The Hollywood Reporter (Weekly)
HOLLYWOOD’S FATHER OF GAY BLACK STORIES
Patrik-Ian Polk, creator of the pioneering show Noah’s Arc, is having a moment, with two series and a feature in the works. But just a few years ago, Lee Daniels couldn’t get him hired to direct on Empire: ‘[Polk] was way ahead of the curve’
When Oscarnominated director Lee Daniels thinks of those who inspired him, PatrikIan Polk easily comes to mind.
Known for telling groundbreaking stories centered on Black gay life — including the independent film Punks, which premiered at Sundance in 2000, and Noah’s
Arc, which ran on Logo TV for two seasons from 2005-06 — Polk is a creative force who has chronicled (and continues to chronicle) the lives of underrepresented people while championing diversity way before “DEI” became a buzz term.
“[Polk] was way ahead of the curve, and he took the bullets for all of us when it just wasn’t accepted to do what he was doing,” Daniels, 63, says of Polk, 49. “His bravery is what I ran with in my career. I learned from Patrik that I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. When I say he really has inspired me — he’s a mentor.”
Polk has been a bold storyteller since he began his career at MTV Films and Edmonds Entertainment. After selling a college comedy to MTV that didn’t get made, the Hattiesburg, Mississippi, native went on to create Noah’s Arc. It began as a six-minute short film, followed by two more shorts. “I was like, ‘Fuck Holly wood. I’m not even showing this to anybody because nobody’s going to do this gay Black show,’ ” he recalls. After Polk shot a pilot, Logo picked up the series. Following a gay Black male friend circle, Noah’s Arc gave an underrepresented group a lens to be seen. Where else could one see gay Black love stories unfold on the small screen? Gay Black men kissing onscreen? Nearly 20 years ago? Polk was brave.
“I created this show because I wanted to see people like me in this format that I had grown to love after seeing Golden Girls and
Sex and the City,” Polk says. “All these years later … people still tell me, ‘Your show raised me.’ So many people tell me that they were literally hiding in the closet watching the show because they didn’t want [someone to find out].” Even though it was canceled, interest around the series never died, and Polk made the 2008 romantic comedy follow-up
Noah’s Arc: Jumping the Broom.
Polk — who has since worked as a producer and writer on BET’s
Being Mary Jane and Showtime’s The Chi — also directed The Skinny, a 2012 gay romantic drama starring a then-unknown Jussie Smollett, and 2014’s Blackbird, which starred Mo’Nique and centered on a gay teenager (Julian Walker) wrestling with his religion and sexuality.
This year, Polk picked up his first NAACP Image Award for Starz’s P-Valley, where he worked as a co-executive producer and writer for its first two seasons. He’s not returning to the show, but for good reason; he’s booked and busy.
Polk sold a series to Prime
Video this spring titled Trade.
He also has a comedy series in development at Sony called New Money, which Gabrielle Union will star in and produce; he’s writing and directing a film about Luther Vandross based on Craig Seymour’s book Luther: The Life and Longing of Luther Vandross;
and he’s working on his first play,
The Night Whitney Houston Died,
which examines the singer’s life and death from the POV of a Black gay male fan. It will bow in London this year. Not to mention, Polk recently shot a new Noah’s
Arc film, which will air on one of Paramount's networks.
“It’s definitely the next chapter of these characters’ stories,” he says. “It’s nice to get to a point where I’m valued as a creative and so many doors are open.”
Still, the road to success has not been easy. Daniels recalls facing resistance when he wanted to hire Black directors on his Fox show
Empire: “It was hard for me at that time to even get John Singleton a gig. They said, ‘No, John has done no television at all.’ And it took me forever to get John Singleton approved to direct an episode.
“This is crazy, what happened,” Daniels adds. “And then for me to help Patrik, they just shut it down. They saw this tall Black cat and he was gay. It was like, ‘No. No.’ And it crushed my spirit.”
Polk remembers when Punks,
about a group of Black gay male friends, debuted at Sundance the same year that Greg Berlanti’s
The Broken Hearts Club did. “The films are eerily similar, except his is very white and mine is very Black,” Polk explains.
“Ryan Murphy, again, we were all kind of coming at the same time,” he continues. “And now you look at where those two guys are now, and you look at where I am.
All of us are kind of on equal footing in terms of talent, but doors opened for those two white gay men that never opened for me. I just continued to toil and do the work that was important for me to do until eventually the industry started to catch up. Suddenly all these things that were really not valued — being gay, being Black — suddenly diversity was in. It is the plight of the Black artist. The story’s not new.”
Polk also recalls hurdles that he and P-Valley creator Katori Hall dealt with while producing the critically acclaimed show. “Black creators in television always have to jump through so many more hoops … to prove that you’re worthy … which is why it took as long as it took to get P-Valley on the air,” he says. Before the show’s first season, “essentially the show was canceled. The sets were thrown away. And then in the middle of the pandemic … they finally put it on the air,” says Polk, adding that the “ratings [were] much greater than anyone expected. And then they had to quickly regroup.” He later clarifies, “It’s part speculation. No one ever said, ‘Your show is canceled.’ But that is what I think was going on.” Starz declined to comment.
P-Valley follows a group of people at a Mississippi strip club, including nonbinary proprietor Uncle Clifford (Nicco Annan), who is in a situationship with closeted rapper Lil Murda
(J. Alphonse Nicholson). Polk says it was important to bring their love story to life onscreen. “It might be on the down low, but it exists all over. When they’re having this sex, it can be very realistic, which I’ve always pushed for in all of my work,” says Polk, who co-wrote a season-two episode with a sex scene that lit up social media. “Yea p valley lost me,” comedian Lil Duval tweeted, adding that the episode needed “a super gay advisory.” Responds Polk, “When I saw this comedian tweeting this, I was just like, ‘No. No. It’s fine for you to feel like this show is not for [you]. But do you have to put this out there to your million followers? Fuck you. Then don’t watch it.’ Because the gay is here and it’s going to get gayer.”