The acclaimed Australian gay drama Holding the Man arrives on DVD/VOD in Britain this week, while still touring the country as part of POUTfest. QX’s Jack Leger spoke with director NEIL ARMFIELD about putting the true story on the big screen…!
QX: Tim Conigrave published his memoir about his love for John Caleo shortly before his death from Aids in 1995. Why did it take so long to reach the screen?
Neil Armfield: I knew Tim a little, we mixed in the same circles. He started acting around the same time I started directing. Another filmmaker held the movie rights and worked on it for years, but couldn’t crack its form. Then the screen rights lapsed, so I got them!
What was so difficult about it?
It’s the story of a relationship, so if there wasn’t chemistry between those two actors there was no film. Ryan Corr (who plays Tim) had emerged very early, but it took months and months to find Craig Stott (who plays John). We had to hold our cast reading here in London, because everyone was spread out between Australia, Los Angeles and Europe.
Ryan and Craig play Tim and John from about 15 to 35, which can’t have been easy. They must have become very close while filming!
Well, we were shooting the scene where they go to bed and get caught. They were well into the scene, and the bond between them had been growing. I was watching through a window, and I had to call out and ask Craig if he could try to stop getting an erection, because it was showing. And he called back, “Yeah, that would be like asking the sun to stop coming out!” They were so easy with each other. With the climactic emotional and physical scene where they have their last fuck, we showed it to Rufus Wainwright, and he loved it and wrote that beautiful song.
The story is reminiscent of Philadelphia, but this is a much more honest depiction of gay sexuality.
We wanted the sex to be funny and real. For example, sauna scenes in gay films are often dark and full of self-hatred, but Tim has a fabulous time in the sauna! Actually, the joy of sex begins in their school days, and when you go back to that joy after the Aids diagnosis, I think there’s an interesting kind of complexity and beauty to it.
Did you put any of your own story in there?
Of course. There’s a scene where Tim tells his mum, over the making of hors d’oeuvres, that he and John both have Aids. I sat there just speechless with tears. When I was 17 my oldest brother died, and that was the first time I told my mother that I was gay. There was so much in this film where I was drawing on my memory. And if you’re sitting there watching, and it’s working, you can’t help but partly be in your own past.
• Holding the Man is out now.
