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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

May 21

Much more than just sex

by Mark J. Huisman

"Since I've come out, I've only played gay roles," says movie hunk Mitchell Anderson. "But they've been incredibly varied and unique and I've wanted to do every single one. I'm hoping people will see something in Relax they didn't see before."

If audiences don't see something different in Anderson's new role in P.J. Castalanetta's film Relax... It's Just Sex, they're blind. Anderson has a solid body of work behind him, from his recurring role as violin teacher Ross on Party of Five to plays like Love! Valour! Compassion! and his recent off-Broadway duet with Eli Wallach, Visiting Mr. Green.

In Relax, Anderson plays the shyly winsome but lovelorn Vincey Sauris, one in a gaggle of friends-gay, straight, black, white, Hispanic, male and female-struggling through life and all its trials, particularly those rooted in the bedroom.

With its sly sense of comedy, Relax racked up critical praise from the moment it premièred at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998.

The film's frankness about other matters, however, led to a long wait for distribution. Like many observers at Sundance, Anderson thinks inapt comparisons hurt the film's distribution prospects.

"Our movie played alongside Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss,” he says. “That was a fine film, but it was much lighter than Relax. They got a big release and we had to fight for one.'

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Indeed, by the time Jour DeFete purchased Relax, over a year had elapsed since its Sundance première. (Jour DeFete is a gay owned and operated company formed specifically to distribute gay and lesbian films.) Castalanetta's material-which includes a heated debate about the dangers of AZT and a gay bashing turned straight bashing was a significant factor.

Anderson thinks the biggest problem of all, especially for straight distribution executives, was the film's "high level of reality about physical sexuality." There have seldom been such wonderfully frank and funny male-tomale and female-to-female sex scenes as the ones in Relax. And never has lesbian and gay sex been presented with such equal weight.

The film opens with Vincey-debating whether to spit or swallow-bumping and grinding with an afternoon date. That scene is followed in short order by a marvelous muffdiving moment between the lesbians played by Lori Petty and Cynda Williams.

"It was disappointing because we got such a great response at Sundance," Anderson says of the delayed release. "When a movie is not bland and middle of the road, people get afraid of it."

A native of Jamestown, New York, Anderson studied acting at Juilliard for all of a semester. Then he landed his first professional job in the Civil War musical Shilo, which ran for four months at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C in 1984.

After a brief stint in the New York cabaret circuit, Anderson moved to Los Angeles, racking up guest spots on TV shows, including Cagney & Lacey and Crazy Like a Fox. Big breaks arrived in The Karen Carpenter Story (Anderson played the singer's brother) and with his first recurring role, on Doogie Howser, M.D. In 1994, during his first season as Ross, the violin instructor on Party of Five, Anderson surprised everyone by coming out. That honesty-rare and considerably ahead of its time garnered huge press buzz.

"Not too many people had done it," Anderson recalls. "And it was astonishing how much attention I received. It was one of those events I'll always remember, the kind you play over and over. First it seems exciting. Then it becomes scary. And finally, it's just this seminal event that changes your life forever."

In Relax a gri particularly

Relax co-star Jennifer Tilly saw Anderson accept a Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award later that year.

"Mitchell made this amazing speech about coming out and the rightness of it and the joy of it," Tilly says breathlessly over the telephone from a ho-

tel in Amsterdam, where her next project is being filmed. "It was like there was this light glowing around his head. It was the most beau tiful spiritual moment. I just knew that I would work with him at some point."

Mitchell Anderson

"There are so many straight men playing gay," Tilly continues. "This may sound politically incorrect, but I think it was important to have some gay actors in the movie. I thought Mitchell would be perfect."

Tilly giggles and lets a long-held secret slip: "I'd met Mitchell briefly at a party when he was doing Doogie Howser. And I thought he was interested in me. Whoops."

Anderson spends much of his time in Atlanta with his partner of two years, commuting to New York and Los Angeles.

"When I got the script, I called my agent and said I have to be in this movie," Anderson recalls. "This is a chance for me to really act, to do work I'd never been allowed to do. I'm known for a kind of comic, goofy likeability, but I can also employ this intense anger. Playing Vincey gave me an opportunity to color outside the lines of the box television puts me in."

"Gay actors don't get enough good work,” Castalanetta said. "People like Mitchell, who came out before their success was assured, are incredibly brave. And they aren't rewarded nearly enough as they should be."

Anderson's biggest test arrived on the very last day of shooting, when they filmed the scene in which Vincey turns the tables on a gang of gay-bashers. Moving from angry, whispered words to the acts of a revenge fantasy gone wrong, Anderson takes his character-and the film's viewers-from victim to attacker in an extraordinarily visceral sequence. Tilly says that could only be accomplished by an actor of Anderson's style and talent.

"On the page, the scene where Vincey rapes the straight boy is so raw that you can almost feel the audience losing the character," Tilly says. "But Mitchell is so unbelievably sympathetic. When Mitchell starts turning on the gay bashers the audience becomes almost vigilante-like, cheering and joining in. Then suddenly the theater goes dead quiet.

Mitchell's presence makes you realize you have that capability in you."

It drained Anderson like no role ever had.

"It was really hard. It was exhausting,” Anderson says with a gushing sigh when asked to recount that day. "The very last shot was my

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close-up of me railing about how gay boys have been fucked over for so long. I was so wasted physically. I was just dazed. Everybody was dispersing and all of a sudden, making the movie was over. Lori Petty came over and said 'Honey, you need to sit down.' And she mothered me for a little while until I could get home."

Anderson admits the power of that moment was hard to shake.

"It really did take me a few weeks to get over it," he says. "Visiting that dark place in your soul is really hard." But if the rape is hard for some viewers to watch, others have the opposite reaction.

"Some people applaud us for putting it on film, for allowing them to experience the fantasy of fighting back,” Anderson explains. "But I do worry a little when people come up to me and say 'That was great, what you did.' I'm a bit of a pacifist. I would probably just take the beating and cry."

While some in Tinseltown and its far-flung suburbs think it's still dangerous for actors to come out, Anderson dismisses such caution as nonsense. He believes the increasing roster of out actors builds momentum toward reaching a time when no one needs or wants to hide.

"Dan Butler, Wilson Cruz, Ellen, Ann. It's an evolution," Anderson says. “We have to continue to be out and show up for the things we believe in. We have to set that example and do work that is respected. And if we all do that, ten years down the line we will really have accomplished something."

Relax... It's Just Sex will be screened on May 28 at 7:30 pm, May 29 at 9:25, and May 30 at 9:05 at the Cleveland Cinematheque, 11141 East Blvd. in University Circle; 216-421-7450.

The film will open May 28 at the Drexel East Theatre in Columbus. Call 614-231-9512 for times and ticket information.

The New Neon Theatre in Dayton plans to screen the film as part of a lesbian and gay film festival in late June or early July. Call 937222-8452 for details.

Mark J. Huisman is a Chronicle contributing writer living in New York City.

trials,

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