Life, Lesbians and the Pursuit of Hotness
- April 28, 2015 - 2:30pm
Legally… lesbian? Well, not exactly.
To the delight of their queer-lady fans, Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara may kiss up on each other, but it’s all just part of their Hot Pursuit. In the film, Witherspoon portrays Officer Cooper, a by-the-books cop assigned to protect the ultra-fashionable widow of a drug dealer (Vergara of Modern Family) – at one point faking lesbian to escape a potentially sketchy situation.
This isn’t Witherspoon’s first on-screen kiss with another woman, of course. And even though the Oscar-winning actress couldn’t recall her pre-fame woman-on-woman debut during our interview – 1996’s Freeway, when she and Brittany Murphy made out – how could we forget?
“I don’t think I’ve kissed another girl on screen,” Reese says, as we’re asked to move onto the next question.
Here’s what else the budding BFFs had to say about lesbians, Legally Blonde and female liberation during this gay press exclusive.
Dealing with homosexuality in comedy can be delicate, and some people take offense to pseudo lesbianism. As actors, how do you know when not to go too far? Is there a “too far”?
Reese: I think gay people are able to play straight roles; straight people are able to play gay roles. The whole point of being an actor is to transform. If people don’t understand that we need to be malleable in our sexuality, then I think they need to lighten up.
Sofia, you’re on a gay-loved TV show. Reese, you famously taught us the “bend-and-snap.” Looking back, when were you both first aware that you had a gay and lesbian following?
Reese: For me, probably Legally Blonde, or Cruel Intentions.
Sofia: I’ve never really thought about it. I’ve always had a lot of gay friends as very close friends. I don’t know! My (Modern Family) character, Gloria – they like her!
Reese: Her attitude. And the way she dresses – yeah!
Reese, what did the bend-and-snap do for your gay cred?
Reese: Um, well, hopefully legitimized my dance moves! I have a strong dance game.
Sofia: She does, she does!
Reese: And now I’m working on a Latino audience with my dance game.
Sofia: Oh, the Latino audience adores her!
Reese: (Laughs) Sofia’s taught me how to Latin dance.
Sofia: You didn’t need me to teach you anything – you knew already.
Reese: I had a beat in my heart.
How much of the “nuzzle Reese’s face in Sofia’s bosom” scene was improvised?
Sofia: Oh, it was half and half.
Reese: Yeah, it was in the script, and then Sofia decided she’d yank my ponytail.
Sofia: Yeah, she smelled very good!
I don’t have to tell you that your makeout scene in Hot Pursuit is already getting a lot of lesbian buzz. How accustomed are you to attention from lesbians at this point in your career?
Reese: I have a ton of lesbian friends, and I think any kind of woman who relates to us or enjoys the movie – that’s awesome!
Sofia: Half of the time I don’t know if they’re lesbian. It’s just normal. It’s not like they’re like, “Hi, I am a lesbian and I am a fan!”
Reese: (Laughs) The whole movie is: It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what your sexual orientation is, what you do for a living, what your ethnicity is – women are women, and we all have a lot in common.
I’ve loved watching the evolution of female actors in the action genre. How does it feel being a part of “the girls can be just as bad as boys” movement in Hollywood?
Reese: I think it’s great. It’s liberating because it’s not all about our characters’ romantic lives or that we’re chasing men – it’s that we’re running for our lives and we have to figure out a way to get along so that we survive.
How do you feel about it, Sofia?
Sofia: About her lesbian followers?!
Sure! Let’s talk some more about Reese’s lesbian followers.
Sofia: (Laughs) No, like I said, I didn’t really notice. I think the thing with movies is to entertain everybody. You don’t have to be anything special to enjoy the entertainment of what we’re doing. We’re doing it for everybody.
How do female-led films like Hot Pursuit – directed by a woman, Anne Fletcher, and featuring strong female leads – contribute to the feminist movement?
Reese: Anything where two women are relating to each other – and we’re the leads of the movie, and it’s directed by a woman – it’s kind of a new thing. So, we’re excited. But it’s actually a really exciting summer for women’s films with Pitch Perfect 2, directed by a woman (Elizabeth Banks), and Spy with Melissa McCarthy, and Trainwreck with Amy Schumer. Last summer was not good for women’s films. I mean, I kept going, “What am I gonna see this summer?” And there weren’t any good movies last summer for women. I think this is the summer for women.
