DUSTIN LANCE BLACK
The fight for LGBTIQ civil rights has come a long way but, activist and Oscarwinning writer Dustin Lance Black tells Ian Horner, he still dreams of the day an out actor will be allowed to carry a mainstream feature film.
The Oscar-winner hopes for the day an out actor carries a mainstream film.
I made a promise on an Oscar stage to win equality at the federal level. I had to step out of filmmaking to keep it.
He was only 34 when he won the Oscar in 2008 for writing Milk, the biopic about Harvey Milk, the assassinated gay rights activist.
Accepting his award, Dustin Lance Black vowed to fight for marriage equality across the US and not stop until it happened. It changed his life in more ways than one.
He pulled back from his career to fight for gay rights full-time, embarking on speaking engagements, leaving little time for writing and producing, but stars – gays and allies – jumped at the chance to work with him whenever possible.
A year after Milk, there was a challenge to the notorious Proposition 8, which had overturned gay marriage in California. In court, it was dramatic, emotionally charged, controversial. At the end of it, the court refused to release footage of the proceedings. So, Lance got hold of the transcripts and documents used in court and reconstructed them into a play, called 8.
Celebrities including Brad Pitt, Martin Sheen, John Lithgow, George Clooney, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Bacon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Matt Bomer, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Chris Colfer, Rob Reiner, George Takei, Cleve Jones, Larry Kramer and Jane Lynch volunteered for onenight-only readings of 8.
The same thing happened round the world, including in Sydney and Melbourne.
In 2014, the UK achieved marriage equality; the US a year later. On May 6, 2017, Lance married his boyfriend, UK Olympic champion diver Tom Daley, and they’ve now added a baby boy to their family.
The year they married he was back writing for TV, When We Rise, a history of gay rights, again with a big cast: Whoopi Goldberg, Mary-Louise Parker, David Hyde Pierce, Rosie O’Donnell, Charlie Carver, Rachel Griffiths and Guy Pearce. He also wrote the script for Clint Eastwood’s J Edgar. The triumph of that project, Lance tells DNA, was getting conservative Clint to issue a strident statement in favour of marriage equality. “That alone made the whole project worth it,” he says.
This is part two of our Skype interview, following his account last issue of building a family with Tom Daley.
DNA: You’re no longer Dustin Lance Black; you’re forever “Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black”. Is that a burden?
Dustin Lance Black: Mmm. I don’t think so! Career-wise, it doesn’t mean that everything you want to make gets made, but it does mean things you’re interested in can get developed and have a shot.
Honestly, that award helps open doors, but it can be a distraction. It actually took me out of film and TV for at least six, seven years because whatever notoriety came with it enabled me to fight for marriage equality in the US. That became my full-time job, until I finally stepped back full-time into filmmaking two years ago.
Here’s my warning if you win one: don’t pretend it makes you any good at what you do. If you believe it means you’re a fantastic writer or director or producer, you’ll stop holding yourself to the same standards that got you there by being really hard on yourself. I suffered with that a bit. I’ve certainly seen friends who suffered with it.
You’ve contributed a huge amount to popular culture on behalf of the LGBTIQ community, in movies, on stage and TV…
Why don’t we just end this interview here? You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that this morning. It’s very kind of you to say so, thank you.
You could’ve gone in any direction. Why did you pick up the gauntlet on behalf of a minority community and fight for gay rights? I really searched for my voice in film school. I was closeted and doing surrealist filmmaking. A difficult coming-out to my mother changed everything I knew about storytelling. When she found out I was gay it did not go well. She was paralysed from polio and she got on a plane from Virginia and came out to Los Angeles for my graduation – no small task. She arrived the day before graduation and we were having a big party. I hadn’t told my friends she was homophobic. I also didn’t tell her my entire apartment was going to be filled with queer folks. I chickened out on both.
A funny thing happened. I saw my friends talking to her, not coming at her with all the political, legal and scientific debates about being gay. They were just telling my mom their stories. This was in the mid-’90s when the most common story was family rejection; moving to LA where it was warm enough if you had to live on the street.
My friends assumed my mom accepted her gay son. And she listened to these stories all night. I was terrified of her response when they left. She’d spent half a century learning that gay people were criminals, mentally ill, destined for hell. But one night of hearing gay stories told from the heart, not debate, opened her heart.
It dispelled all the myths and lies and stereotypes. She realised these people weren’t sick or criminals, and if there’s a hell for these people I’m going there with them because it sounds fabulous!
