203 / INTERVIEW LOOKING SEASON TWO “ITʼS STUNNING FROM BEGINNING TO END” 022
Interview / Frankie J. Alvarez Last year’s HBO series Looking, about a group of gay guys in their late twenties, early thirties living in San Francisco, did well enough to be granted a second season. In late December, actor Frankie J. Alvarez, who plays Cuban-American artist Agustín on the show, visited Amsterdam for promotion. We sat down with him to talk about researching his part, the reactions to the show and what we can expect this season. ‘Hopefully, one day a show like Looking isn’t labeled as ‘the gay show’’.’ “The straight press keep asking me ‘what’s it like as a straight man…’, and ‘how is this show different from Sex & the City?’” Is this your rst time in Amsterdam? “It is! I’ve been here a few days. I love it! The architecture is gorgeous and the people have been so friendly and so nice. I’ve gotten to smoke a little bit, had some great food, and I’m staying at the nicest hotel I’ve ever been to in my whole life. This hotel is incredible.” Don’t buy any cocaine in the street! “Oh no no no no no, that’s not my thing. I read about it though! Three tourists died, right? White heroin? It’s so nice that it’s so well-publicized and there are so many signs. It’s nice that you guys are taking care, to make sure that doesn’t happen again. It’s just awful that’s happened.” When you researched the part of Agustín, what was something you really had to research extensively, where you couldn’t just rely on your experience and your acting education? ‘When you’re doing research for a part, you want to research it without any sort of judgments. You don’t want to say “well, this is something I already know a lot about”. You just want to do a copious amount of research. So you’re reading stuff, and some of it goes in one ear, out the other, but some of it will really sink in. I did research on the art community. A friend of my wife’s works for a pretty prominent artist in New York, so I went to his studio and spent a day with him. That was very helpful for when I ended up lming those art scenes in the rst season. I talked to a lot of my gay and lesbian friends, about issues within the community that are happening right now. Because I knew that was something that was going to be on the forefront of this show. I knew there were going to be some gay actors on this show, and they’re coming at it from a personal place, a place of experience. And I’ve had experiences in the past, but I’m married now, so those experiences are done. I wanted to make sure that I was aware of the nuances, and what’s relevant to the community right now. Andrew Haigh, the creator of the show, and Michael Lannon, the head writer, sent me a box of character material. That was awesome.” Is that common? That they send you a box of character reference material? “I don’t know! This is my rst big thing! But they did it for me, Murray and for Jonathan [Dom and Patrick in the series – ed.]. They sent us all Dancer from the Dance, which is like a seminal gay novel from the late 70s. They sent me a bunch of Susan Sontag novels about gender and sexual orientation, which is totally tting in line with Agustín’s point of view. I’m a big vinyl guy, I’ve got quite a lot of records, so they sent me a Green Day record, because Agustín likes his punk music. A Blondie record, and Pansy Division, an indie gay punk rock band. Really cool stuff to check into. But actually the most formative thing, was my wife giving me a copy of Patti Smith’s book Just Kids. About her moving to New York, her meager life in New York as an artist, and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, before he kind of blew up in the photography world. Exploring a man coming to terms with his sexual orientation, and doing that through his art as well, that was more prescient. If you haven’t read it – run, don’t walk.” As an actor in <strong>2015</strong>, do you still get asked what it’s like for a straight actor to play a gay character? “Yeah! It’s such a snooze-worthy question. I get asked all the time. I think it ends up being variations on a theme. It always ends up being the same thing, but sometimes it’s phrased differently. I can answer it, if you want?” Well, no, you’re an actor. I wouldn’t ask you, as a non-serial killing actor, what it would be like to play a serial killer either. “Right. What I nd funny is when people are surprised when they nd out I’m straight. Like it’s a prerequisite, like you have to be gay to play a gay character. I mean, I played Hamlet a couple of years ago, and I didn’t have to go out and murder people to play Hamlet. With any acting it’s a mixture of personal experience, and lling in the rest with research and your imagination. So I’m doing that. I didn’t have to go and kill anybody, or engage in a threesome, you know what I mean?” Do you notice a difference in the way ‘straight’ media approach you as opposed to the way ‘gay’ media approach you when you’re being interviewed? “Yeah. I guess there are some nuance differences. It’s actually way better to talk to gay press about the show, because it ends up being less supercial. We get into the actual gritty themes that are explored on the show, socially, romantically. I enjoy talking to the gay press way more. The straight press keep asking me ‘what’s it like as a straight man…’, and ‘how is this show different from Sex & the City?’. It’s like the same questions over and over. But you guys go right into the plot, right into the characters, and the themes of the show. Right into what makes this show so modern, and such a reection of LGBT culture today. And for us, as actors, that stuff is fun. We enjoy talking about that stuff. It’s stemming from the debates and the conversations that we’re having on set, at the bar afterwards, going out and researching leading up to lming, and so on.” The show has gotten some mixed reviews. How do you feel about that? “I’m not so sensitive about it anymore. This is my rst big TV thing, so when it rst happened, I was a little sensitive to it. Not only the mixed reviews of it, but also the show being a little slow, a little boring at rst. And then of course people’s Text Martijn Tulp / Photography HBO Nederland 203 023