Roland Emmerich is very aware of the controversy behind his upcoming film Stonewall, but still isn’t above stoking said controversy with a few quotes that will get tongues wagging this week.
His retelling of the events that led to the historic Christopher Street riots and what many people consider the birth of the modern queer rights movement will open in select theaters September 25.
Queerty sat down with the out director, best-known for his end-of-civilization blockbusters, at the real-life Stonewall Inn in the heart of New York City’s West Village and talked about his partial self-financing of the movie, his “straight-acting” lead character and the intense criticism of the film based off of the aforementioned trailer.
Queerty: Why did you decide to tell the story through the lens of a fictional character?
Roland Emmerich: I think maybe because I needed a character I could somewhat identify with. Secondly, around the time that I decided to do Stonewall I started getting involved with the Gay & Lesbian Center and their homeless youth program, and I started realizing how hard it is for kids in the countryside to come out. They get thrown out. I met a guy who was a young kid from Kansas, and I asked him what it was like growing up in Kansas, and he told me a story of how his father was a football coach in high school and he had a secret affair with the quarterback. I asked him ‘what would’ve happened if he’d found out?’ and the kid said, ‘well it would’ve been really bad.’ That’s what made it click for me and helped me to understand. You know, when I [figured out that] I was gay, I was terrified, absolutely terrified. I also grew up in the countryside and have the nicest parents, it was all great, but I was still a lonely and terrified kid. That’s what made it work for me. It’s fictional. It’s not this kid from Kansas, it’s not me, but it’s a character that I can sympathize with.
Do you think that this is an important movie for LGBT youth to see?
If they have the money. [Laughs] Well, you know we will probably make a screening for them anyway in Los Angeles, but I would love to see…I think for them it’s not as important as it is for some parents to see it. It’s always like important that a lot of straight people see it too, because it is because of them that we still have more problems being accepted.
In one of the press notes you described the character of Danny as “straight-acting,” so I wanted to clarify that that’s true…
Well, Danny is a catalyst character, so you want to have him as sympathetic and in the norm as possible. Because everybody who sees the film can identify with a character like that. Maybe some people less, but the majority can identify. You send the character on a rollercoaster with people and other characters who are exactly the opposite of him. It’s also about acceptance and what you accept. In the beginning there’s this crazy character Queen Tooey who at the beginning he doesn’t accept, and then at the end he has a beer with this person. And, it’s acceptance. [Danny] had to overcome his own prejudices.
This movie has been a target of a lot of criticism sight-unseen. What would you say to those critics?
That they should go see the movie. I mean, they have like three transgender characters in the film. One of them [Ray/Ramona, played by Jonny Beauchamp] is pretty much, together with Danny, the lead. I was pretty shocked by the whole thing. I was saying, “You know this was a trailer that they reacted to.” I mean, do you want to see everything that a movie has to offer in the trailer? No, you want to get the people interested, but not give everything away.
Why did the reaction shock you?
Just because I know what movie I made. I think everybody that was involved in making the film was shocked. There was just a screening in Toronto and a lot of the people who worked on the film came down from Montreal, and the first thing they said was, “Well what’s going on?’ I mean, I don’t know. There is the perception that because of my other films that this is a “Hollywood” movie, but it’s a totally independent movie. It’s as little “Hollywood” as you can get.
Speaking of the independent nature of the movie, $17 million is a hefty price tag for such an explicitly LGBT-themed movie.
Well, don’t forget that we shot this movie in Canada where you get a tax rebate of $3-4 million, so in cash it was probably $12-13 million.
And you invested some of your own money into this, correct?
Yes.
One of the first rules of producing is never to use your own money.
Oh, yes, absolutely! [Laughs] They tell you “Don’t do it, don’t do it!” Talk to my business manager, he thinks I’m an idiot!
So why did you do it?
Why not? I always say well even if I lose it, why not? I mean, I make a lot of money with my other films, and I’m just thinking this is a way to give back.
The trailer was intensely criticized, and there have been some pretty harsh reviews so far. In retrospect, is there anything that you would do differently?
No, not really. I think it’s my personal way of how I choose to tell the story. I know because of testing that the movie is liked by the audience. We tested it thoroughly. It’s also a little bit because I do all these other movies [that] I get more harshly criticized than other directors. If there was another name on this or another director, this would not happen. So, I see it as like…whenever I screen it for a big audience, they like it. And that’s my job.
As an openly gay director do you feel the responsibility to tell more LGBT stories in the future?
Absolutely.
Are there any you have in mind?
Not right now, but they will come to me. Right now, I’m finishing the other film I just shot.
Since you’re primarily known as a big action movie director, will we be seeing any LGBT characters in your future films?
There is a gay couple in the next Independence Day.
There is a gay couple in the next Independence Day?
Yep.
