Aled Mola talks 'Love is Strange,' John Lhgow, and gay pop culture - Vox

Contents:

• IS JOHN LHGOW GAY? AGE, HEIGHT, NET WORTH
• ALED MOLA TALKS 'LOVE IS STRANGE,' JOHN LHGOW, AND GAY POP CULTURE
• JOHN LHGOW, ALED MOLA SHE AS GAY UPLE ‘LOVE IS STRANGE’
• JOHN LHGOW TALKS LOVE IS STRANGE AND WHY HE AND ALED MOLA MAKE A GREAT GAY UPLE
• JAGUARS STRENGTH COACH KEV MAXEN COM OUT AS GAY
• JAGUARS ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY HISTORIC ANNOUNCEMENT
• IS JOHN LHGOW GAY?
• JOHN LHGOW ON THE SUNDANCE FILM ‘LOVE IS STRANGE’ AND GAY RIGHTS UTAH
• FIRST LOOK: JOHN LHGOW AND ALED MOLA AS GAY GROOMS ‘LOVE IS STRANGE’

IS JOHN LHGOW GAY? AGE, HEIGHT, NET WORTH

Brandon Ambroso: Is there any difference your approach to playg a love story vers playg a gay love story?

So no, when you're playg a role wh someone who is a long-term relatnship, then is separated om that long-term partner, the pa or anguish or disfort or unhapps you feel will always be playable, bee 's the same for everyone, whether they're gay or straight. Brandon Ambroso: There's been some discsn lately over whether or not straight actors should play gay rol.

Do you thk there's anythg to the fact that popular gay-themed stori are featurg olr gay men as their protagonists? I n remember a time when playg a gay character, or even jt dog films wh a gay theme, were really very risky thgs to do — not a polil sense, but jt risky at box office. There are still many, many people who are ristg the notn of gay them beg part of the mastream, but 's changg.

ALED MOLA TALKS 'LOVE IS STRANGE,' JOHN LHGOW, AND GAY POP CULTURE

But I thk what's cur is that even wh gay-themed movi and televisn shows, 's ually [about] people at the younger end of the age spectm. Brandon Ambroso: There's a mor gog around that your -star Cheyenne Jackson, who's a fabulo gay in —.

Brandon Ambroso: Well, I heard that he tght you some — as the New York Tim put — gay nomenclature. John Lhgow plays a gay man a 39-year relatnship wh his life partner and love of his life, played by Aled Mola, Ira Sachs' new film, "Love Is Strange.

And there is this very tertg tth now that young people accept homosexualy far more than olr, to tell you the tth, that song that you loved at the piano the begng, that was origally supposed to be the 1950s R&B song “Love Is Strange. " "Love Is Strange, " which stars Lhgow and Aled Mola as a married gay uple, is already receivg rave reviews ahead of s Aug. John Lhgow and Aled Mola betifully play a gay uple of 39 years who are forced to live temporarily apart Ira Sach’s btersweet edy-drama “Love Is Strange.

JOHN LHGOW, ALED MOLA SHE AS GAY UPLE ‘LOVE IS STRANGE’

Gee, who is his late 60s, unfortably occupi the uch of their former neighbors, a uple of much younger gay ps (Cheyenne Jackson and Manny Perez). In a sgle exquisely wrten scene set a Greenwich Village bar, you get a vivid sense of Gee and Ben’s entire liv together — if not the liv of an entire generatn of gay New Yorkers, many of them already sadly gone. Interview Highlights On the cramped New York apartment they share at the begng of the film — which actually belonged to a gay uple who had been together longer than Ben and Gee Mola: They'd been together for a long, long time.

On the history the uple has wnsed durg their 40-year relatnship Lhgow: It's a gay relatnship that's been gog on for 40 years — the have been 40 extraordary years our cultural history. I remember havg discsns wh very ser people — telligent people — who were wonrg if my choice to play a gay character was gog to have a bad effect on my reer.

JOHN LHGOW TALKS LOVE IS STRANGE AND WHY HE AND ALED MOLA MAKE A GREAT GAY UPLE

Lhgow: You thk of major breakthrough films on gay them like Brokeback Mounta or Milk or Longtime Compann or Prick Up Your Ears -- all of them volve crisis and torment and equently ath — sometim murr and assassatn.... ”The 68-year-old actor who seems partly English – “I’m a strange hybrid, there a’t many like me, ” he pronounc – now stars as half of a married gay uple wh Brish actor Aled Mola Ira Sachs’s, one of the hs of Sundance this year.

Read allAfter Ben and Gee get married, Gee is fired om his teachg post, forcg them to stay wh iends separately while they sell their place and look for cheaper hog -- a suatn that weighs heavily on all Ben and Gee get married, Gee is fired om his teachg post, forcg them to stay wh iends separately while they sell their place and look for cheaper hog -- a suatn that weighs heavily on all productn, box office & pany Vios9More like thisReview A film about gay love and marriage NYC and the plitns affectg many liv that ensue after the IS STRANGE, a film, unaffectedly directed by Ira Sachs, is so natural and unassumg s portrayal of relatnships that the divi between dience and the characters on the screen disappears; we are directly slippg to their liv wh the ease of faiary.

There is a formal bety to the movie, thanks to the cematography of Christos Voudouris - the way he ptur each space - leated not only through dér, but through the light which mutat wh the atmosphere, very much like a Chard still-life patg, classic s granur and plot revolv around two gay men who have lived together for 39 years and fally get married, a cisn that will alter their liv ways that are unexpected and transformg.

