Gus van Sant's Biopic Milk Begins Production
Adds Diego Luna, Lucas Grabeel, Douglas Smith and Tom Ammiano to cast.
By Tim Gaskin

Jan 22 | archive | subscribe

 

A production team has arrived in San Francisco to begin work on Gus van Sant's biopic about former supervisor Harvey Milk, the nation's first openly gay politician. The film is to be called "Milk." Producers say work will begin this week.

Milk was the first openly gay man to win elective office in the United States when voters elected him to the Board of Supervisors in 1977. His death galvanized a generation of LGBT people to not only come out of the closet but run for elective office.

Sean Penn is attached to play the gay '70s San Francisco politician. Penn has never portrayed an openly gay character onscreen, but he did play the sexually ambiguous Olivia Newton-John impersonator "Groovin' Larry" in a section of Trent Harris' 2001 cult hit "Beaver Trilogy."

Penn's video short was shot in 1981, then combined with Harris' 1979 documentary short on the amateur performer and his 1985 short narrative version "The Orkly Kid," starring Crispin Glover as Larry, to create "Beaver."

Josh Brolin has been cast as Dan White, the former cop, firefighter, and city supervisor who fatally shot Milk and Mayor George Moscone in their City Hall offices on November 27, 1978. After serving five years of a seven-year sentence, White committed suicide in 1985. Willie Brown was reportedly on the hit list and escaped City Hall untouched.

Focus Features has announced that Diego Luna (Y tu mama tambien, The Terminal) has joined the cast playing Jack Lira, a troubled young lover of Milk. It's also being reported that Lucas Grabeel, best known from his work dancing alongside Zac Efron in High School Musical, has been cast as Danny Nicoletta, another of Milk's supporters who also worked in Milk's San Francisco camera shop. Meanwhile, Big Love's Douglas Smith has been cast as Milk supporter Paul Hogarth.

Current supervisor Tom Ammiano was a friend of Milk in the 1970s and will appear as himself in the film. He says he hopes the movie will bring Milk's story to a mainstream audience. Final Milk cast includes Tom Ammiano, Josh Brolin, James Franco, Victor Garber, Lucas Grabeel, Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna, Denis O'Hare, Sean Penn, Douglas Smith, and Stephen Spinella.