|
|
Post by pi on Jan 21, 2023 17:05:02 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by pi on Jan 21, 2023 17:11:08 GMT -5
‘Fairyland’s Andrew Durham, Cody Fern & Adam Lambert On The Need For “More Nuanced, Complicated” Portrayals Of Queer Individuals On Screen – Sundance Studio< embedded interview video> ![]() When Sofia Coppola first read Alysia Abbott’s Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, she immediately connected with the “beautiful and unique story” before her, optioning it for her longtime friend Andrew Durham to direct.
“We share a similar sensibility,” Coppola shared in a Friday appearance at Deadline’s Sundance Studio, “and I thought because he grew up kind of in that world and had some similarities in his childhood, that he could tell the story the best.”
The 2013 memoir published by W. W. Norton & Company examines the concurrent coming-of-age journeys of Alysia Abbott (Emilia Jones) and her father Steve (Scoot McNairy), a poet and gay activist who picks up and moves the pair to San Francisco following the tragic passing of his wife. It’s in the Bay Area, during the ’70s and ’80s — with the AIDS epidemic looming — that Steve is finally able to live his life to the fullest as an openly gay man, even as he struggles with his responsibilities as a single parent
The film adaptation titled Fairyland marks the feature directorial debut of Durham, who likewise felt a strong pull to the story at hand. “I had never connected with a memoir so much because Alysia Abbott was around my same age,” the director recalled yesterday. “We both grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area together, and we both had gay fathers…and her experiences were so similar to mine.”
Durham was joined at our studio not only by Coppola, Jones and McNairy, but also by cast members Cody Fern and Adam Lambert. The conversation had him reflecting on depictions of the LGBTQ+ community in film, and where Fairyland looks to add more nuance. “There’s a tendency, when you have anyone who’s sort of considered marginalized in society, to make sure that we present them in a way that is very positive, which I believe in,” he said. “But…I think that’s a very narrow scope sometimes, and quite often, we are not given the opportunity to have more developed…more nuanced, complicated characters, just like everyone else. That’s what I loved about Alysia’s memoir, is that [Steve] wasn’t the poster child of perfect parenting. And I think there’s a lot of universal themes with that, too.”
Fern agreed that oftentimes, stories centered on gay characters present a “deified or heroified version” of their story — though it’s through understanding the “complications,” “faults or flaws” of a character that true connection to them is possible. “I really enjoyed that [Fairyland] was an incredibly nuanced story about the conflict of a man coming to understand himself, and raising a child in this environment, and what is right and what is wrong,” said the actor. “[It shows that] we all make mistakes, and that there are beautiful things that come out of those mistakes, as well.”
Lambert, too, praised the depth of Fairyland‘s storytelling, noting at the same time how important it continues to be to give stories like that of Alysia and her father the kind of attention they deserve. “The LGBTQ community is basically under attack again in the United States, and there’s a lot of parallels to the time that we’re exploring in the 1970s…We don’t live in full harmony yet, even though we’re trying,” he said. “When I saw the film, one of the things I realized was, what a beautiful piece for anybody out there that doubts that a gay person can be a parent, anybody that doubts that gay people go through the same things as they do. I mean, it’s a real beautiful exploration of that, and showing that the daughter ends up being a wonderful, complex, smart, healthy woman, and she’s okay. I think that’s a really nice thing to walk away from with this story.”
More + video.. deadline.com/video/fairylands-cody-fern-adam-lambert-emilia-jones-on-sundance-drama/
|
|
|
|
Post by pi on Jan 21, 2023 17:13:06 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by pi on Jan 21, 2023 17:14:42 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by pi on Jan 21, 2023 17:15:20 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by pi on Jan 21, 2023 17:15:50 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by pi on Jan 21, 2023 17:17:43 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by pi on Jan 21, 2023 17:19:36 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by pi on Jan 21, 2023 17:22:15 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by pi on Jan 21, 2023 17:24:56 GMT -5
|
|
