Polaroids from the set of gay rom-com Fire Island are a connection to the beach getaway's past
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JEONG PARK/SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES AND HULU Bowen Yang, Joel Kim Booster, Torian Miller, Matt Rogers, Tomás Matos, and Margaret Cho hit the beach in LGBTQ rom-com 'Fire Island.'
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It's the first day of filming the movie Fire Island on New York's actual Fire Island and, of course, it's raining.
Director Andrew Ahn (Spa Night, Driveways) can be spotted taking over the bar on the deck of the Ice Palace, a go-to resort for any newly arrived visitor, as the Sayville ferry pulls up to the grass-lined boardwalks of Cherry Grove in early September 2021. He's guiding his star, stand-up comedian Joel Kim Booster, through a big reconciliation moment and at least pretending like their LGBTQ summer hotspot setting isn't being showered with drizzle. Assistants scramble in between takes to wipe away the steady stream dripping down from the roof, but they can only do so much. A background extra, sauntering across the damp deck in flip flops, slips just as cameras roll. (His ego is far more bruised than any physical hurt.)
JEONG PARK/SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES AND HULU Good morning, Angels! Matt Rogers, Bowen Yang, and Tomás Matos strike a pose for 'Fire Island' karaoke.
"That was probably the second hardest day on set," Booster, 34, tells EW over the phone seven months later. The hardest, he says, was trying to film the sunset finale on water near the docks as the ocean sloshed violently. Still, Fire Island itself, for all its unpredictable, diva-ish antics, was but one star of the movie, which has all the bearings of an instant gay classic: a modern reimagining of Pride and Prejudice with an entirely LGBTQ main cast, including Margaret Cho, Bowen Yang, Matt Rogers, Tomás Matos, and Torian Miller. The film follows Booster's Noah, the Elizabeth Bennett figure, as he tries to get his depressed bestie laid, while becoming endlessly frustrated — and maybe a little intrigued — by an awkward-but-sexy Mr. Darcy-type, played by How to Get Away With Murder's Conrad Ricamora.
The story is also Booster's love letter to his own experiences gallivanting across Fire Island over the years. The lead cast fully immersed themselves in the locale by sharing a house together on the island during production and, as revealed by EW, chronicling their journey through candid Polaroids.
JEONG PARK/SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES AND HULU The cast of 'Fire Island' snap a quick pic while filming a club scene.
"It was all of us and Margaret living in one giant… sort of halfway between a house and a hotel, but it was a real blast," says Booster, who also wrote and produced the film. "I'm so spoiled for pretty much every project moving forward that I do. My first big one out of the gate, and I did it with my best friends in the world, in one of my favorite places in the world. I just don't know that there will ever be an experience like this for me in the rest of my career. I can hope, but I highly doubt it."
While the film presents a modern image of Fire Island, the Polaroids feel like a throwback to the getaway destination from the '70s and '80s. Specifically, they evoke the work of Tom Bianchi, a famed figure of queer photography who, with his Polaroids, captured intimate images of the lives of gay men on Fire Island. "Obviously his photos are iconic and definitely, vibe-wise, we took a lot of inspiration from them for the film," Booster says.
JEONG PARK/SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES AND HULU Leave it to Joel Kim Booster to find a muscle hunk (Zane Phillips) to join the 'Fire Island' crew.
Bianchi, 76, speaking over the phone from his Palm Springs home, reflects on the legacy of his work, which began when he took snapshots of his island friends and neighbors with a SX-70 camera in 1975. "People were afraid that the photographs would compromise them in work," he says, alluding to the time when gay men could be fired from their jobs if outed for their sexual orientation. "I was able to show people the Polaroids as I took them, so that what they saw wasn't blackmail material. These were cool. They'd never seen themselves that way."
Members of today's LGBTQ community will see themselves in Fire Island, but not necessarily all of them, a deliberate move on Booster's part. He says his goal wasn't to make something that reflected every gay person's experience, but to present a snapshot of unapologetic queerness inspired by his own life. That includes highs like getting sloppy at an underwear party, and lows, such as a scene in which a white muscle twink at an upscale mansion soirée tells people of color in the room, "I think you may have the wrong house." (That actually happened to the Korean American Booster multiple times.)
JEONG PARK/SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES AND HULU Joel Kim Booster enjoys the benefits of shooting a movie on Fire Island in the summer.
"I think that there is a real hunger for specificity," Booster adds. "We're still riding this wave of creator-driven projects. We're seeing that now — even the studios are waking up and wanting to be a part of that. I think people want the specificity of our voices to come through."
Still, Booster recognizes that Fire Island will be received as something so much bigger in the eyes of the larger LGBTQ audience, one that is eager to see the first predominantly queer film backed by a major Hollywood studio (Disney's Searchlight Pictures). Bianchi, whose own work went on to inspire countless others, can relate.
JEONG PARK/SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES AND HULU 'Fire Island' best friends Noah (Joel Kim Booster) and Howie (Bowen Yang) express their love in subtle ways.
"Every artist has a vision which can later be turned into the facade of a contemporary office tower," the photographer says. "The first tier is the artist's vision and then it gets incorporated into the larger culture."
"More important than anything," he continues, "is so many people have told me that my work, the Fire Island Polaroids included, helped them identify themselves often in a terribly hostile world. I was offering a vision that was a safe harbor for them to be who they wanted to be."
JEONG PARK/SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES AND HULU Tea time! Bowen Yang, Margaret Cho, and Joel Kim Booster pose for a Polaroid while filming the 'Fire Island' Tea Dance.
Maybe one day Booster will be able to enjoy his film's place in the grander scheme of things, but not now. "The number of times Andrew had to talk me off the ledge because I felt so much pressure to get this right…" he remarks, trailing off. At least for now, he'll let the Polaroids do the talking.
Fire Island premieres on Hulu June 3.
JEONG PARK/SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES AND HULU Matt Rogers and Tomás Matos have their priorities straight: go for the wine and cheese.
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