In the darkest of dark comedies, it can be hard to tell the heroes from villains.
That might go double for the audacious Down Low, starring Zachary Quinto and Lukas Gage as an epically repressed, recently out gay man and the masseur he’s hired for his first homo happy ending who team up to hide the accidentally dead body of an internet hookup.
Gage — perhaps best known as the White Lotus bellhop who had his salad tossed by Murray Bartlett — co-wrote the script with writing partner Phoebe Fisher, and then encouraged producer FilmNation to pass it along to Rightor Doyle to direct.
“We had known each other for years,” says Doyle, also the creator, writer, and director of Netflix’s provocative comedy series Bonding, loosely based on Doyle’s experiences as a fresh-faced gay New Yorker working for his dominatrix best friend as her bodyguard. One can safely assume the actor-turned-director has seen his share of crazy worker-client situations, and even he was shocked reading the script for Down Low.
“I read the first ten pages and said, ‘I can’t believe someone is going to make this,'” Doyle recalls. “And then I thought, ‘Wait, maybe I should be the one to make it.’ And I think it’s something that, particularly with queer cinema, gay cinema — I love a good, uplifting story, I love a good coming out story — but my sense of humor and the things that I like to watch felt very aligned with this darker, sort of button-pushing version of what it is to be queer or what it is to explore queer identity. And I just jumped at it. I begged to do it.”
For his persistence, Doyle not only got the gig, but then assembled an enviable cast that also includes Simon Rex in a role not to be spoiled, and powerhouses Judith Light, in a drop-dead hilarious turn as a nosy neighbor, and Tony Awards queen Audra McDonald, in a brief but searing appearance as the ex-wife of Quinto’s former closet case.
“She’s incredible,” Doyle raves of McDonald, who shot her part in a day, much to Doyle’s eternal gratitude. “She has been my hero for my entire life. [As a kid,] I saved up all of my money and walked to the nearest CD store and bought Way Back to Paradise, you know? And I told her this, literally, as she’s getting her hair and makeup done.”
While Quinto’s and Gage’s characters try to get away with almost-murder, McDonald’s ex-wife shows up to ensure her former husband doesn’t get off scot-free for upending their marriage, or for living a lie for decades. On the other hand, his sexuality apparently was a revelation to him, too.
As Doyle notes, part of “the beautiful complexity around the movie, but also just around being a human” is that “you can be right and wrong all at the same time.” But these guys are still totally wrong for trying to hide a dead body, right? Even if they do have their reasons? “I’m not here to answer any of those questions,” Doyle offers slyly.
“Good storytelling for me, asks more questions than it answers,” he says. “I would like to leave more curious than when I came. And I hope that this movie does that, whether you love it or hate it. I think the movie wants you to love it or hate it. I think it’s asking you to have a big opinion about it. And I don’t think it’s afraid of you having an opinion. So you can have an opinion, either way. And I think the movie allows for that.”
I first saw Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain in 2005, at a three-screen, not-for-profit cinema in suburban Washington state. I went with my then-boyfriend, and for the next two hours and fourteen minutes, I wept silently next to him.
At 16, I came into political consciousness as the second Bush administration fought to maintain a conservative bulwark against progress by endorsing a constitutional amendment defining marriage in strictly heterosexual terms. While I was out, I felt righteously angry that others felt I should hide who I knew myself to be.
Twenty years after the film's release, Brokeback Mountain returned to theaters. The end of June also marked a decade of nationwide marriage equality thanks to Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the Supreme Court granted homosexual couples the "equal dignity" afforded to our heterosexual counterparts. Today, I go to the movies with my husband. And sitting in the cool, dark of the cinema last week, I reflected on the ways Brokeback Mountain helped change the national discourse and still resonates in deep, meaningful ways for people across the country.
Misha Brown, a 37-year-old influencer, actor, and host of the Wondery podcast The Big Flop, revealed in a TikTok video on July 17 that he had received an apology from his former high school bully -- 20 years after graduation -- after the bully's 15-year-old son came out as gay.
"Hey man, I just felt like I needed to tell you that I'm sorry I was a damn jerk in school," the message read. "Really, I'm sorry. But I've been following what you've done lately and it's really cool. I'm proud of you. You're like really helping people. The reason I wanted to tell you all this is I've got a son now. He's 15, and he told me he's gay. Man, all I thought about when he told me that was how I hope people are nicer to him than I was to you. It makes me proud to be his dad. And hopefully that makes up for something."
Jamal Moreland, 27, is on trial in Jacksonville for attempted armed robbery and attempted first-degree murder after allegedly shooting his Grindr date during an argument over a dinner bill on February 19, 2023.
At trial this week, Assistant State Attorney Crystal Lorraine Ganpath-Freed told jurors the victim -- whose name is being withheld for his protection -- "went on a date that almost became the date on his tombstone."
She linked Moreland to the crime through evidence, including surveillance video and shell casings, reports Jacksonville CBS affiliate WJAX.
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