Hillary Clinton would be happy to hear that. I bet she’d dig all this Hot Pursuit girl power.
Reese: We hope everybody likes it!
So, Reese, you get to dabble in drag. You make a cute boy, by the way.
Reese: Thaaaanks!
How was it determined what kind of boy you’d be for your drag debut?
Reese: It was really interesting! Like, obviously I was José Bieber, the Latin Bieber, in this movie. As soon as I put on the clothes, my whole personality changed. You know, I was talkin’ to the honeys!
Sofia: Actually, I have to say, it was one of my favorite scenes, because to see her like that was so odd. I wasn’t prepared. She suddenly showed up like that to the set and it was so hilarious. I mean, if you see the movie, at the end there are some bloopers of me not being able to control myself.
Reese: Because she thought I was hot.
Sofia: No. I thought you looked ridiculous!
6 Gay Places to Kick Off the Best. Summer. Ever.
- April 23, 2015 - 12:35pm
Skip Palm Springs, forget Fire Island and put P-Town on hold. This year, you’re headed to a new LGBT-friendly destination for an unexpected getaway with all the perks to which you’re privy. Time to get packin’.
Houston, Texas
Texas isn’t the first state that comes to mind when you think “progressive,” but its traditional shade of Republican red comes with a few tinges of pink. Houston, specifically, embraces its LGBT community, thanks in part to openly gay mayor Annise Parker, who will vacate her office at the end of the year. MyGayHouston.com, a popular source for LGBT-specific news and happenings, will celebrate its fifth anniversary this year, and Pride Houston will be held June 27. The fourth-largest city in the United States – it’s true! – also boasts a budding art scene and culturally diverse cuisine, which was singled out by Community Marketing’s LGBT travel study last year.
Miami Beach
Sure, the LGBT community has been flocking to Miami for decades, but now that marriage is legal in Florida, you can have the best of both worlds while hitting the sand to say “I do” this summer. Eden Roc Miami Beach offers an affordable LGBT Wedding Celebration Package with plenty of perks. First, the stunning hotel waives the ceremony fee – freeing up about $1,500 for other activities, like a luxurious spa day on the grounds – along with discounts on food and beverage and complimentary breakfast in bed. And so you can concentrate on enjoying your big day, Eden Roc will have its social media concierge – fancy, huh? – available to capture all your memorable moments. Up until the boom-boom begins, anyway; you’re on your own with that AV.
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Like playing the odds? They’re in your favor at the San Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino, a stunning island property nestled in the middle of a bustling metropolitan city. From your home base in the heart of the trendy Condado neighborhood filled with shopping, international cuisine and nightlife, embark on adventures like ATV, horseback riding and zip lining at Haciendo Campo Rico by day, then let loose at night in Old San Juan at La Factoria. Santurce and La Placita of Santurce, the arts and culture center, is just a short taxi ride away, as is the El Yunque Rainforest. Seems like a lot to see and do, but there’ll be plenty of lazy beach time with your boo, too.
St. Maarten
Although the Caribbean is breathtaking in landscape, some islands have ugly views toward the LGBT community (we’re looking at you, Jamaica!). St. Maarten, however, takes pride in its LGBT community, and several resorts, including Sonesta Ocean Point and Sonesta Great Bay Beach Resort, Casino & Spa are now registered with the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA), the leading global resource in LGBT tourism. Both locations offer same-sex wedding ceremonies – if you want to tie the knot in flip-flops – with a Gay Wedding Institute-certified in-house wedding coordinator. Spend your first few hours as a legally bound couple canoodling in a private gazebo or partying down at an unforgettable reception at Ocean Point’s Azul Rooftop Bar.
St. Pete Beach, Florida
Not to be outdone by some of the flashier Florida cities, sunny St. Pete Beach allows for a different kind of vacay – one void of thumping techno music and throwback boardwalk body builders. The Spanish-influenced Hotel Zamora features a destination restaurant and rooftop lounge serving a locally sourced menu of creative tapas entrees; a marina; fresh-water pool; fitness center; and access to white, sandy beaches. Zamora also will offer a Beachside Pride package this summer in celebration of St. Pete Pride, June 26 to 28.