What can you tell us about them?
Nothing! [Laughs] It’s actually one of the big surprises of the film.
Rob Smith is a multimedia journalist and author of Closets, Combat and Coming Out: Coming of Age as a Gay Man in the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Army. He lives in New York City.
Watch the film’s trailer below.
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animaux
I prefer a flawed, passionate and a bit silly take by Emmerich to solemn politically correct self-importance of the films such as Selma.
Ummmm Yeah
I’ll hate it if he trans, black and brown washed it to be politically correct. All the evidence proves it was mostly white gay males at the Stonewall riots. I don’t care if it is a fictional story in a real setting but don’t let the liars re-write history.
SportGuy
LOL, he is already begging people to see the movie, which means it has already failed. Just release it straight to dvd because it has already bombed,lol.
Arcamenel
I’m not going to see it based off the trailer and the little tidbits I’ve learned. It’s not what I believe a movie about stonewall should be so I’m not going to watch it.
White people denying or minimizing minorities’ contributions to social movements is nothing new. They still teach in schools that Rosa Parks was just a tired old woman when she was actually a trained activist and had planned to refuse her seat.
animaux
@SportGuy: A low budget high profile movie like this can’t fail. Alone trough distribution deals (some made before it was even finished) it paid back the costs.
Cam
@Arcamenel: said… “I’m not going to see it based off the trailer and the little tidbits I’ve learned. It’s not what I believe a movie about stonewall should be so I’m not going to watch it.
White people denying or minimizing minorities’ contributions to social movements is nothing new.”
________________________________________
Sorry, but your fake attempt to rewrite history has already been called out on this site. This isn’t about trying to “White Wash” history, what is really happening, is that the Trans Activists are trying to erase from history the black lesbian who is acknowledged by multiple witnesses as the person who REALLY threw the first punch. (Stormé DeLarverie)
Trans activists were trying to claim that people like Sylvia Rivera were there, when even Marsha P Wallace admitted that Rivera was far away passed out in Bryant Park. This had been written down for YEARS but they still tried to lie about it.
So if you were all set to attack white people for minimizing minorities contributions, then you must be just as furious for the Trans activists trying to erase Stormé DeLarverie from history right?
Unless of course, that was your agenda all along.
Mykaels
As someone with a Masters in History, and for that matter, queer history, I cannot even for a whole day count the number of times directors have rewritten historical events in order to tell a better, more interesting story. Time and time again I have gone to a movie and had to “turn off my education” in order to enjoy the movie, else I would be grumpy the whole time.
And yet, on this movie, all of a sudden, Americans are screaming for historical accuracy? Now, of all times?!?! If historical accuracy is important to you, then do not watch this movie, as well as practically any other movie out there that references anything in the real world, and be done with it.
Louis Goodrich
That’s what mom said about Brussel sprouts.
jwtraveler
What a radical idea! SEE a movie BEFORE you form and express an opinion about it. Apparently that’s more revolutionary than most people can handle.
However, when he says that the blond, white, “straight-acting” country boy character of Danny is “as sympathetic and in the norm as possible” and that “everybody who sees the film can identify with [him]”, I do wonder who he thinks ‘everybody’ is. Does ‘everybody’ include the transgender Puerto Rican girl from the South Bronx or the black bull-dyke from Bed-Stuy Brooklyn?
dvlaries
From the critics I’ve read – who have seen it – I can wait till it’s a two dollar, pre-owned DVD. Nobody is saying it’s the step forward we’ve been waiting for since Brokenback Mountain.
Milton Appleby
This movie is done before it’s release. I was trying to be optimistic and wrote an article about it. The thought that a Stonewall movie required a straight acting white male was the final nail on the coffin. Mr. Emmerich should have realized that the movie he was making already had a limited audience. Making the lead an ethnic LGBT minority would not have hurt it’s chances. This movie was an indie with the potential of becoming a success. He doesn’t give movie audiences credit. Mr. Emmerich said this was a work of passion but his ideas where in the wrong place.
McShane
Here, I’ll stir the pot. It’s everything that everyone didn’t want it to be.
“Maybe it’s asking too much to get a smart, accurate Stonewall movie.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/09/stonewall-review-roland-emmerich
“Its badness is nearly unfathomable.”
http://defamer.gawker.com/there-arent-enough-bricks-in-the-world-to-throw-at-rola-1731974702
“In taking a simple, purely sensational route, the film misses the point, by miles, of what Stonewall did and created.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/stonewall-movie/
crowebobby
Who wants to go see a beautiful, blond, white, “straight-acting” country boy character who hasn’t weight-lifted his body into something that has never been seen in nature just for the sake of seeing a beautiful, blond, white, “straight-acting” country boy character who hasn’t weight-lifted his body into something that has never been seen in nature on the big screen? I do. I’ve already watched a half-dozen “documentaries” on Stonewall and read all of James Baldwin’s essays.
