BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition May 2019

MOViES|T.V.
HOAXING AROUND
Standing in the shadows
of an imaginary
persona in JT LeRoy
By NOÉMIE ATTIA
J
T LeRoy was a jaded, vulnerable
boy with an endearing
Southern accent and two
best-selling books in the early
2000s.
He was always hiding behind sunglasses
and blond wigs – because JT
LeRoy was never a real person. He
was actually a persona born in writer
Laura Albert’s brain and embodied by
artist Savannah Knoop for nearly six
years.
Director Justin Kelly adapted
Knoop’s memoir, Girl Boy Girl: How
I Became JT LeRoy, into a film called
JT LeRoy about the six-year hoax.
The film portrays the true story
through the eyes of Savannah (Kristen
Stewart). We see them discovering
their creative legitimacy as a
young artist leaving their hometown
for San Francisco. Laura (Laura
Dern), the experienced writer, fosters
that confidence through encouraging
Savannah to play the part of LeRoy.
“When you’re young, you’ve just
gotten out of high school, and you
meet someone who’s an
amazing artist – I read both
books and I loved them,”
Knoop tells BeatRoute
about Albert. “When she
eventually asked me to
perform this character,
it was sort of like accessing
a creative path. It was
getting the feeling of what
it could be like to be an artist after
you’d already made the work, which
is a strange process.”
The film portrays the genius of
Knoop’s impersonation of LeRoy.
More importantly, Knoop’s agency
glows through Leroy’s dark shades.
JT LEROY
Friday, May 17
(5:30 pm) • Sunday,
May 19 (7:30 pm)
• Monday, May
20 (6:00 pm) •
Wednesday, May 22
(6:10 pm)
Vancity Theatre
Tix: $13, viff.org
“I think it was just
good casting. I was a
good person to play that
character, because I already
had some of those
interests.” Becoming Le-
Roy also coincided with
Knoop’s exploration of
their queer identity: it
was an outlet for them
to learn more about themself.
However, one thing is clear for
Knoop: “I’m pretty sure I would
be where I am now, regardless of
playing JT LeRoy. But of course
it affected me as a young person,
deeply.” Knoop, who co-wrote the
film’s screenplay, didn’t become a
writer because of LeRoy.
“Me playing JT was sort of quixotic,”
says Knoop. “It brings up that
question of when you play something,
you become it. What are the
boundaries around that?”
Stewart’s interpretation of
Knoop’s character is particularly convincing.
Knoop was a consultant on
set for any emotional and logistical
questions. They donated their favourite
DIY clothes from that period to
Stewart’s wardrobe, which makes the
character even more authentic.
“It’s very meta,” Knoop says, when
asked how it felt to have someone
play them playing another character.
“There would be moments when
I would see Kristen do something I
had done as JT. There’s this specific
way of clapping at readings. I feel like
I didn’t know I was doing it when I
was playing JT. I really did get to see
how JT LeRoy was a very separate
person from me, that I was playing a
role to the best of my ability, and that
that character was not me.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t
totally understand that, probably
because I didn’t really have any footage
of me playing JT and it was very
blurry in my memory. So to see the
differences was illuminating.”
JT LeRoy poses questions on identity
and truth when a story is constructed
by many perspectives, even
fictional ones.
“Can you only write on the page,
or can you write out in the world?”
asks Knoop. “What happens when
you write out in the world? What is
different than when you write on the
page?”
Above all, this story seems to be
about Knoop’s ability to become what
they already had inside them, no matter
what physical form it took. ,
MAY 2019 BEATROUTE 37