The Director Just Happens to Be Gay Talking with the 29-year-old director of The Broken Hearts Club by Blase DiStefano

Greg Berlanti is the director/screenwriter of the film The Broken Hearts Club, which stars Dean Cain (TV’s Superman), Timothy Olyphant (Go), and John Mahoney (the father on TV’s Frasier), among others. Loosely based on this openly gay director’s life, the film details the story of gay men, some out, some in the closet, some teetering ... but all friends through thick and thin. John Mahoney’s character owns a restaurant and is also the manager of the Broken Hearts Club, a softball team made up of gay men. Speaking by phone with Berlanti in Los Angeles, this short interview took place on his last day of nonstop interviews with the press.

OutSmart: Hi, Greg, how are you?

Greg Berlanti: Good, good.

Are you over doing interviews yet?

No, no, not at all.

How much longer do you have to do this?

This is my last hour actually, I think ... regarding this movie.

So how about we start at the beginning, like where you were born?

Westchester in New York. I grew up in a town called Rye. It’s about 40 minutes outside New York City, like up by Connecticut.

And what was the date you were born?

May 24, 1972.

OK, so you’re still very young.

Noooo.

Yes.

Not out here, I’m not.

Look, I was born in 1947, now that better make you feel better.

No, it doesn’t make me feel either way. I think it’s terrific.

Oh, OK. So when did you come out?

I came out when I was 23, about five years ago.

Were you in school or ...

I went to Northwestern and I was in the closet there, and I moved out here and I came out after living in Los Angeles for a couple of years. It was very much like the movie where I met a group of friends and it really helped me deal with my sexuality.

Were there any openly gay people on the set?

Yeah, there were a couple of actors and definitely a lot of people behind the scenes–both producers, the casting director, and myself, the line producer, the set designer, the costume designer. There were a lot of [openly gay] people who worked on the movie, and since it was paying next to nothing, that was a big reason why they did.

Oh, that’s really nice.

That was terrific, there were a lot of people vested for real personal reasons.

There seems to be a tendency for gays to think that because an actor is playing gay and he’s good at it, then he must be gay. Can you tell me your observations on that?

I think that is sort of tied somehow into the myth [of] who seems gay in life and who doesn’t and the stereotypes that go along with those things. When I was casting the movie, I was looking more for people who personified what I thought was the character’s biggest attribute. And nine times out of 10, it wasn’t the character’s sexuality, it was whether or not they were innocent, or whether or not they were more heartwrenched or cold or funny or had a dry sense of humor or proud of who they were. So I think it lends itself to the performance of it, too. I think it’d be very easy for actors to focus on the gay aspect of the character much like they’d focus, let’s say, on the accent of a French character or something–and that would be a mistake.

Yeah, because basically you’re playing a character who just happens to be gay.

Who happens to sleep with men. Exactly. And as we all know, that could be just about anybody. And you certainly can’t tell when they’re auditioning for the part; if they’re doing their job, you believe them.

Exactly. Look at Rock Hudson ... here was a gay man playing straight all the time.

And so on and so on. People say, "How do you feel about straight people playing gay characters in your film?" and my response is, "Well, I know lots of gay men who’ve been playing straight characters for years." It works both ways.

Now, this may seem a little odd, but at the very beginning of the movie, there was an older actress named Diane McBain who had a cameo ...

Yeah, right.

How did you get her?

My casting director. That’s her husband in the scene with her. And they still live in L.A. and audition for things. I had cast them as "Geriatric Man" and "Geriatric Woman." They came up to me on the day of shooting and said, "Would you mind if when you do the credit scroll, you didn’t put Geriatric Man and Geriatric Woman"? So I named the characters in that scene after my two producers. I understand that–I mean, I was slightly insensitive to it and realized after that moment, Oh my god, who wants to have that on their résumé?

[Laughs] The next couple of questions are kinda silly, fun questions. If you were stranded on a desert island and you could have only one movie with you, what do you think it would be?

Gosh, that’s a great question. Well, the sentimental part of me wants to say a home movie of my family’s Christmas from a certain year, but if I had to pick a studio film just like anybody else, which is I’m sure how you intended the question, I would pick Cinema Paradiso, actually.

I don’t believe you said that.

Why?

The last interview I had was with Rita Moreno, and she gave the same answer. Great minds ...

Yeah. You know what it is for me–it’s a love affair with the movies. There are parts of it that make you laugh and parts of it that make you cry. I’ve never seen a real love triangle about a man, a woman, and the movies. And it’s got so many little sort of stories within it that I feel like I could watch it again and again and learn something from it every time.

It was an excellent film.

I adore it.

OK, now you’re still stranded and you can only have one person, not your lover, not a friend, not family.

There’s an old playwright named Moss Hart. He was always sort of my hero when I was growing up. When I read his plays and then I read his book, Act One, I’ve always sort of wanted to ... I don’t know him enough to know if he would want me off the island after a period of time, but I certainly think I would be engaged and interested in spending time with him.

That’s great. Well, thank you so much. Do you have anything to add for the readers ...

Thank you, Houston, for being so supportive of the film. It did wonderfully there and I can’t thank your city enough.

Well, then I hope people buy the tape off the shelves.

I hope so, too.

Berlanti is also the co-executive producer of TV’s Dawson’s Creek. The video and DVD of The Broken Hearts Club are scheduled for release on March 6, 2001.