Film

Jesse Archer (pictured, right) is the star, co-writer and co-producer of A Four-Letter Word, filmmaker Casper Andreas’ sequel (of sorts) to Slutty Summer. Bnews’ Nick Bond caught up with Jesse to find out more…

I noticed a lot of the cast from Slutty Summer also show up in A Four-Letter Word. You must be a close-knit group.

Oh no, it’s just an incestuous pond we fish from! Some of the same characters are written into (both films), but a lot of the same extras are in both films, and since not a lot of people will do that for free, and our budget’s so small, they tend to just come running back.

And you play the same character, Luke, in both films.

Casper wrote the script for Slutty Summer, and told me there was a part that he wrote with me in mind. I said, ‘Is it the slut?’ and of course it was! We wanted to show that this character has a story to tell as well, and that’s how we started writing A Four-Letter Word.

The film seems to comment on gay guys who try to be ’straight-acting’.

That’s part of what we were trying to do. When I was writing it, I was really sick of seeing on gaydar profiles, ’straight-acting only, no fems, no faggots’ - it’s so self-defeating and self-loathing and I think it’s the biggest issue we fight in the gay community, this internalised homophobia. It’s OK to be yourself, whoever that is. If you’re a stereotype, if you’re a gay cliche, then own it!

But then Luke does tone down the ‘gay cliche’ - in the last scene, he’s swapped the feather boa for a pair of army shorts.

But he did have a little glitter ‘L’ on the back of those camouflage shorts! I think we went a little bit overboard on the costume department with all of Luke’s jewellery and stuff… Casper said at one point, ‘Why are you putting so much jewellery on? No one is going to believe that someone like Stephen (his love interest) is going to be into this flamer!’ I was like, that’s the whole point of the film - Stephen’s attracted to Luke because he is so unabashedly himself, and Stephen is unable to be himself.

You shot the film in seventeen days. Did anyone have a nervous breakdown?

Me. I freaked out twice because I was so exhausted. There were squabbles between me and Casper on the set, but in the end I’d let him have it, I’d let him be the director.

Tell me about your other job, with Playgirl magazine.

I’m an onset blogger for their photo shoots, so I get to go around the country and watch naked men get hard and jerk off, and then I write about it. I’ve got the life! And they got this crazy pink van; we drove it to Montreal for gay pride. Playgirl is so gay now, I think they’re coming out of the closet.

I’m sure gay guys were their main readership all along, they just didn’t know it.

I think they knew it, but they just weren’t admitting it.

And you’ve written a book (You Can Run) about your travels in South America…

I went down there with a crazy Latin ex-boyfriend, and it was sort of hysteria in the jungle. It’s a big two-year romp through 10 countries.

Sounds like that’d make a great movie.

I’d love to make it into one, but I don’t have the budget. It’ll have to wait for when gays are more mainstream - when we don’t have to die in the end of every mainstream film!

A Four-Letter Word is available now.

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Nick Bond - This article appears courtesy of Bnews

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