JAGUARS STRENGTH COACH KEV MAXEN COM OUT AS GAY

Jacksonville Jaguars associate strength ach Kev Maxen me out as gay on Thursday what is believed to be a first for a male ach major U. Yet, as often happens wh artists of this field, the mors that John Lhgow is gay are persistent, which is surely annoyg.

Celebri such as John Lhgow never have admted they are homosexual, this is bee they are fely not gay or bee they are and don't want to go public. A recently married gay uple (John Lhgow, Aled Mola) are forced to move to separate hoeholds after they lose their home. A gay uple is forced to move to separate apartments when their marriage threatens the sensibili of one's employer.

While the film is "issue-driven, " alg wh the jtic flicted agast gays and the affordabily of real tate Manhattan, stays foced on the characters, which is s primary strength. Directed by openly gay filmmaker Ira Sachs, the movie centers on Ben (John Lhgow) and Gee (Aled Mola), a uple of nearly forty years who are forced to live apart after Gee is fired om his job as a chos teacher at a Catholic school for marryg his partner. Meanwhile, Gee is forced to sleep on the uch of Ted (Cheyenne Jackson), Ben’s other nephew and a hard-partyg gay p.

JAGUARS ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY HISTORIC ANNOUNCEMENT

Goln Globe and Emmy-wng actor John Lhgow, who’s long been a proponent for marriage equaly, sat down wh to discs his new film, the gay rights movement, and much more. I was walkg to the Eccl Theater yterday to see the premiere screeng of Love Is Strange and, sce doubl as a high school, the two young girls, who uldn’t have been olr than 15, had set up a ltle table outsi for the Gay Straight Alliance.

That’s the film is premierg here Utah, sce ’s bee a battleground state the fight for gay rights. It didn’t ed to be a battle bee no one had the urage to e out or to clare himself or herself as gay. Some of my bt iends—no, I would say my bt iends—are gay people, so I’ve grown up a very acceptg mo wh homosexualy.

But I’m also a very empathic person and I unrstand people’s disfort wh homosexualy—wh “the other”—and as a character actor, I’m acctomed to playg people wh all sorts of clatns and impulsns. If you get to know gay people—or any person, for that matter—you’re probably not gog to be tolerant.

IS JOHN LHGOW GAY?

Everybody has a gay person who’s a good iend and a lot of people don’t even realize bee, culturally, ’s a vert thg.

I was speakg to Lee Daniels who lled the gay rights movement “the Civil Rights Movement of our time. ” We are Utah, and there’s another documentary here, Mt, about Mt Romney, who’s famoly agast gay rights. I remember that 2004, I was rehearsg for a big Broadway mil San Diego, and a same-sex marriage ban was enacted some state, and I was asked about gay marriage, and I said, “Ten years om now, we are gog to look back and wonr what the big al was.

People will be married, people will be accepted, and the gay liftyle will not be thought of as wrong any way. He’s a gay man who first felt pletely fortable when he got to New York, havg grown up Memphis, did you and Aled know that you had such special onscreen chemistry? Perhaps gets stranger the longer you stay Lhgow and Aled Mola play Ben and Gee, a gay uple late middle age who live New York Cy.

JOHN LHGOW ON THE SUNDANCE FILM ‘LOVE IS STRANGE’ AND GAY RIGHTS UTAH

Gee is fired om his job by church thori who disapprove of the gay weddg, though they were happy enough wh the niable hypocrisy of his merely havg a roommate.

Unable to meet their mortgage payments, the two men suffer an unthkable tastrophe: what they imaged to be the fortable eveng of their liv, they bee homels refuge, havg to spl up temporarily and live separately wh two sets of iends who, wh straed generosy, take them huiatn is plete as we realise that each man is wh the wrong host: hard-workg Gee is billeted wh a laid-back uple of gay ps who like noisy parti and get-togethers the eveng; after a hard day teachg private pupils, Gee back wantg peace and gets none.

Baggerly is actg on behalf of the baby’s parents (Nate Corddry and Gayle Rank), fellow followers of Sister Alice (a highly mted Tatiana Maslany), an evangelist moled on Aimee Semple McPherson, m the hbands and the sndals — also the spiratn for a major character the recent “Penny Dreadful: Cy of Angels. Way back 1972, mastream heterosexual actors Hal Holbrook and Mart Sheen portrayed a gay male uple That Certa Summer, a primetime Movie of the Week for the ABC work. It was historic, if not exactly memorable, for the risks Holbrook and Sheen took advancg public intifitn wh homosexualy (at that time a passnate, not sanctimon, act).

FIRST LOOK: JOHN LHGOW AND ALED MOLA AS GAY GROOMS ‘LOVE IS STRANGE’

I remembered that fotten Summer while watchg the new film Love Is Strange where today's equivalently tablished, mastream actors, John Lhgow and Aled Mola, also play a gay male Ben and Gee, recently married New York Cy who mt give up their Wt Village home and separate, Lhgow and Mola, two highly theatril, never que believable actors jt like Holbrook and Sheen, reprent fortably adjted middle-aged whe figur--such as mastream gays like to see themselv portrayed: the midst of middle-class is Strange don't stra that wishful intifitn as far as the already fotten die-lbian s The Kids Are Alright did (Ante Beng and Julianne Moore played quasi-bisexual paragons). This is due to director and screenwrer Ira Sachs who boldly advanced pennt filmmakg wh his great, tense gay but feature The Delta (1997).

Here, Sachs challeng mastream nventns wh a method that go back to the problem/prott film--the genre that always marks the begng of Amerin film culture' social nscns about sex, race, and s almost apologetic tle, Love Is Strange dramatiz gay male acceptance as s primary issue. )Powerlsns was also the theme that distguished The Delta, where Sachs got to the ighteng heart of class and race differenc that tragilly tersected the gay unrworld.