Pete Jones has a wife and kids, and at this moment, he's fidgeting with his wedding band.
"Did I have a gay experience or am I gay? Trust me, everyone asks me now," says the director, referring to his direct-to-DVD comedy Outing Riley, about a "beer-drinking, sports-watching" guy who's comfortable with his own sexuality but still in the closet to his family -- until he finally comes out to his macho Chicago brothers after their parents' death. "I never thought of it as a gay movie. That's the honest-to-goodness truth. I wanted to create a movie about a family, and I came up with the scenario where I asked myself, 'What would happen in my family if one of us came out as gay?' "
When pressed, Jones will admit he actually doesn't have any experience with gay people, making one wonder why he would decide to write, direct, and star in a gay film. Basically, Jones thought it would be funny. Had Jones written this film in the '50s, the joke might have been that his Catholic-raised character is secretly a Protestant; in the '60s, comic tension might swirl around his best friend being a black man, a la Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Has being gay become just another viable fish-out-of-water plot?
Rather than showing straight family members as intolerant bigots, Outing Riley paints a nuanced, comic portrait of men learning that someone they love deeply isn't who they thought he was. And our hero's response -- he's still the same person; hiding the truth didn't mean he doesn't trust and love them -- will resonate with gay audiences.
Jones was the star of HBO's Project Greenlight, a filmmaking reality show, in its first season, which aired in 2001. He directed his first film, Stolen Summer, under the microscope of that weekly TV series. The film was panned by critics (Jones still recalls it being coined an "after-school special") and brought in a paltry $135,000 at the box office. What's more, the TV show often portrayed Jones as incompetent, bumbling, and demanding.
"Stolen Summer was a fluke," he explains. "I wrote this script, I knew it didn't have much commerciality, and I put it on the Internet in this contest because I was an unemployed writer. The next thing I know, I win the thing." Jones says the sensibilities of his first film aren't in keeping with his own, which is why the Chicago native wanted his sophomore offering to be more edgy -- closer to his own aesthetic. "I thought it would be interesting to make a film where the gay guy wasn't just a flamboyant 'Sean Hayes in Will & Grace' sidekick."
Prior to its first screening, Jones worried that the gay community wouldn't be receptive to Outing Riley. But after the film received an overwhelmingly positive response at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Jones suddenly realized the gay audience wouldn't be the problem.
"When we showed the film to [the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation], they called it a 'breakthrough movie,' " says producer Judd Nissen. "That was the first time we were like, Uh-oh, that's what we have." Straight audiences, like the one at the Chicago International Film Festival, seemed puzzled. Says Jones: "People come up after the film, pat me on the shoulder, and go, 'Good movie. Good job,' and they're walking away going, Huh? Did we not just see you making out with a guy on-screen? What the hell's going on here?"
Jones can't exactly answer that question himself, because Outing Riley isn't the film he set out to make. While Jones has mastered the aw-shucks Heartland persona, peppering his conversation with phrases like "Maybe it's just that I'm really naive" or "I don't want to sound all 'Johnny Hollywood' here," he lived in Los Angeles for years, watches football with Curb Your Enthusiasm's Jeff Garlin (who plays a minor role in Outing Riley), and jokingly refers to his producer as his "entourage." In other words, Jones is no rube, yet he seems genuinely shocked that straight audiences brushed off the film because of its content. "I just can't wrap my brain around the idea that being gay would be enough to break up my family," he says. "How the hell does my sexuality affect my parents or my siblings? I know I sound naive, but I can't wrap my brain around the fact that what I do behind closed doors, the life I choose to lead, would change who I am to people. It bugs the shit out of me."
His disappointment that Outing Riley wasn't a mainstream success is palpable. You can't fault the guy for wanting to break his film beyond a gay audience, and Jones's next film, Hall Pass, will be anything but indie. "The Farrelly brothers are directing it," he says, "and it looks like Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are going to star in it."
So Outing Riley may signal the end of gay cinema for Jones, but the experience of making the film will likely stick with him. He says, "We're shooting in the bed on the very first take -- and the truth of the matter is, the crew was very nervous, very uncomfortable about two men getting together to kiss -- and I say 'action' and we go to do the kiss. After our lips touch, I'm like, OK, I'm method, I'm De Niro, I've got this thing down, then his hand comes behind me and touches the back of my head softly. I jumped. I was prepared for the touch, but I never expected that feeling of affection."
