The Making of 'Beautiful Something' - Joe Graham's Searing Indie

In Joe Graham's searing, veracious feature Beautiful Something, four gay men converge on the streets of Philadelphia over one eventful night and learn a little something about themselves while imparting (mostly) accidental wisdom to each other. The out writer/director's new film was featured at Frameline San Francisco in June and just played Outfest Los Angeles.

Graham is responsible for the haunting indie, "Strapped," about an atypical hustler trying to figure out his way in the world via a series of "La Ronde"-esque encounters. In "Beautiful Something," he uses the 24-hour-in-the life-of device to great effect.

Brian (Brian Sheppard, in a breakout performance) is a cute, neurotic poet who has absolutely no luck with guys and is blocked creatively. Young, naive Jim (Zack Ryan) is a too-pretty, actor-wannabe involved in a volatile relationship with an older, famous metal sculptor, Drew (Coleman Domingo). And sixtysomething Bob (John Lescault), a mysterious Hollywood talent agent, pops into the narrative, cruising the streets of Philly in his white limo. What is he seeking? What are they all searching for?

An authentic feel

Despite the seeming plot machinations; "Beautiful Something" has a rare authentic feel, especially for a gay-themed relationship film. Much of that has to do with Graham's organic approach to the work as well as the fact that much of the story is culled from actual incidents in his life.

"It's all inspired by events that happened to me," Graham confesses. "I met a guy at a bar and he said he was straight but really needed to be with a guy sometimes. He made my knees shake he was so gorgeous. And then he just flipped out, (laughs) he looked at me with murder in his eyes as he was leaving. And this is how I responded: 'Well, did you want my number?' (laughs hysterically). I'm what my Aunt calls a late bloomer. But he was so beautiful. Even when he was leaving, he was so beautiful."

Graham continues: "That set me out into the night for the next couple of weeks trying to understand what was wrong with me. And I did go to a straight friend. I wasn't confrontational but I was like, you got to help me understand this."

Based on personal experience

In the film, Brian does exactly that, visits his straight crush, Dan (a potent Grant Lancaster) whom he had an affair with, to ask him why he no longer wanted him, which proves to be a rather self-involved and insecure move. But that isn't the aspect of the film based on Graham's personal experiences.

"I was living with this artist a little older than me. I wanted out of the relationship but I was terrified," Graham shares. "We had this fight on the street, full on drama. And he left and I'm sitting on a bench... and I noticed there was a white limo on the street in front of me and this guy comes out and he sits next to me on the bench. He was pretty drunk. We talked and he invited me into the limo and I spent three days with him. He took me to see 'Phantom of the Opera,' for Christ's sake. He talked to me at length about my relationship. When I went home I was able to break it off and move forward."

A pivotal encounter

Catharses like these led Graham to the core of his film. When the characters of Brian and Jim hook up, midway through the feature, both leave with more than they bargained for, although neither probably realizes the enormity of the encounter.

"I felt that (their meeting) was necessary and pivotal," imparts Graham. "I thought about two meteors and one of them gently bumps the other one. And that sets them both off on new trajectories for eternity... and they have no idea about this and probably will never appreciate it, but that meeting caused a ripple and changed their lives forever."

Even this sequence was partly steeped in a real events.

"I met this guy, he was really cute, I was in my 20s and I took him to this alley right underneath our home. And we fucked right there in the alley. Part of it was a 'fuck you' to my boyfriend. Well, this kid followed me around, he wanted to hang out and I was like, 'we're done, leave me alone.' I was such a dick to this kid and he couldn't understand it. He was angry and hurt. He wasn't scary or mean. He was like, 'how can you do this? How can you be that close to somebody, share something like that and just walk away?' I remember saying, 'you don't know the rules. (laughs)

"He scared the shit out of me because I had been him. I had pursued people and wondered why they could just leave. And I would asked for their number when I knew that the experience was over. It's called tricking out. Not looking for love." Graham pauses, wondering if he's oversharing, but continues: "So that became Brian and Jim meeting. I was Jim and I was Brian at different points and they met in my head. Brian's the me that needed an answer and thought everything was because of him and Jim is the me that could not articulate his feelings and was terrified of people that wanted him and just needed to be adored, just needed to be the prize."

