Actor Melanie Ehrlich is one of the stars of the upcoming film The Miseducation of Cameron Post.
The film, which tackles the topic of gay conversion therapy, is directed by Desiree Akhavan and features Chloe Grace Mortez in the lead role alongside John Gallagher Jr. It’s based on a book by author Emily M Danforth and it’s been getting a lot of buzz since it won the top prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
In the film Ehrlich plays Helen Showalter, one of the residents of a camp that aims to convert gay teens into heterosexuals.
“I’m a choir girl,” Ehrlich says of her character, “A church going choir girl who wants to overcome her same sex attraction because she feels it’s getting in the way of her being able to gift, her voice, to praise the Lord.”
“I really loved the character and the script as soon as I got it”, Ehlirch told OUTinPerth from her home in Los Angeles. “When I go to auditions I try to stay detached from the process afterwards, it’s all out of your control whether you get cast or not…but I did really like this character.”
The actor said she lives a fairly normal life in Los Angeles and isn’t one to seek out the spotlight. “I’m sure there are big banging Hollywood parties out there somewhere.” she laughs.
Asked if an actor’s life is one of constant rejection, Ehlirch says she sees it a different way. “For a lot of actors there’s a lot auditioning, I don’t think of it as rejection, it’s not a personal rejection, either you’re a fit for a particular project or you’re not. I used to take it very personally, but I’ve learned not to.”
As the film is slowly being released into more and more territories Ehrlich said she learns more and more about how gay conversion therapy has affected people around the globe.
“The message of the film is that conversion therapy is not a thing of the past, even though it’s a film about 1993, it’s still very much around.”
“I hope the film brings awareness about conversion therapy especially to people who don’t know what it is. I think it’s hard to change somebody’s mind. If nothing else – I hope it leads people to ask some questions.”
“I hope it makes people wonder ‘when was outlawed, when did it became illegal?’ and then they go and go and google they’ll find out that ‘No, it’s still legal, it’s legal in 36 out of the 50 states of the United States.” Ehrlich admits that until she started working on the film, she assumed such practices would have been outlawed long ago.
To make sure the depictions of conversion therapy in the film were accurate the production worked with activist Mathew Shurka and Born Perfect. The organisation lobbies government’s to bring in legislation banning conversion therapy practices.
“Their goal is to ban conversion therapy in all fifty states, and to their credit, at the beginning of this year it was only illegal in nine states, so it’s been a fifty percent increase in this year alone. They have their work cut out for them because it’s hard to get people to understand unknown unknowns.”
While Ehrlich is on the other side of the world, she’s intimately familiar with Perth, Western Australia and is an avid listener local community radio station RTRFM. The actor discovered the station when she randomly started chatting to Darryn Santana, one of the station’s presenters, who was sitting next to her a concert.
“He was here last summer as at exchange student…and we met at the Hollywood Ball and just hit it off.” After tuning in to listen to Santana’s Sunday night show Plucked Strings, Ehrlich caught the previous show Rockin’ the Roots and loved it too. Soon she added Sunday afternoon chill-out program Golden Apples of the Sun to her listening habit. “Then it became my weekly obsession” she says of how she spends her Saturday nights in Los Angeles.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post is released in Australia on 6th September, currently there are no screenings in Western Australia.
Graeme Watson
Note: Graeme is a presenter on RTRFM’s Golden Apples of the Sun.
