One of the highlights of this year’s Fairytales film festival will be the Western Canadian debut of Mulligans. The film, written by our January 2006 cover guy Charlie David, explores the repercussions on a family when a married father (Dan Payne) has an affair with his college-aged son’s best friend, played by David.
“I can’t wait to come up there and am looking forward to sharing Mulligans with Calgary. I had a blast in Calgary last July; I came out and shot an episode of [my travel show] BUMP! covering the gay rodeo, which was so much fun. Calgary in particular reminds me a lot of home, I grew up in Saskatchewan and there is a similar mentality I would say. Calgary was so warm and embracing. When you say Calgary and people come up with the redneck image, and I am sure that may exist but I didn’t experience it at all.”
The film’s concept came about as a result of David’s own coming out professionally.
“When I made the decision to come out publicly five years ago, my manager said I would probably lose and get some jobs because of it, but one thing I could try and do was create my own work. So she encouraged me to start writing. I started writing a buddy comedy for me and my best friend Derek James. As I got into it I discovered this family and started going down the road with it and found this drama that was being created was more interesting than the buddy comedy. It kind of evolved by itself, there were many drafts of it. I workshopped it in Vancouver through the Cold Reading series. Through that and other advice from friends and people in the industry, I found that the most interesting part of the story was the affair between the father and the son’s college aged best friend, and the repercussions of that when it is found out about by the family.”
The film was shot in only 20 days in Victoria.
“Coming from TV, we often shoot a little bit faster, we sometimes shoot 12 pages a day which is an insane pace, and for Mulligans we shot between 4 to 6. We were so lucky to be shooting in Victoria, the locations were just stunning. I think coming together in a smaller location that is not necessarily driven by film - like in LA or Vancouver - the community really comes together. We had so many volunteers and donations and people just giving us their time, it couldn’t have happened without that. Chip Hale, our director, really maintained his vision throughout. There are always challenges that come up, and you try and plan ahead for every potential thing that can go wrong. Some days were definitely difficult wearing the hat of producer/writer/actor, where I thought I was going to implode. We had such a great team that it was a really magical experience. I made myself stop and look around and realize that the dream was actually happening. To have a story that you create and imagine and actually see it come to life before your eyes is a pretty cool experience.”
The film’s subject matter is one that David worked hard to create - a story that wouldn’t hit a negative nerve. Some of the straight community view relationships between older and younger men to be predatory, while many in the gay community view it as “icky” and “trollish.” While casting a good-looking actor like Dan Payne in the role helped, it was an issue that David admits weighed heavily on the writing process.
“It definitely was part of my thought process. We went back and fourth on that very subject a lot because I didn’t want it to be overly predatory. For the college-aged guys I wanted them to seem old enough that they were making their own decisions so it wasn’t an 18 or younger situation. Really it is the story of the Father coming to terms with his sexuality. As the story goes he and his wife met in High School and got pregnant when they were 16. So they had a baby and got married and life unfolds and he finds himself with a job, wife and kids. It isn’t until my character Chase walks into the situation, and comes out himself, that the father is faced with the repressed feelings that he had for a long time but had never been in his face like they are now. From a standpoint of the ’trollish’ thing, I think it happens a lot in all types of relationships and gay relationships are not excluded, in that there is an older and younger relationship. It goes back to ancient Greece. The issue is that he is a married family man, and how that unfolds.”
In addition to Dan Payne, Derek James and David, Queer as Folk’s Thea Gill stars as Stacey Davidson, the wife of Nathan, the father. David originally approached Gill prior to the two of them working on the TV series Dante’s Cove.
“I have admired Thea for a long time from watching her on Queer as Folk and thinking she was quite a skilled actress. I remember watching an episode where she was discovering elements of her own sexuality, when she had been involved with her girlfriend and they had a child, and she met a painter and got involved with him for awhile.”
Being Canadian, David had made his mandate to shoot in Canada using Canadian talent, and Gill fit for a number of reasons. “She had a name and involvement within the LGBT community in addition to being such a great talent. I actually approached her with the script before we worked on that together. She had been on a friend of mine’s film and contacted her through him. She read the script and the role resonated with her. She said she was interested, then we ended up doing Dante’s Cove together, which was a blast. We had worked on 2 seasons together by the time we shot Mulligans. I am so happy with the work that she did in our film. There are some scenes that I can just watch over and over again and be continually impressed with them. She is so giving of her time and her talent for our little movie.”
Both Gill and David will be in attendance for the screening. As well, fans can have brunch with the pair and partake in a discussion at the Siding Café in Art Central on June 1st. Tickets for the event are $30 and must be purchased in advance at Blubox and Priape. Getting to meet those that have supported him is a treat for David.
“It is always such a pleasure to come out and meet people. It is always an interesting opportunity to talk with people that are passionate about film about this whole crazy process of putting a movie together.”
Things are going great for Charlie, who continues his “dream job” traveling with BUMP!, as well as preparing to film season 4 of Dante’s Cove and putting together financing for his next feature Side Effects, a psychological thriller he plans to shoot in the spring of 2009. With all that on the horizon, David expressed that his excitement right now lies in the opening of Mulligans, which just completed sound mixing, meaning even he has not seen the final product.
“It is so great that the festival accepted us and the word has been spreading. I have had a lot of people I know from Alberta and Saskatchewan who are excited and coming up for the festival. That is definitely great to hear and I am looking forward to sharing the film.”
Mulligans
Friday May 31, 9:30
Plaza Theatre
www.mulligansthemovie.com
www.fairytalesfilmfest.com