Norfolk, Virginia
Step out of the box this summer – and into a boat! – during the country’s only Pride boat parade, in Norfolk, Va. Part of PrideFest, June 26 and 27, the celebration by sea is open to all maritimers with access to a vessel. The Norfolk Waterside Marriott offers a PrideFest Hotel Package for the weekend, which includes a buffet breakfast for two guests daily, a $25 food and beverage credit per night at Shula's 347, and self-parking. After you drop your bag, head out into Hampton Roads for waterfront activities, a thriving dining scene, and unique arts and culture.
Rocky Horror remake, Judd Apatow, Animal Crackers, and JT LeRoy
- April 23, 2015 - 12:20pm
Rocky Horror: The TV Remake. Yep.
Like all unnecessary remakes, this one was, perhaps, inevitable. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 40 years old now, was asking for it by being so beloved. The cult favorite of misfits and queer kids holds the distinction of being the movie with the longest theatrical distribution run in film history. And that means it’s worth money. And that means someone wants to milk more from it. Gail Berman, former Fox entertainment president, has long wanted to remake the film, calling it a “passion” project for her. And Fox already loaned it to Glee for auto-tuning. So the next step is handing it over to High School Musical director Kenny Ortega for a TV version to air on Fox. The working title is The Rocky Horror Picture Show Event, and while there’ll be, of course, a new cast and what’s being called a “visual reimagining,” there’s a promise to be faithful to the script and songs. If the High School Musical association bothers you, consider Rocky’s trajectory as something akin to the human rights movement for the LGBT community. Once considered dangerous and dirty, now mainstream and cuddly, the outrageous musical’s transgressive yesterday is today’s cute karaoke. That’s a real time warp.
Apatow goes all the way gay
Andrew Rannells is working with producer/director Judd Apatow on an untitled comedy co-written by Rannells and Jersey Boys’ Mike Doyle. There’s not one single detail to be shared about the story, other than that it’s a star vehicle for Rannells, whose career is on a steadily rising escalator. He is the Grammy-winning, Tony Award-nominated star of The Book of Mormon, one of an elite crew of Hedwigs, and current co-star of Girls. Details of the project will come soon enough, but until then, the coolest part of this is kind of about Judd Apatow. After establishing himself as the chief purveyor of the man-child comedy, all Rogens and Rudds and Francos acting gay-ish with one another, heterosexual men figuring out how to reclaim their ability to be intimate with one another, Apatow is now producing Girls, directing Amy Schumer’s upcoming feature Trainwreck, and working on a project with a gay guy. Don’t worry, straight men, you’re all still very, very important to us. But let’s enjoy this next, inclusive step in the Apatow Universe and see how the expansion plays out.
Animal Crackers are the new Legos
OK, maybe they’ll be the new Legos, box-office-wise, anyway, when the animated feature Animal Crackers is released. It could be argued that the tiny, vanilla-flavored cookie, beloved by generations of children, has an even deeper brand identity than Lego, so anything could happen. The feature – not a remake of the Marx Brothers comedy, in case you were worried – is about a family employing a magical box of Animal Crackers to save a rundown circus from being seized by an evil ringmaster. (Although, let’s be real, circuses aren’t exactly America’s favorite day out anymore, so their existence may need to be explained to very young audiences.) The movie boasts a few LGBT cast members providing voices: Ian McKellen, Raven-Symone, and the venerable Harvey Fierstein as “Esmerelda,” a character we hope is the ferocious queen of bear-shaped cookies. And they’ll join Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Patrick Warburton, Sylvester Stallone, Danny DeVito and Gilbert Gottfried. It hits multiplexes for family consumption in 2016. BYOMilk.
JT LeRoy: The hoax everyone bought
JT LeRoy was a lot of things: a former teenage prostitute, an HIV-positive recovering drug addict, gender-ambiguous and the critical darling of the literary world with a best-selling autobiographical novel, Sarah. He was also painfully shy, choosing to allow celebrities like Lou Reed, Sandra Bernhard and Nancy Sinatra read for him at book events. Well, the last two parts are true, anyway, although shyness isn’t why LeRoy rarely appeared in public. He was, instead, a construction, an elaborate literary hoax. And now it’s all on film. Marjorie Sturm began a documentary about LeRoy in 2002, at the height of his fame, and she was there in 2006 when it all came crumbling down around an author named Laura Albert, whose pen name and alter ego had caused one too many questions without answers. The result is a The Cult of JT LeRoy, a provocative examination of how fiction is employed in building a celebrity, how we all want to believe in the redemptive power of tragedy through art, and what happens when the truth comes out. It’s making the film festival rounds right now, so catch it while you can.