Flawless Go-Go Legend Matthew Camp Spills His Heart In New “Gay Times” Interview

After years of making his living dancing on New York City’s bar tops, go-go legend Matthew Camp is making his foray into film acting in a very unique way.

In a new interview with the UK’s Gay Times, Camp says his only acting experience comes from a short-lived stage acting career as a child in San Francisco, but that didn’t stop him from jumping at the chance to stretch his acting muscle again as an adult. Once he was approached by Were the World Mine filmmakers about playing himself in a new lost-footage style docudrama inspired by him, the decision was easy.

Months later, Getting Go: The Go Doc Project became a reality. Also starring Tanner Cohen, the film follows the story of a boy who makes contact with his idol and muse, an accomplished go-go boy, in order to film him and become a part of his everyday life. But this is Hollywood, so they obviously wind up falling in love.

Though his character “Go” was inspired directly by his dancing alter-ego, Camp says he’s actually pretty different from what most believe him to be behind closed doors — he’s quite reserved, completely monogamous, an artist, a perfumer, and nothing like what you’d assume a New York City bar star to be.

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“What you see in Getting Go is a rough representation of me,” he says. “I mean, I do run around shirtless all the time, Go and I are both not afraid of a lot of things, and we danced in our underwear, so we’re both confident. But I wouldn’t have handled most of the situations in the same way Go did. I’m not as sexual as him… I don’t go on a lot of dates, I’m very reclusive, hanging out at my house. Go-go dancing was very much a job for me and after I’d perform, I’d leave right away rather than hang out at the club.”

Now 30, Camp reveals that he began go-go dancing when he moved to the city at 21 in order to pay his bills. “I’ve never felt I should be embarrassed by go-go dancing,” he says. “It’s not prostitution – which I’m not judgmental about – but I view dancing more as performance. I don’t like opening myself up to people, so with go-go dancing, people get to just see my body, they don’t see what’s going on in my head.”

The interview, appearing in the June issue of Gay Times (download the full interview here), dives even deeper into the mind of a go-go boy poised to make a splash in the indie film world:

On filming sex scenes with Tanner Cohen for Getting Go:

“I’ve never done pornography before… I’ve never been interested enough to pursue it because I’m a little bit shy. So having to be completely naked for the film was a first for me. They got us a little drunk and because Tanner is a sweet professional guy, it wasn’t hard to be close or intimate with him because we’d already built up a bit of a friendship. I don’t really bottom that often so it was uncomfortable for me to be in such a vulnerable position. But people keep asking if it was real – so it means we did a really good job.”

On coming out to his family:

“I didn’t really have to tell anyone. There was a group at school who were known as the gay kids, and I thought they seemed really cool, so I started hanging out with them. And everyone kind of assumed I was gay. My family is pretty liberal. My grandpa was really supportive of my go-go dancing actually. He was like, ‘You’re making money, you’re taking care of yourself, I wish I could do that!’ They’re a very sweet family, but moving away was helpful to me. You grow up with an identity your family gives you which can be difficult to break away from, so it was important for me to find out who I wanted to be.”

On finding his dream man:

“I’m very single right now. I enjoy very intelligent people, so if I can’t talk to you I probably won’t be interested in having sex with you more than once. I can be quite sexual behind closed doors, but I don’t flaunt it, although I’m very flirtatious by nature. When it comes to monogamy, I just know what works for me and at this point, I’m very selfish and I need a lot of attention. So if I were to date someone they would have to give me all of their attention. I don’t have any problem with people who aren’t monogamous, but that kind of person doesn’t add up to where I want to be.”

Check out the trailer for Getting Go below. For more information on distribution and how to get your hands on a copy, visit TheGoDocProject.com. Or you can always just check it out on Netflix.