Chad Allen, Robert Cary Discuss SAVE ME
At Out in Hollywood, Greg Hernandez posted an interview with actor Chad Allen in two parts (part one, part two). In part II, Hernandez and Allen briefly discuss Save Me, the tale of a couple of troubled gay men (Allen, Robert Gant) who find salvation (of an unexpected sort) at a "conversion therapy" ministry. Save Me opened this past Friday in New York City and will have its Los Angeles premiere on September 19.
In the interview, Allen says that it took five years for the project to come to fruition. (Save Me was screened at Outfest last year.) "We are a group of well-intentioned friends who really wanted to bring this film to life and weren’t quite sure how to do it," he told Hernandez. "There was a learning curve on all of our parts."
Save Me was directed by Robert Cary from a screenplay by Robert Desiderio, which in turn was developed from a story (or rather, former drafts) by Craig Chester and Alan Hines. Cary was interviewed for Gay City News, where the filmmaker explains that "Craig wrote a comedy, and I was not familiar with that [version], … It went through many different chapters in its gestation. They made it a play and did readings. When I came in, I worked with [screenwriter] Robert Desiderio who reworked the versions and made it a drama. But still, even after ten years, it had elements of Craig’s original [script.]" (Brackets are Kramer’s.)
And here’s a snippet from Robert Cary’s essay on the film’s official site:
"I had a wonderful experience directing Judith Light [above, next to Stephen Lang] in a romantic comedy called Ira and Abby at the end of 2005, so when her manager Herb Hamsher contacted me about a project he was producing called Save Me I was immediately intrigued.
"The subject matter couldn’t have been further from the Manhattan neuroses and comic carbonation of Ira and Abby, plus Judith was attached to play a role which I found fascinating: an evangelical woman running a ministry to convert gay men to heterosexuality. My initial conversation with the producers, was in March of 2006 and we were shooting by the first week of July, so it was a short, intense, and immensely rewarding journey."
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I should add that Judith Light, perhaps best known for her Ugly Betty appearances, delivers a flawless, highly nuanced performance as the dedicated evangelical Woman with a Mission. Her character, which could easily have been depicted as a foaming-at-the-mouth Christian, comes across instead as a well-rounded, intelligent, and quite empathetic human being who, like so many among us, is looking for "salvation" while struggling with her inner demons. If there’s any justice, Light will be up for assorted critics, guilds, and academies awards later this year.
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Dirk Bogarde’s Letters Revisited
THE YEAR MY PARENTS WENT ON VACATION: Q&A with Cao Hamburger
William Castle and ROSEMARY’S BABY
Ann Dvorak: Q&A with Biographer Christina Rice
François Ozon in the LONDON TIMES
Douglas Sirk: American Vs. Japanese Audiences
Tibor Szakaly: Shooting Miniatures for STARSHIP TROOPERS 3
Woody Allen Interview in the LA WEEKLY
North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
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Isn’t Robert Gant one of the guys in Queer as Folk? He’s really good in that.
Yes, Robert Grant was in seasons 2 thru 5 of “Queer As Folk”.
I agree with the above that Judith Light should be recognized with lots of awards. Her performance is nothing short of brilliant and she deserves an Oscar nomination. She’s on “Ugly Betty” now but in the 80’s she had an emmy winning role on “One Life To Live”. I also saw her in the national tour of the play “Wit” where she played a cancer patient. That was a remarkable performance also.