Gosh! When you’re looking someone in the eye and hearing their personal story, that truth is undeniable and it can change you. That’s what I ought to be doing, I thought. That’s my voice.
Does your mom accept you now?
She died six years ago. She was a conservative, Republican, southern Mormon military woman. The messages she got about gays weren’t positive. It was miraculous to watch her come to a deeper understanding of gay people. She showed up at the Academy Awards with a marriage-equality ribbon pinned to her dress. That was huge for her. She didn’t point it out, I just saw it on the limo ride to the Kodak Theater.
How much of your Mormon faith did you keep, and what did you jettison?
I kept the good stuff, and there’s plenty. I left behind things that made absolutely no sense. >>
My mom spent half a century learning that gay people were criminals, mentally ill, destined for hell. But one night of hearing gay stories opened her heart.
>> I’m sitting here drinking coffee, that’s not allowed. I married a man and we’re raising our son together. That’s definitely not allowed.
I also disavow the church’s deep misogyny. I saw how the church treated my mother so unfairly. Even as she was being beaten, even as I was being beaten, by my Mormon stepfather whose last name I now have, when our lives were in danger, the church didn’t show up for us because they said it was the wife’s place to build a suitable environment for her husband. They blamed her, and they blamed an eightyear-old kid, and I can forgive them for that but I will not accept them as a valid faith until they change that.
Do you still believe in God?
I’m intrigued by the idea of a god and I don’t disbelieve. I’m not sure what shape God takes. Mormonism is so all-consuming; my entire life growing up. I only knew other Mormon kids. When I realised it wasn’t a true faith, that their beliefs were absurd and hurtful, it’s hard to ever believe in anything that fully again. I’ll say this: I really dig Jesus Christ. He was probably really cool, a wonderful friend, a terrific leader in terms of confronting ego in the world.
Mormonism is allconsuming… When I realised it wasn’t a true faith, that their beliefs were absurd and hurtful, it’s hard to ever believe in anything that fully again.
I don’t think most Christians these days have any clue what Christ was about. The guiding principle of faith, and something I still absolutely believe in, is to treat your neighbour as you’d treat yourself. The Golden Rule. Lean into empathy. If that makes me a person of faith then fine.
And promises are sacred. If you make one you must keep it. I made a promise on an Oscar stage to win equality at the federal level. I had to step out of filmmaking to keep it. I learned that from my church and my faith.
I learned from the military and growing up a Texan that you never give in to bullies. You stand up for yourself. It frustrates me in any civilrights movement when I see people demanding crumbs and partial equality. No, honey, not our job to demand crumbs. As activists our job is to demand the full thing, and now. History will take its pace. If you demand crumbs, you’ll get less than crumbs. I learned that from those who fight against gay folks.
Sometimes we mistake progress as the destination but we’ve still got a long way to go. What hurdles are next?
Yes, equality for any minority group is a pendulum. Rights are never secured forever, and we can’t just show up for ourselves because we need allies. There’s still work to be done in Australia, the UK, the US, but until our queer family in Iran, Chechnya and Uganda can come out and not fear for their lives, we’re not safe. Look at how homophobia is spreading throughout Africa and the Middle East where it’s still deadly to be LGBTIQ. If we leave these family members behind, the ideas that created hate there will reach us again. The backward swing of the pendulum is empowered when we ignore our brothers and sisters in Chechnya, Uganda, Iran.
You’ve worked with amazing people: Clint Eastwood, Gus Van Sant, Sean Penn. Did it take courage for Penn to play Harvey Milk?
I don’t think so, no. It never came up. He was living just above San Francisco and he knew the story of Harvey Milk. The world has changed since we made that movie, but still there are very few openly gay actors. We don’t yet have gay actors who can green-light a project just by signing on.
I’m still waiting for someone already out, rising through the ranks and becoming so hot at the box office that they earn green lights based on their name. Or when one of our bigname actors comes out. That’ll take courage. I don’t think what Sean did took courage; it took tremendous talent.
Today we’d have more opportunities to cast a gay actor. I want to be clear. We asked the studio and the studio said, yes, please find someone. We went to managers and agents in Hollywood and Broadway and said, “Who do you have who’s openly gay who could play Harvey Milk?” Every single one said we don’t represent any queer actors – even though I’d seen some of their clients in the gay bars that weekend!
We weren’t going to cast a closet case to play Harvey Milk. Today there are more out actors we’d turn to. Not an option 10 years ago. I hope 10 years from now we’ll take a gay actor’s name to the studio or network and they won’t grimace. They’ll get excited and say, “Here’s your $100 million, go make the movie!” >>