Hard to get off ground

The filmmaker's honesty on and off the screen is refreshing, yet "Beautiful Something" was not an easy project to get off the ground. The first few drafts were "almost made" by production companies but the deals always fell through. "It was breaking my heart, Graham says, "We did everything right but it wasn't happening... So, I got so frustrated that I wrote 'Strapped.'

That film, written in defiance, was going to be an
'exploitation picture,'" but turned out differently. "We made 'Strapped' and then I was trying to make a horror picture and nobody wanted to do it. Then Kelly Burkhardt (former TLA distribution VP) was breaking out and wanted to produce a movie and she suggested 'Beautiful Something.' She suggested we shoot it in Philadelphia and I said okay, I'll do it. I was excited to shoot a picture in a city that wasn't my own. It made it new again."

The way the City of Brotherly Love is expertly photographed (by Matthew Boyd) is both a valentine to the city as well a Lynchian unearthing of the seedy, menacing underbelly not always obvious.

The first cut of "Beautiful Something" ran two and a half hours; it is the editing (by Sharon Franklin) that proved key in slicing the film down to its bare essentials. "We were getting scared. 'Are we ever going to find this movie? Where the hell is this movie?' I locked in on the idea that it's just (about) Brian and Jim. And Bob and Drew are going to have to be more peripheral. We whittled it down. The other big revelation was that their (Brian and Jim's) meeting needs to happen right in the middle of the movie. And it just fell into place after that."

Casting the right actors

Choosing the right ensemble was vital in bringing his vivid characters to life in a realistic manner and Graham took a chance on two virtual unknowns for the lead roles. Neither Brian Sheppard nor Zach Ryan had previous film experience.

Sheppard was selected early in the process. "He came about thanks to a dear friend named Steven Patterson who was performing in 'Hamlet,' (at the University of Tennessee), Steven was Claudius and Brian was Hamlet." Graham explains. "And Steven said, 'I think you should look at this kid.'"

Brian Sheppard adds, "I read the script and said (to Steven) go ahead and pass him my information. And he said, I already did. And he already wants you for this role. He does need to hear you read it, but from what he's learned about you already from the footage you have out there and other people's referrals, he wants you for it. So I walked into it when the drafts were still being developed. I would talk to Joe sometimes on a daily or weekly basis. He wanted to hear what I had to say. He wanted to hear how I would develop it. Or if I thought anything sounded foreign. Was there anything I was uncomfortable with, that I thought wasn't natural for me as an actor. He totally gave me the freedom, even on the set."

Difficult to cast

The part of Jim, on the other hand, proved more difficult to cast. "Terrific actors would audition, but they were very put off by the sexuality, not the homosexuality, per se, but the sex," Graham offers. "And Zack came along. It was kind of a gamble because he had only done one short film and taken one acting class. But he really wanted to be an actor."

It was Graham's husband, Bill, who took an objective look at the footage and told the helmer to take the chance and cast him. "So I did and even though Zack is now working hard on his craft, what he had, his essence, his openness, his sweetness, his naivet�, was just perfect for the part. And he's cute as shit, which didn't hurt."

Ryan dived right in and looked to Graham for guidance, "Joe helped me out a lot," Ryan shares. "He was my mentor, my coach. As the director he was able to help me build my character. He showed me what homework I needed to work on. And I used all the resources -- talking with Brian Sheppard. Colman (Domingo) helped me...these guys are all professionals. I was eager to learn from all of them."

The director found fast-rising thespian Colman Domingo via the Facebook page of another actor. Graham had no idea the out actor had films like Spielberg's "Lincoln," Lee Daniels' "The Butler" and Ava DuVernay's "Selma" on his resume. (Both hit it off so well that Domingo, who is about to splash on AMC's "Fear of the Walking Dead" and the director hope to collaborate on Graham's upcoming horror movie, "Revelations.")

Immersed in role

The anchor character in "Beautiful Something" is the writer, Brian, and Sheppard truly immersed himself into the part. "There's something that happens when you sit with a script 7-8 months. It starts to ingrain in you," the actor shares. "And you start to mine those feelings. You mine the meanings of what it's like to be left and to be constantly searching, to be stuck artistically...I lived with it for so long, that I knew once I got on camera I couldn't escape. It was all brought to the surface."

The director was quite impressed: "Brian's performance is so lovely. Not to take away from anyone else, but it's kind of his picture. What he does with that character is remarkable because Brian could have so easily been so cloying and needing and annoying. It could have been just awful. For example, the scene where he confronts Dan in his bedroom, he brings wit to it, even with tears in his eyes, there's this wit and fierce intelligence. You really believe that this guy's a poet."