Kangol
It’s already getting terrible reviews.
Dennis Soper
10% on Rotten Tomatoes… that’s worse than an extraordinarily bad Adam Sandler movie.
bicurious
I think all the bitch queens on the gay web sites who want this movie to fail want it to fail simply because they are negative bitch queens who revel in the failures of others. What really clued me into this is that they were rallying to boycott it WITHOUT EVEN SEEING THE FILM FIRST.
Xzamilio
Like I said before, the naysayers’ minds were made up from the start, so there is no amount of pandering that will make them want to see it.
And like I said before, I’m just not interested in seeing it.
eclecticstarz
Most films and TV shows totally under-represent woman. If we all boycotted films and shows because of the unfair gender bias we would have very little to watch. I will watch Stonewall at some point and then decide if I like it. Meanwhile why not spread some of that outrage to why woman are still not seen enough in Hollywood and TV
Michael Clifford
” I mean, I make a lot of money with my other films, and Iâ??m just thinking this is a way to give back.” Mr. Emmerich, next time you feel that way, keep your money. Or, better yet, give it to the Trevor The Trevor Project instead.
CommentByMale
anyone else annoyed that this New York Story was filmed in Montreal?
The reason to do so was not only b/c Emmerich likes Montreal but because he saved a few million by not shooting in the U.S. Stonewall is a story that is a cornerstone in the modern U.S. gay rights movement, and it would have been just to at least cast diverse actors who are out of NYC, LA or anyone is in U.S? Most of the cast seems to be all out of Canada or UK.
mujerado
Anyone who was hoping for a minute-by-minute accurate telling of what happened at Stonewall was doomed to disappointment from the start. It was never going to be that. If that’s what you want, watch the American Experience program “Stonewall Rebellion” and read David Carter’s book “Stonewall.” Carter interviewed everyone he could find who had anything to do with the rebellion, including Marsha P. Johnson and police officers who were there. As a gay activist for over 40 years I’ll not miss this movie. I may not like it once I’ve seen it, but I’m not going to make up my mind until I do.
SportGuy
@Dennis Soper: LOL! I will wait until it is on sale at Target for a dollar, which should be next week.
pjm1
so far, rotten tomatoes is giving Stonewall a 7% (seven percent).
it is down from 11% yesterday.
i have always maintained that to get a 0% rating a rotten tomatoes not only does
your movie have to be terrible but also you have to get lucky. it is always possible
that someone will like your terrible movie. so, to get the coveted zero, you have
to be truly terrible and lucky. It seems so far one reviewer has given Stonewall a not
quite luke warm review and Stonewall has lost its zero.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/stonewall_2015/?search=stone
mujerado
@pjm1: So far very few people who’ve actually seen the movie have rated it at all. Once people do see it, the number will go up, unless there’s an organized campaign for people purposely to downrate it, which I wouldn’t put past some of the “activists” posting diatribes against it. There’s a certain demography who WANT the movie to fail, and I’m sure none of them will admit going to see it, even if they do.
Finrod
It’s Roland Excrement here! Of course it’s going to be a steaming pile of crap. That’s what he makes. He made Godzilla. He made 10,000 BC. He made Universal Soldier. He’s a garbage director.
“Danny is a catalyst character, so you want to have him as sympathetic and in the norm as possible.”
In the norm? In other words, white, male, cisgender and oh-god-don’t-act-like-a-sissy! is the default. Black people and Puerto Ricans are apparently abnormal, as are lesbians and trans people.
Sympathetic? Apparently straight, white people are physiologically incapable of empathizing with anyone who isn’t exactly like them. Projecting much, Roland? Everything that comes out of this gibbering halfwit’s mouth just makes it worse.
pjm1
@mujerado: it will be interesting to see what
the theater goers have to say about the movie. it almost certainly has to be better than
the critics reviews. the critics are not always correct that is for sure. but so far, the critics
have been underwhelmed to say the least.
Bisexual-Transwoman
I don’t plan on seeing this overhyped trainwreck of a film. The other Stonewall movie that was made in the 90s is 1,000X better than this one.
Alan David Smith
while i get that he want’s to appeal to a broader audiance by having the “guy” in there. he needs to decide if its a movie or a documentery. that would tell people more. i am more offended by the term “straight-acting” because there is a impltcation. that you are a sorta scale. yes i have cats. because they were about to be put down. my sexuality played no role in it. i dont watch sports but i also don’t do reality or awards shows. so where do i fit in?
Jon
I think it’s time to update this story now that we know the movie is awful
And everyone hates it.
mujerado
@Kangol: – The Stonewall was not “mostly a black and latino bar.” If you want to know the truth, as told by people like Marsha P. Johnson and Storme DeLarvarie, read David Carter’s book “Stonewall.” Carter interviewed Marsha and every other participant he could find when he wrote his history. You’ll learn what kind of a bar it was, who ran it, who frequented it, who patrolled it, who was there on the first night, and anything else you want to know for sure. By the time the “first brick” was thrown by whoever threw it the riot was already under way. You can either take people’s word for it, and wonder whether they have an agenda they’re pushing, or you can read about it and find out for sure. Your choice.
Kangol
More reviews are coming out and they all say this movie is GARBAGE! LOL!!!
1. “[Stonewall] slaps you in the face like a sodden cloth, over and over again.” (the daily beast)
2. “It’s so clumsy in its execution that it feels like someone set up an ornate chess set and then just smashed a watermelon on it.” (uproxx)
3. “Stonewall couldn’t be more whitewashed than if it was doused in Clorox Bleach and thrown into the laundry three times over.” (the heights)
4. “Stonewall has the opportunity to tell the story of a profound, pivotal moment in the history of gay rights in this country, and it not only fumbles it, it trips over it, then falls off a cliff, then sets itself on fire. ” (deadspin)
5. “[The] production design makes late 1960s Christopher Street look like Sesame Street.”(vanity fair)
6. “…often looks as if it was shot on the set of an old Janet Jackson music video.” (santa cruz sentinel)
7. “Ray leads a ragtag gang of street hustlers that look like a scruffy chorus line from an off-Broadway production.” (citybeat)
8. “When the group is sitting outside on a stoop, it all looks too staged, as if they are waiting to break into a song from Rent.” (nola)
9. “… it should be called “Independence Gay.” (vanity fair)
10. “…a gay Forrest Gump.” (uproxx)
11. “You get more of a sense of what it’s like to visit SeaWorld in the notoriously abysmal Jaws 3D than you do what it was like to patronize Stonewall in Stonewall. Stonewall teaches you about as much about being gay as the Aristocats taught you about being an aristocrat.”(defamer)
12. “Having Danny throw the first brick at the Stonewall riots is a bit like when Marty McFly goes back in time and steals rock ‘n’ roll from Chuck Berry, taking history away from the real participants.” (uproxx)
13. “[Danny screams] ‘Gay power!’ as though he’d just been stabbed with a high-dosage EpiPen.” (the a.v. club)
14. “You seriously watch Danny get off the bus and gape up at all those tall buildings while clutching his suitcase—acting less like an authentic representation of late-’60s gay culture, and more like a Newsies extra.” (deadspin)
15. “As if Selma had focused a fictional white liberal character instead of Martin Luther King, Jr.” (the wrap)
16. “Like saying that Rosa Parks was a tired lady who decided she’d rather rest her feet.” (salon)
17. “…the actually-gay Jonny Beauchamp lisps and screeches his way through his role like a straight high-schooler trying on homosexuality for a school play.” (indiewire)
18. “Stonewall plays like a William Inge knockoff, right down to the bookish, progressive little sister straight out of “Picnic.” (chicago tribune)
19. “Danny’s unflaggingly tolerant kid sister is an absolute nightmare… her every cloying message of total support like a rusty nail driven directly into the frontal lobe.” (indiewire)
20. “[The film] ends on a falsely contemporary note, as though it were a PSA for the It Gets Better campaign.” (vulture)
21. “Somehow, director Roland Emmerich has made a movie even less historically accurate than 10,000 BC, the one depicting Egyptian-style pyramids being constructed with the help of woolly mammoths.” (news-observer)
22. “…about as realistic as Godzilla’s radioactive flame breath.” (star tribune)
Kangol
@animaux: So you like fantasy trash on screen instead of a dull but well-made film? Got it.
Meanwhile, a white New York native, Titus Montalvo, who was there that night and was a regular at the bar says that the Stonewall was mostly a black and latino bar.
But hey, rewrite the story so it centers on an apolitical twink who somehow becomes the hero! Only in the twisted logic of a terrible filmmaker from Hollywood! If you’re going to do that, at least make a decent film, not a load of cinematic dreck that totally dishonors the brave people who fought to secure your and everyone else’s gay rights and freedoms!
stranded
As an openly gay director do you feel the responsibility to tell more LGBT stories in the future?
Absolutely.
is that really the right mentality? I mean just because you belong to a community, it doesn’t really mean you’re qualified to represent it.
Also i love the challenge to see the movie then criticize it. If you watched it then you just became a patron, so if you hated it and it was the awful movie you thought it was, you still gave the movie whatever percent they get from your 13.50.
I think he said it himself. This is not a movie for the community, it is a movie for the oppressors. So basically it’s an Uncle Tom.
mujerado
@stranded: Nonsense. It’s more important to tell other people our stories and make sure they know our history than it is to sit around a warm fire telling them to each other.