received well-deserved critical acclaim at this year's Sundance Film Festival. But the trip getting there was bumpy at best as O'Haver, script in hand, met with investors and distributors.

"I struggled for about two years showing it around with these people saying, 'Well, there's too much sex in it for the straight audience and not enough sex in it for the gay audience,' the director remembers. "Or they'd say, 'You know, you've really got to expose Billy's neuroses more fully and show how screwed up he is.' Ultimately, the film would be financed for a mere $100,000 by independent investors, which allowed O'Haver to protect the integrity of his story.

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Casting the film was in part an easy task, as O'Haver hired several actors he had used in his previous short films for supporting roles. Kudos for casting the title role are well deserved: Hayes' Billy is a not-yet-jaded romantic portrayed with a sweet vulnerability and a quick wit.

"My Irish-Catholic background, that is where the sarcasm came from," Hayes said. "My entire family is just bitingly sarcastic." Good looking without being intimidating, the 28-year-old could easily pass for Tom Cruise's younger brother. And while other heterosexual actors continue to shun gay roles, Hayes was only slightly hesitant. "I think that is only natural because, you know, you want to build a career and make the right choices," he says. "I'd like to

Billy has a crush on Gabriel, left, who "has a girlfriend in San Francisco." So, is he or isn't he?

esses

Director Tommy O'Haver

hope that we're coming past that [worrying about playing gay] and if everybody just relaxes, it's not that big a deal, folks." Hayes' representation of the gay man next door is convincing, particularly in scenes with Rowe.

A dead ringer for Brad Pitt, Rowe plays the sexually ambiguous waiter/model Gabriel with less intensity than Hayes. "I wanted to play the character as straight as possiblenot butchy straight, but just sort of nondescript because that is what the story calls for," Rowe said.

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the 28-year-old-who sold orthopedic back supports and worked as a finance manager before becoming an actor-admits he was extremely hesitant in taking a role in a gay film.

"It was really hard. I wasn't sure if this was something I wanted to do," he notes, adding that it was O'Haver and Hayes who eased his decision to play Gabriel. "I actually ended up auditioning with Sean right off the bat. We had a great chemistry and had a lot of fun hanging out and talking. And talking with Tommy about the part, he made it so alluring and fun to do."

Rounding out the film's cast is Meredith Scott Lynn, who portrays Billy's roommate Georgie, the obligatory straight girl with the heart of gold. Lynn makes the most of this supporting role, which she also plays in real life: she lives with a gay man, her best friend since she was 12 years old.

Director, actor and writer Paul Bartel adds a fun flamboyance to the film as Rex Webster, a Bruce Weber-like photographer who shoots ad campaigns featuring boys in underpants. Bartel, whose delivery is lovable under an air of bitchiness, begs for more screen time.

O'Haver's first feature film is a farcical romp with drag queens, dream sequences ("You can never have too many dream sequences," says the director.) and a great soundtrack. Gay audiences will empathize with Billy throughout the film, but most notably in a scene in which a too-drunk-todrive-home Gabriel spends the night. An angelic sequence featuring Billy and Gabriel dancing in tuxedos to Petula Clark's "This is My Song" is poignant, touching and a favorite of the director.

TRIMARK (2)

"That really gets me right here every time,” O'Haver says of the scene, hand over his heart. "IfI can feel a knot in my stomach every now and then I think 'Okay, its working for me.' And then I hope it works for everybody else."

Lauded for its story, cast, beautiful art direction, the film has received a few negative notices. "Gay reporters have said, 'Why isn't there more sex in Billy's? What is your problem?"" says O'Haver. And I think, "Why would you even bring that up? I mean, if it's gay it has to have more sex in it?" The Indianapolis-bred filmmaker has been forced to defend his work to the journalists who theoretically should be offering the most support. "I'm not saying there's anything wrong with sex but there are obviously other things in life. And I think the movie's very sexy but in a very naive and innocent way."

The San Diego Union-Tribune obviously felt it was too sexy. They refused to run the film's advertisement, which featured the clean cut and fully dressed lead characters about to kiss. The daily paper's advertising manager told Trimark studio that the ad "doesn't fall within our guidelines," although several other ads in the movie section of a recent Sunday edition showed plenty of men and women kissing.

Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss marks the beginning of promising careers for O'Haver and Hayes. Universal has hired the filmmaker to write and direct a live action feature based on the Archie comic books-a project he says will have "a certain edge of camp to it."

"There won't be a kiss between Jughead and Archie," O'Haver said, "but there will be a few good cat fights between Betty and Veronica." And this fall on NBC, Hayes will again play gay on the sitcom Will & Grace. Asked how he feels about gay men developing crushes on him through these roles, Hayes does not hesitate. "I am absolutely flattered," he laughs. "Bring it on, folks."

Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss opens September 11 at the Cedar-Lee in Cleveland and the Drexel East in Columbus. (The Esquire in Cincinnati is also planning to run the film, but did not have a date set at press time.)

Scott Seomin is freelance writer living in West Hollywood.