Author: Jacob Greenbaum
Brandon Boyce was involved in reenacting history this year as one of the stars of the Gus Van Sant film Milk, and with all the buzz surrounding the film, he could be a part of Oscar history as well. An accomplished screenwriter and actor, I got a chance to talk with him about the project and its significance.
In the film, you portray Jim Rivaldo. Could you explain who Jim Rivaldo was, and what his involvement was with Harvey Milk?
Jim was a political science student at Harvard who wrote for the Harvard Lampoon. After graduating, the guys he wrote with went off to form The National Lampoon, but Jim moved to San Francisco, which at the time was a very exciting place to be if you wanted to feel like you were part of something. Jim started hanging out at Castro Camera, a run-down camera shop on Castro Street that served as a de facto community center thanks in great part to its co-owner, Harvey Milk, a guy who, like Jim, had moved west to be part of what was happening in San Francisco.
Jim possessed a dry, scathing wit that endeared him to Harvey. Bright minds seem to find each other, and Jim and Harvey became friends. Jim used his knowledge of the political workings of the system to assist Harvey in his three unsuccessful bids for office, and by the time Harvey was finally elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977, Jim had become a respected and trusted election strategist in the city, not just for Harvey, but for many underdog and minority candidates around the state. He proved to be a gifted marketer as well, designing the visuals, creating the slogans, and crafting the literature and the “message” of the campaigns.
You met Jim Rivaldo before you knew you were going to play him, is there anything that you talked with him about that might have made you able to portray him better than someone else?
I met with Jim about three years ago when I was the screenwriter of a project about the very same subject matter as Milk. (Jim passed away in October of ’07). I met with him as a writer, having no idea I would end up portraying him as an actor. Looking back, though, I don’t think the meeting would have been different had I approached it as an actor. I simply wanted to get him talking and that’s what I did.
To what degree did you did you feel the need to accurately portray the character?
When we sat down, he was still strong and in good health and in possession of that dry wit that had become his trademark. He was a bit shy at first, but soon warmed up to me. Thankfully, I recorded the interview, and could draw on those tapes in preparing for the role. Jim and I didn’t look too much alike, but when I popped those tapes in after three years, I was surprised how similar our voices sounded. But I tend to talk much faster than Jim did. When we were on set, out technical advisor, Cleve Jones (who back in the day was a young activist hanging around in the camera shop and knew Jim well) was rather cool to me. I couldn’t figure out why. Finally he told me that it was because I’m a “fast talker” and Jim was not. But when Cleve saw the film on screen, he saw that I had been trying to bring some of the energy and urgency that the guys must’ve been feeling during that time. And then Cleve became very complimentary of my performance, which was nice, I suppose.
But Gus Van Sant was really going for accuracy in this movie. We shot in the exact locations (the camera shop was literally recreated in its previous spot) and used real quotes as our dialog in some places. I wanted to get the spirit of Jim just as the director and writer were going for the spirit of that time and place in the city and the country.
What do you think was and is the significance of Harvey Milk?
Having spent years with this story, first as a student, then as a screenwriter doing tons of research, then as actor, I’ve grown to view Harvey as an imperfect man with imperfect ideas who really believed the world could be a more perfect place. He was a populist. Everybody deserved the same protections and privileges under the law. Here we are now with a battle on our hands in California [with] Prop 8 just like the one Harvey and Jim and the rest of the state were engaged with in 1978. [At that time] it was Prop 6, which would’ve made it legal to fire any gay teachers or even teachers who were ‘gay-friendly.’ It’s ironic, and frankly a little saddening to know that while civil rights have come a long way, in same respects we’re right back where we were 30 years ago.
What was the environment like on the set?
Incredibly free and open. Gus really wanted that. I asked him on the first day when I stepped into the camera shop if there was anyplace we couldn’t go. “You can go anywhere,” he said. And while he meant anywhere in that physical space, the broader implication was that we could go anywhere emotionally and dramatically too. So in some scenes, we’d stick to the dialog as written. In others, improvisation would lead to something new. And in a few cases (I think Gus did this in a scene with Sean Penn and Josh Brolin) he had them scrap the dialog all together and do the scene without words. What I love about that moment is that it wasn’t a scene with just a few lines. It was a very dialog-heavy scene, but he wanted them to live it emotionally, and words are always needed for that.
What do you expect people to take away from this film?
Well there’s the political relevance as I mentioned. This movie certainly shows gay men and women living their lives as everyone else does and deserving of the same rights and protections. But the movie is also a wonderful document of a time, a time capsule, of a place that is not that far away and a time not that long ago that somehow seems other-worldly, and yet incredibly relevant and understandable.
What did this film mean to you?
I am very happy that this story is being told. It’s one that I’ve found so enthralling – the intrigue, the characters, the tremendous odds they faced – for many years. But to be such an intimate part of it, and to lend my efforts to an aspect of the film that seemed well-suited to me (bringing life to a man of who’s skills and personality helped shaped the events on screen) was really special. Not to mention it was a wonderful ride with talented, tremendous people. We shot the film when the writers’ strike was still going on and I had been part of that. And while I was greatly emotionally invested in the outcome of that labor action, and had been picketing constantly before I was cast, getting the change to go to San Francisco for three months to shoot a movie with Gus and Sean and Emile [Hirsch] sure beat marching back and forth in a cross walk outside Warner Brothers with a cardboard sign in my hands.
What’s next?
I’ve written a film that I plan to direct in the spring of next year. I’ve also got a script that I started writing in San Francisco during shooting and am finishing up now. As for the acting, it was great to flex those muscles again. Writing and acting compliment each other very well. One informs the other invaluably. I’ll always be a writer, but I’d been acting since I was very young. I love where it takes me emotionally, even when it’s not a very comfortable place.
Milk, starring Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, James Franco and Brandon Boyce, opens in limited release on Nov. 26, 2008
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