NEW YORK (AP) — When Jordan Firstman arrives for lunch at a Manhattan bar, he sees a burger on one side of the table, and a salad on his.
“What are you guys trying to tell me?” he asks with mock offense.
Firstman isn’t on a diet but he is trying to keep himself in line. His directorial debut, “Club Kid,” is one of the year’s biggest breakthroughs. In it, Firstman stars as a gay New York party promoter named Peter who’s blindsided by a hard-to-fathom revelation: He has a 10-year-old son (Reggie Absolom).
Since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, “Club Kid” — vivid with downtown nightlife that Firstman knows firsthand — has been a sensation. After a bidding war, A24 picked it up for $17 million and is releasing the film in the heart of awards season. Minutes before sitting down for a recent interview, “Club Kid” was nominated for best feature and Firstman for breakthrough director by the Gotham Awards.
Beginning with the Cannes premiere — where Firstman reveled in puns of the theater’s name, Debussy — it’s been a surreal ride for the Los Angeles-based viral comic turned filmmaker. His movie dreams have come true, but there are perils in being famous for “Club Kid.”
“When you make a movie like this and have a culture surrounding it, people are shoveling drugs in your face. It’s a big exercise in saying no,” Firstman says. “I messed up once and I didn’t again. You could see it in my eyes in press the next day. But I want to be on my game.”
Firstman, 35, has been a viral video star (you might remember his pandemic bit as the publicist for banana bread), a consultant on “Big Mouth” and a writer for HBO’s “Search Party.” He’s released a comedy-music album (based on secrets shared by Instagram followers) and been an increasingly accomplished actor, on the series “I Love LA” and the 2023 film “Rotting in the Sun.”
But with “Club Kid,” Firstman has finally arrived at the role he always most wanted: filmmaker. Eleven years ago, Firstman made the short “Sold.” about a needy screenwriter celebrating a breakthrough that may be imagined. Now that he has arrived, he intends to stay.
“This is the first time of my career I’ve actually had the mind to be like: There’s something more important than what I’m saying. I’ve said the wrong thing in the past and I’ve gotten punished for it,” says Firstman, who last year was slammed online for criticizing the authenticity of gay sex on “Heated Rivalry.” “My movie is so important to me that if I have an opinion, I’m telling my friends or I’m keeping it to myself. You could ask me about my least favorite movie right now, and I’d be like: ‘I really liked it, actually.’”
An abiding question: ‘Am I mainstream?’
“Club Kid” stands out for its unique duality. It’s a crowd-pleaser with a plot not unlike Adam Sandler’s “Big Daddy,” but it’s also a moving and faithful depiction of gay life. It’s an edgy, ketamine-covered movie about club life, but it’s also a tender movie about growing up.
Those dichotomies — sweet and childlike, provocative and satirical — Firstman believes are his superpower.
“I’ve gone so back and forth on the subject of: Am I mainstream?” Firstman says. “There’s something maybe about my look that feels familiar to people. I think I feel like people’s cousin, or something. But then my insides are very specific and broken and transgressive and subversive. I have perversions. I have issues that are unsavory. My gift, and this is going to sound sexual, is making hard things soft.”
Firstman smiles. “And I’ve done it before. I’ve made a lot of hard things soft.”
The story of “Club Kid” may sound contrived, but it comes from a more personal place than its narrative twist suggests. Even that has some truth. Firstman, just after finishing the script, was a sperm donor for his older sister’s wife.
Firstman’s screenplay attracted Alex Coco, producer of Sean Baker’s best picture-winning “Anora.” “Club Kid,” shot on 35 mm, similarly became an authentic portrait of New York, shooting in real, underground parties. The colorful ensemble includes Miss Benny, Alaska Riley and Saturn Risin9 as Peter’s hard-partying friends.
“A lot of it was similar to how we approach Sean’s movies: casting people from the community, whether they’re first-time actors or seasoned actors,” Coco says. “Shooting in real locations, embracing the chaos of shooting in a living, breathing world.”
For Coco, Firstman may have played around with different personas, but “Club Kid” represents his true self.
“He’s becoming who he always was. He started off with shorts early in his career wanting to tell meaningful, personal stories about the queer experience,” Coco says. “He’s so talented that he’s able to succeed creatively in almost everything he does. But I think the most natural state of who he is is this version, which is a more serious, big-hearted filmmaker.”
Ketamine, kids and coming of age
In one memorable scene in “Club Kid,” Peter and a love interest played by Diego Calva exchange sincere reflections on their earliest sexual encounters. Firstman, the son of journalists for Newsday, grew up in Northport, Long Island, making weekend trips into Manhattan as a teen. For Firstman, that scene reflects his own coming of age.
“It’s a very New York gay thing to not take your own trauma seriously, or think it’s not worth it,” he says. “I had that happen to me when I was a kid by a couple people — some consensual, some less so. I think throughout my whole 20s, I was just like, ‘Haha!’ Then I got into my 30s and started going to therapy and taking it more seriously.”
Firstman shrugs and smiles. “Damaged goods,” he says.
Yet Firstman usually projects uber-confidence, which he acknowledges has shaped perceptions of him.
“I have my moments, for sure,” he says. “I do think to be gay is to be broken. But I think there’s something very beautiful about brokenness. I think that’s why all my characters have that shield around them or a harder edge. Deep down, they’re very sensitive and sad. Peter is the first time I got to really just show my heart. I think there’s been this perception of me that I’m, like, a b—-”
“I have some unsavory qualities like anyone else,” adds Firstman. “But I did just want to show the world a little bit who I am.”
Meanwhile, Firstman is getting used to his new life as an acclaimed, Cannes-approved auteur and — maybe more surprisingly — a monogamist. He’s now “in some form of a relationship,” he says. Acting on an instinct, Firstman invited someone he had met only once to Cannes. Just as his movie launched, he was falling in love. “A lot,” he sighs, “was happening at once.”
The arrival of so much maturity, Firstman grants, has been head-spinning. Yet his mischievousness is far from gone. When it comes time for Firstman to leave for a photo shoot uptown, he stands and makes one request: “Give me a good headline,” he says. “All people read is the headline.”
Any suggestions?
Firstman hardly pauses. “Jordan Firstman is a talented, childlike genius,” he says, grinning. “And hot.”
By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer
