Multitasking Todd Flaherty on Making 'Chrissy Judy' – 'A Queer Film for Queer People'

For his film "Chrissy Judy," Todd Flaherty not only starred, but wrote, directed, produced, and edited. EDGE spoke to the multitasker about his "queer film for queer people."

The final shot of the gorgeous indie film, "Chrissy Judy" (without spoilers) abounds with missed opportunities and exhilarating possibilities for its titular characters, recapping the entire narrative and presenting the audience with the best kind of ending – one that is open to interpretation.

Judy is played by Flaherty, a born artistic multitasker, who created an exquisite and incisive portrait of friendship, fragility, pain and enlightenment. He's birthed an authentic portrait of two bonded queer characters who must discover who they are on their own. Both are drag artists. Chrissy (Wyatt Fenner) abandons NYC to couple up in Suburban Philly, leaving hot mess Judy to fend for himself.

Flaherty proves he's a cinematic force, making bold choices, inverting stereotypes, examining the gray areas in the lives of his characters and leaving the audience with plenty to contemplate and discuss.

Prior to "Chrissy Judy," Flaherty wrote, directed and starred in the web series, "Undetectable" and the deeply affecting short film, "Let's Meet Again at the End of the World."

The thesp spent a decade working in theatre on the New York stage as well as regionally, including performing in the off-Broadway plays, "Pirira" (NYIT Nomination) and "Fresh Kills."

"Chrissy Judy" had its world premiere at the Provincetown Film Festival and has screened and will continue to screen in many festivals worldwide. It's this year's queerfest runaway hit.

EDGE had the pleasure of speaking with Flaherty about his work.

EDGE: "Chrissy Judy" has been quite the festival darling. Can you tell me a little bit about what that experience has been like for you?

Todd Flaherty: Oh, my gosh, first of all, I had no idea that we would have this kind of reach. When we first set out on this journey, I was like, 'Oh, God, I hope we get into a festival.' And then once we got into Outfest and things started spiraling from there – for the better – once we started playing internationally, my mind was blown. A year ago today, I didn't have a fully edited film. And since then, we've been to Hong Kong, Melbourne. I was just at BFI in London, which was incredible.

I'm going to Italy in a month. It's just amazing. I think it speaks to the universality of the story and how it really sticks with people. I'm elated and overjoyed that we've gotten to screen where we have. It's been icing on the cake. The audiences just seem to really love it.

EDGE: I'm sure you get the 'is it autobiographical?' question all the time. Instead, I'd like to ask, why did you want to explore the themes that you explore?

Todd Flaherty: I do hesitate to say whether or not it's autobiographical, because it's really not. I think I consider myself both Chrissy and Judy. And I wanted to explore these themes of friendship because I really love queer cinema and I think the last couple of years has been so exciting...It speaks to how we're moving forward as a community. I think typically what we get from queer films are coming out stories, stories of unrequited love. And sometimes we delve into victimhood or our AIDS pandemic. And those are all incredible, valid stories...but what I had never seen explored before is the importance of friendship in our 20s, and how that is technically our adolescence. We're robbed of that in our teens, when other people around us are exploring themselves, because we have to navigate the world in a different way, through a different lens. I've had a couple of really important friendships, and I wanted to honor those. And I think what's so sacred about those friendships is, like all friendships, there's no guarantee that they're forever. But they can be more impactful than our romantic relationships.

EDGE: Can you take me through the process of writing the screenplay? And did you find yourself making any changes during the shoot?

Todd Flaherty: I started writing this in 2018, when I moved to Philadelphia from New York City, after having carved out a little career for myself in the indie and off-Broadway theater community. I was really trying to explore this idea of someone who was very happy and excited to be in a heteronormative relationship, but also longing for this life that they had created for themselves as a queer artist...I didn't want to write about a writer or an actor, so I thought it'd be fun to cement these two friends in a drag duo...and exploring themes of being a queer artist and creating queer art for queer people and how difficult that is...

So, I wrote this in 2018 and spent a year looking for funding. At that point, the script was about 115 pages, and over the years I had whittled it down to 103. At the beginning of March 2020, we had about $150k to shoot the film. We were literally on the road looking at locations, and our main investor called us...he got cold feet, rightfully so, and backed out. It was devastating but ended up being the best thing for the script, and the film, because my brother and I made a short film that summer during COVID. And he was talking with me one day, once we had started submitting it to film festivals, and said, "you know, 'Chrissy Judy' is so great. I think that we can do it on a shoestring budget, we made this short for virtually nothing. Let's figure out how we can do 'Chrissy Judy,' the same way." We were set for a 2021 shoot, and the script went down to about 85 pages. I got to that point where I was like, okay, "show not tell, show not tell." What's essential in telling this story and what's not...Everything that's written is what's on the screen. We did a little bit of improv, but not much.

EDGE: So, you're wearing all these hats and too often with artists who put on all these hats, they don't all fit. That's not the case here. Were you always planning to Barbra Streisand this project?

Todd Flaherty: (laughs) I did not want to produce, and I did not want to edit it. I did want to direct it. My first love is acting. I love the theater. I love the theater scene in New York. And I just really wasn't getting the work that I thought that I should be going up for. The last two years of my career I just kept going in to understudy famous straight actors, or British actors who were playing gay on Broadway. And people kept saying to me, "oh, you're talented, but I just don't know where to put you. I don't know where you fit." So that's why I started writing – just to show people and to give a space for other fantastic performers to shine. We were so lucky to have Wyatt Fenner and Joey Taranto and James Tyson, who is a genius in this. And it's nice to see them receiving accolades from this. So yeah, I knew that I wanted to direct just because I had a really clear vision for what I wanted the film to look like. But no, producing and editing was strictly a budgetary constraint. And I hope that on the next film someone else will take the reins on those things.

EDGE: Watching "Chrissy Judy" I felt these homages to Woody Allen, specifically "Manhattan," even "Stardust Memories," not just the look of the film, but the exploration of the characters and relationships. I'm guessing his work was an inspiration.

Todd Flaherty: Yeah. It's a tricky subject to talk about Woody Allen right now. So, what I say is, to speak my truth, yes, his work was very impactful for me as a young person. I think that there's something very queer about his work, too. I think he sees life through a different lens and explores that through his work. I knew that I always wanted to shoot the film in black and white, so when I was talking with my brother, Brendan, who's our cinematographer, we watched "Manhattan" together...the way that Woody Allen captures New York, not only as a city, but just the energy of it, I really wanted to emulate that. There's a little joke there where Judy calls Chrissy, Chrissy Cristina Barcelona. So yeah, I have my little nods in there to people who I like. But of course, it's difficult to talk about him right now and say you respect the work without saying you respect the person.

EDGE: You also keenly critique these two seemingly disparate notions of how gay men lead their lives. The gays who conform to some hetero life – they settle down. Then those who swim in the opposite direction, embracing their queerness and themselves as sexual beings. You don't see that presented in LGBTQ+ films very often.

Todd Flaherty: Yeah, I think something that happens a lot with LGBTQ+ films is they either lean mainstream and so what happens is we get these characters who are trying to explain to straight audiences, how queer people live and exist, or the stories don't want to delve into the messiness of critiquing our own people, because it feels like we're already being bombarded by people around us and our government right now. But I think that was the whole point of why I wanted to make this film. I didn't make it for a straight audience. Though I love the reception to it that they've had, I wanted to make a queer film for queer people where they could see themselves and be like, oh, yeah, I recognize myself in...I've experienced both things. I have been very happy in these more traditional heteronormative relationships. But simultaneously, as a single person now, exploring relationships and love, I think we're in a really interesting time where we're rewriting who we get to be, how we date, how we show love and express love and what nesting looks like for us. It's the Wild West out there. I like that Judy is this very messy person constantly seeking validation and physical relationships. It's something that we do, because culturally, people say, okay, you are gay, so you have to identify by your sexuality. So that is put on us. And then of course, that's the lens through which we explore most of our lives.

It's why I love taking Judy to Provincetown in the third act because Provincetown is really, for me the most liberating space, because mostly everyone is queer here. It's a space where you get to say, "okay, well if I'm not that thing that everyone projects on to me, who am I authentically besides my sexuality?"

EDGE: Was it important for you to cast out queer actors in these queer roles?

Todd Flaherty: It was essential, I think we had something like 58 actors in this from big to small roles and except for our two makeup girls, at the beginning and our two roommates, everyone else identified as queer.

We have this conversation in the industry all the time, "well, sometimes in order to get something made you have to hire these types of people." And I'm not saying that straight actors can't play gay, because we've seen people do it brilliantly before. But I think that queer people bring a lived experience to these roles that is incomprehensible to someone who has not lived it. And I don't say that to belittle anyone else's experience or say that as actors, they can't find the motivation. But I think we get so few opportunities to shine. There's so many people who are so brilliant, who don't get the opportunity to work enough. I felt it was essential for me to hire those people.

EDGE: I wanted to ask you about queer cinema and how you see it evolving and where you feel your work fits into that evolution.

Todd Flaherty: ...I think that the digital age is really helping to lift smaller queer voices. Our stories are expanding beyond what we've traditionally had in the past and that's really exciting. I plan on continuing to do that. I just finished the script for my next film, that is definitely queer, but lives more in a mainstream voice. I would just like to continue exploring what it is to be a queer person in America. And share that story. I think it brings our community together, it sheds light on who we are and what we want. And ultimately breaks down the barriers of what people think are our differences. I'm excited to see what happens with "Chrissy Judy," in the next couple of months. We will be available for everyone to stream. It's crazy. And I hope that when people watch it, they see a bit of themselves in it, regardless of their orientation or gender.

EDGE: You just finished working with the magnificent writer-director Marco Calvani (on the upcoming film "Best Place"). Can you tell us a little about that experience?

Todd Flaherty: Oh my god, it was incredible. I got five days on set with some of the most talented people I have worked with. The script is incredible. I think it's this beautiful glimpse into what it is to be an immigrant and queer in America, and black and queer in America.

And I loved just playing a small frivolous part in that. We had a blast. And there's some really incredibly talented people in it – which luckily, I didn't know anything about when I auditioned. When I left, the actor who was reading with me was like, "girl, you got balls of steel. Marisa Tomei is in this. So is Bill Irwin." I was like, "what?" I was glad I didn't have that information because I would have been like, "I'll do anything!" And it's so nice to see people filming here. It's nice to see people exploring what this space means to our community at large. I think (Marco) does that really well. We had two days on the beach in October – P-town is already cold – but we had to be naked and then go skinny dipping. Everyone was like, "Please be careful with the camera angles, because it is like 45 degrees outside!" We had a lot of fun and he's just a light. I'm excited to see who picks it up and where it goes.