Justin Kirk has a few choice things to say to Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger.
February 12, 2007 (Press Release) --
It is much easier to play gay and bisexual guys on the big screen because of the road he helped pave for them. The 37-year-old actor made his splash as the young blind gay hunk in Love! Valour! Compassion! on stage and on the big screen in 1997, and then co-starred in Mike Nichols’ award-winning 2003 AIDS miniseries Angels in America.
"We did it first, and then Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger cashed in on it for the Oscar, thank you," Kirk says during a recent interview with FilmStew, feigning a bit of defensiveness toward the guys who scored Oscar nominations for their performances as bisexual cowboys in Brokeback Mountain. "There are groundbreakers, and then there are followers."
Kirk is kidding, of course, but says that he thinks world attitude has definitely changed since he starred with Nathan Lane in Love! Valour! Compassion! "It is certainly a different world, but is it still harder for a guy to be openly bisexual than a girl today?" he says, musing the possibilities. "I don't know; possibly, yes. In this post-Brokeback era, it's not the same as when we did that."
This year looks to be another groundbreaking one for Kirk. In addition to his Showtime series Weeds, for which he recently scored a Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actor, tbe born in Portland, raised in Minneapolis thesp has three movies coming out in early 2007, all featuring candid discussions about sex. There’s Puccini for Beginners and Flannel Pajamas, out within three weeks of each other this month. And then, in April, Kirk will be seen in Henry Jaglom’s latest drama Hollywood Dreams.
In Puccini for Beginners, opening this Friday in limited release, Kirk portrays a professor who, while six-years engaged to Grace (Gretchen Mol), meets a stunning other woman by the name of Allegra (Elizabeth Reaser). It turns that both his fiancée and Allegra are as equally interested in women as they are in men, sparking a bisexual romantic comedy that puts Kirk's character in more than a few awkward situations.
Plenty of words of wisdom are offered up during Puccini for Beginners, but Kirk's favorite line comes from Allegra when she says, ‘People who have broken my heart have earned my lifelong devotion.’
While at the Strand Releasing offices in Culver City, Calif., Kirk is reading the outstandingly positive review for Puccini in the New York Times. Critic Stephen Holden praises Kirk's performance, but the actor observes wryly, "I was called 'fairly attractive…' I guess that's OK." Holden also likens writer-director Maria Maggenti to Noel Coward and Woody Allen.
Source: http://www.msn.com
Posted by Mike Szymanski
"We did it first, and then Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger cashed in on it for the Oscar, thank you," Kirk says during a recent interview with FilmStew, feigning a bit of defensiveness toward the guys who scored Oscar nominations for their performances as bisexual cowboys in Brokeback Mountain. "There are groundbreakers, and then there are followers."
Kirk is kidding, of course, but says that he thinks world attitude has definitely changed since he starred with Nathan Lane in Love! Valour! Compassion! "It is certainly a different world, but is it still harder for a guy to be openly bisexual than a girl today?" he says, musing the possibilities. "I don't know; possibly, yes. In this post-Brokeback era, it's not the same as when we did that."
This year looks to be another groundbreaking one for Kirk. In addition to his Showtime series Weeds, for which he recently scored a Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actor, tbe born in Portland, raised in Minneapolis thesp has three movies coming out in early 2007, all featuring candid discussions about sex. There’s Puccini for Beginners and Flannel Pajamas, out within three weeks of each other this month. And then, in April, Kirk will be seen in Henry Jaglom’s latest drama Hollywood Dreams.
In Puccini for Beginners, opening this Friday in limited release, Kirk portrays a professor who, while six-years engaged to Grace (Gretchen Mol), meets a stunning other woman by the name of Allegra (Elizabeth Reaser). It turns that both his fiancée and Allegra are as equally interested in women as they are in men, sparking a bisexual romantic comedy that puts Kirk's character in more than a few awkward situations.
Plenty of words of wisdom are offered up during Puccini for Beginners, but Kirk's favorite line comes from Allegra when she says, ‘People who have broken my heart have earned my lifelong devotion.’
While at the Strand Releasing offices in Culver City, Calif., Kirk is reading the outstandingly positive review for Puccini in the New York Times. Critic Stephen Holden praises Kirk's performance, but the actor observes wryly, "I was called 'fairly attractive…' I guess that's OK." Holden also likens writer-director Maria Maggenti to Noel Coward and Woody Allen.
Source: http://www.msn.com
Posted by Mike Szymanski
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