GLR Review March-April 2019

C HRIS F REEMAN I MET David Dean Bottrell in 2006, shortly after I moved to Los Angeles. I’d seen the OutFest screening of a short film called “Available Men,” which he’d written and directed. He didn’t know at the time that his career was about to take off (again). Now, a dozen years later, he’s been almost famous for a decade; he’s been all over your TV set, performed onstage, and taught acting classes. In February, his mem- oir, Working Actor: Breaking In, Making a Living, and Making a Life in the Fabulous Trenches of Show Business , will be pub- lished by Ten Speed Press/Random House. I was able to read David’s book in manu- script, and we had a freewheeling conversa- tion about all things DDB in December. Chris Freeman: David, can you take me back to that short film? It really was the be- ginning of the “big” phase in your career. David Dean Bottrell: Although I started out as an actor, I’d been working in the screenwriting business for a few years. I was lucky in that I was getting steadily hired to write screenplays for big studios, but not many of them were getting made into films. In fact, in the thirteen years I worked in that industry, only one film, Kingdom Come , got made. So many of the projects got mired in studio politics, it just felt increasingly insane. I started getting re- ally frustrated. The next thing I knew, I was having this whirlwind affair with a handsome attorney. I blinked twice and found myself living with him in D.C. while commuting to L.A. for work. It was sort of glamorous until I discovered he’d been masterfully conceal- ing a very big drug problem from me. My romance crashed; I returned to L.A. and fell into a deep depression. Then, one morning, standing at my kitchen sink, I came up with an idea for a fifteen-minute short movie called “Available Men.” The concept, a gay “mistaken identity/blind date” comedy, ac- tually made me laugh out loud. I went up to my office and wrote it in ten hours. Thirty days later, I shot it on a song and a prayer. Ninety days after that, we screened it. It went on to win “Best Short Film” at the two biggest LGBT film festivals: OutFest in L.A. and NewFest in New York. It went on to win awards in fifteen more festivals around the world, including the HBO Com- edy Festival. It totally reinvigorated my writing career and my life. CF: You talk in the memoir about your big break, a recurring role on Boston Legal . That role really put you on the map. What else can you say about that—when it was happening and in the aftermath? DDB: One day, my phone rang, and it was the casting director of Boston Legal asking me to come in and read for a small guest star role. I was stunned that she even re- membered me. It had been over a decade since I quit acting to focus on writing. I po- litely declined, but she refused to take no for an answer. The character was described as a “Truman Capote” type. Though I don’t do impersonations, I decided to go into the audition and try to channel the mannerisms of this very bizarre guy that I’d known in New York when I was a young man. He used to hire me to bartend his parties, which I was always happy to do since he a good tipper. And he was utterly insane. He was about as gay as a human being could be, but refused to admit it. He was always talking about dating these fictional women. Fortunately for me, David E. Kelley, the creator of the show, saw my taped audition, thought I was hilarious, and kept bringing the character back for a big chunk of the season. So, after not having acted for years, I was in these big juicy scenes with amazing actors like James Spader, Candice Bergen, William Shatner, and Julie Bowen. People were stop- ping me in the street for autographs. Other shows started calling to see if I was available, and suddenly I was an actor again. CF: Most of your career—all of it?— you’ve been out as a gay actor. In the thirty- plus years in the business, how have attitudes changed? Where did homophobia reside in your experience? DDB: I came out shortly after I left acting school. I don’t remember it as a conscious decision. It just sort of happened gradually as I began to work. I was also lucky to have David Dean Bottrell: Working Actor ARTIST’S PROFILE “We Are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You” were co- written by May (a doctoral student in interplanetary dust) and Mercury (a queer outcast of Zoroastrian descent), and now blare from the speakers in the biggest sports arenas on earth. Even tepid reviews could not prevent the film, with a budget of only fifty million, from earning more than that in its opening week- end. When Bohemian Rhapsody comes full circle, it soars straight to the top by recreating the Live Aid set (all 21 min- utes) virtually shot for shot. Nothing short of exhilarating— close-ups, aerials, 180-degree pans—the finale was filmed first and pushed Malek to the brink of passing out. Malek, whose family is Egyptian, felt a special kinship with Mercury, who was born Farrokh Bulsara in the British protectorate of Zanzibar be- fore his parents fled to India and eventually to London. The audio of that legendary performance was released for the first time on the Bohemian Rhapsody soundtrack and includes the 1984 hit “Radio Ga Ga.” And speaking of Ga Ga, Lady Gaga (who took her stage name from Queen) stars as Ally and Bradley Cooper as Jackson Maine in another film that bears out essentially the same idea: fame can be nasty, brutish, and short. As Gaga told Elle maga- zine: “Success tests relationships. It tests families. It tests your dynamic with your friends. There is a price to stardom.” Di- rected by Cooper, A Star Is Born dramatizes that price and elec- trifies the crowd in a musical sequence every bit as thrilling as the Live Aid recreation. It’s another crash-and-burn tale of artistry and excess. In this case, the ingénue Ally’s star rises as Jackson’s falls due to drug and alcohol abuse. Another one bites the dust! While Gaga is perfectly suited to the role, the press loves a comeback and greatly overstated her performance. It’s not as if she took on Medea or Lady Macbeth, and revealing one’s natural hair color could be yet another costume. In A Star        