Though Sheppard is not a poet, he used what he knew in shaping his character. "I lot of my experience has been with Shakespeare and classical texts so the poetry side of it was already in my wheelhouse and something I've always connected with it...I identify with it 100% in my own ways."

Great motivator

Fear was also a great motivator for the actor, Brian, playing the character Brian. "I had never done a film so part of it was a crap shoot... but that pressure and that fear pries the doors open. It makes your emotion kind of raw. Fear's a great instigator for that stuff. And Brian has a lot of fear he lives with. The fear of being alone and the fear of being left is so big. I knew exactly who this guy was. I saw myself entirely, in a lot of ways. It ended up being a cathartic kind of thing for me. Every single time I watch it, I can't hold it together."

The courage involved in taking on roles that required nudity, raw emotion and honest, graphic sexual situations came as a challenge for the two actors, but both were up for it.

Ryan: "I had to wrap my head around portraying a gay character. I'm straight so I really needed to dive deeper. That's where Joe came. I knew I had to do my best and make sure it's portrayed the right way. When it came to those sex scenes, I just let everything go and made magic happen. It had to be real. It had to be passionate. It had to be hot. There was a lot of privacy on set. Joe made sure everyone was comfortable. It was a really pleasant experience."

Sheppard was even warned by his agent that taking gay roles "might shut part of your career down." "I knew there was a lot of risk. The genre was risky. The amount of nudity is risky... I chose to take it."

Straight or gay?

The actor continues: "At talkbacks people ask you if you're straight or gay and that would be a question I would laugh at and refuse to answer because, while I am a straight man, that's not the point. I don't see it as a gay film and as an actor it doesn't serve me to see it as a gay film because that doesn't mean shit. It's all about what you want, what makes you happy, what you use to fill the gaps in your life. And if it's a man, woman or whatever, who the hell cares, because it's not about that." (The character) Brian says, "Gay is a comforting myth. It's not important. That's not the point. These are people who need people. And love. Everybody is searching for that all the time."

The field is slowly changing when it comes to notions of playing gay, but the stigma still exists proving the entertainment industry is behind the politicos on this one. Both actors did mention their heterosexuality without being asked, but mostly in the context that they were ready to fully explore the lives of gay characters.

"There are things a gay man understands about the gay experience that a straight man is just not going to," Graham concedes, "but an actor's an actor. A real actor is curious about sexuality. How can you not be fascinated by one of the most important tenets existing on planet earth?"

LGBT filmmaker?

The obviously out Graham spoke about the duality of being a gay man vs. a gay filmmaker: "I have my moments where (I don't want to be labeled) a gay filmmaker. I'm a filmmaker who happens to be gay and these characters happen to be gay. Then, I'm like, Joe, they're spitfucking. Be real."

He pauses and continues, "When we played Frameline, I had to tell the audience there how much Frameline meant to me. 20 years ago I was a kid (22) who had just recently come out. Looking at these films, Todd Haynes's early work and what Gus Van Sant was doing, I was blown away. I'd been exposed to foreign films but I didn't know you could do that. I didn't know you could be that personal. (laughs) So I started to allow myself to think of more personal stories. And being gay, I was fascinated and obsessed with what it means to be gay...I think 'Beautiful Something' is a relationship story if you want to fit it into the LGBT contemporary canon. So, I used to shun the title and want the film to be seen as more than just LGBT and want myself to be seen as more, but now I consider it a badge of honor."

And he wears it well, since his films (including his first, more experimental feature, "Vanilla") are very personal, intense meditations on love and lust and that pursuit of happiness we've all heard so much about. He's also quite the deceptive filmmaker since ominous characters and seemingly frightening situations usually turn out to be less sinister than initially thought. That sense of foreboding he so brilliantly creates, has less to do with actual danger than it does with the harm we inflict on ourselves.

Graham does explore his horror-obsessed side in his short, "Edward," which is part of a global compilation called "The Horror Network," coming out on DVD in October. This fascination goes way back to when he was just a boy loving the monster movies. "I was one of those little gay kids that saw those monsters as my friends."

His "Beautiful Something" characters are far from monsters. They're artists and potential artists of some kind, exploring their passions, much like their maker. And they're human beings exploring their sexual nature, with a little more fluidity than usual.

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