Franco, Gyllenhaal give double dose of reality in ‘The Deuce’
Actors say porn drama is meant to stimulate, not titillate
As a native New Yorker, Maggie Gyllenhaal knows the cardinal rule of sane city living: Always steer clear of Times Square.
“I can’t handle it, I’m sorry,” the actress says, smiling. “I’m not great with crowds, and I’m not into M&Ms very much or (Bubba Gump) shrimp — I don’t know, whatever they’re selling on
42nd Street.”
Instead, Gyllenhaal prefers the lawless, less touristy version of the neighborhood depicted in HBO’s gritty new The Deuce (premiering Sunday, 9 ET/PT), in which she co-stars with James Franco. Co-created by The Wire’s David Simon and author George Pelecanos, the eight-episode drama is set at the dawn of the porn industry in the early 1970s on 42nd Street, the seedy Manhattan block nicknamed “The Deuce,” that’s inhabited by hustlers, hookers and crooked cops.
Gyllenhaal, 39, plays Eileen (aka “Candy”), a self-reliant prostitute who’s drawn into a porn career, while Franco, 39, plays twin brothers Frankie and Vincent Martino, a gambler and bar owner, respectively, who wind up working for the mob. Race, homosexuality and unregulated capitalism are woven into the fabric of the series, inspired by real-life people and events researched by producer Marc Henry Johnson.
More than that particular era in New York — whose sordid underbelly is depicted in ’70s crime classics Mean Streets and Taxi Driver — Simon was struck by “the story of these improbable pioneers of a billion-dollar industry,” he says. But rather than throw viewers onto a porn set in the first episode, the series eases into the adult entertainment world over the course of the season, showing Eileen’s other dimensions as a mother, daughter and shrewd businesswoman.
“Until you establish who’s who and what’s at stake, ... all you’re doing is (hyperbolic) TV,” Simon says. “People will say it’s slow and ‘Why don’t they get to the point?,’ but every scene is there for a reason.”
The same philosophy applied to the nudity, as producers grappled with how much (or little) was needed to tell an authentic story about sex work without seeming gratuitous.
“It’s irresponsible if you’re doing a show about this subject matter and you don’t show what it’s like,” says Franco, who’s also an executive producer and direc-
tor on the series.
But “if you’re going to do that, you have to be very careful about how you depict it: that you’re not critiquing something on one hand and on the other, trying to get some payoff through titillation. It was a fine line to walk.”
Gyllenhaal agreed to play Candy as long as she could be a Deuce producer, ensuring that she would have a say about scripts and final edits. Having appeared naked onscreen before, she was clear about her boundaries going in.
“Nobody was like, ‘Come on, take a little more off.’ That was never the vibe,” she says. “If anything, I’d say there were certainly moments where I was like, ‘Put that orgasm back in. If you take it out, it doesn’t say what we need the show to say, guys.’ ”
Although HBO has not yet picked up Deuce for a second season, Simon envisions a three-season arc for the series: the next, set in the late ’70s, “when the dynamic of midtown Manhattan was at its peak, and the third would be the mid’80s, when it all came crashing down,” he says.
“It’s irresponsible if you’re doing a show about this subject matter and you don’t show what it’s like.”
James Franco