Fire Island Tomas Matos (Keegan) and Director Andrew Ahn

Automatically transcribed; may contain errors.

what's going on guys it's austin ponton here from FlickDirect sitting with andrew and tomas from fire i just want to say thank you both so much for taking the time out of your day i can imagine your busy schedules to sitting down with us no thank you for having us so happy to be here yeah this was such a fun movie and the passion that you both showed last night it got me even more excited and i wanted to see more from you both seriously because it was so much fun so first we'll start with you starting off with you andrew there have been plenty of takes on pride and prejudice what inspired you to do this specific take on it yeah you know i thought joel kimbuster our writer star um he had such a smart modern you know queer take on fire island on pride and prejudice um you know uh most adaptations of pride and prejudice are about the romances you know um and that's definitely a big part of our film but really the the main relationships in this film are the friendships it's the chosen family and that for me i think really resonates with a lot of young people today a lot of queer people you know that uh you know importance of of who you hang out with you know who helps you like find your confidence your inner self like that to me is is so important i'm so glad i could celebrate it in this film so you were saying that you did your audition tip and construction tape kind of the confidence you have to have that is insane and i have to ask before you said that before you sent that in that tape if you think yourself oh i got this come on um well i honestly was just like well let's just be myself to the best of my possibility and wear something that i wore last night so i truly just picked up a crop top that was a cut off construction guard suit and opened it and did my tape that is and booked it that is brilliant and let me say andrew you found a heck of an actor over here for this so one thing i do want to ask the marissa thomason had me in tears i was laughing so hard i have to ask was there a particular scene when you when you were rolling they just they couldn't get all together because you were laughing so hard there were a few there were a few there was that one which was just like so iconically like outrageous like i remember it got to a point where i was like my voice hurt like this probably because it's like a really long game of heads up yeah like super long yeah it was like a two minute game and he still didn't get it so yeah i love this energy so much you have no idea so one thing i want to ask is this so since the film does take place on fireline i didn't know that far island existed did you actually just shoot at the actual fire island so we shot on fire island for two weeks we were there um after labor day and then before everybody had to go off and do you know their their next jobs and you know thankfully it was still warm yeah um but yeah the island is a really uh beautiful magical place you know it's been a gay haven for queer people for uh many decades you know a place for our community to go and be ourselves you know it was such an honor to get to film on such a you know historic island um and then also just such a beautiful landscape you know the flora the fauna the beach you know it's really it's it's super beautiful and we all had so much fun we all stayed in a hotel together yeah oh i can only imagine how infectious that chemistry was yeah it was really fun it should have been shot like a reality tv we already have [Laughter] which we don't really want to get like confidential guys seriously so one thing i do want to say is tomas for as far as we're at your first feature film yes that is correct congratulations first of all yeah and i made the poster and you look like an absolute superstar in that poster how was the jump between doing probably like smaller roles in tv too like kebab what's been honest like the star of this movie how was that jump it was a jump it was a giant leap but it was not something that i didn't think i could do um i think i have been ready to step into my light for quite some time now and thanks to andrew and thanks to joel and all these people who really put their trust into me and to being able to really show up and show out in this film i was able to kind of prove that i can do that well let me say this i want to see you on so much more not just from you but from andrew a heck of a directing style over here now i asked you this last night i'm gonna ask this again of course so there is a particular scene where howie and charlie they after they do the ridiculously stupid thing there's a moment where the light changes just a little bit and i pay attention to lighting and editing so much was there happen to be any color crash in there or do you just happen to get lucky with how though i just happened to get a bit lighter you know uh the the sun really uh like worked with us that day and and we were able to to get a really magical moment that um you know uh really supported the beautiful performances you know uh that's what i love about filmmaking is sometimes it's it's you know uh uncontrollable it's magic it's alchemy and uh you get all the the right people together you put them in a great space and you know you get something really cool uh you know i don't think i could have made fire island alone i think it took a an immensely talented cast and crew and then just a little bit of uh fire island magic that gay magic i mean this film has a quite a bit of messages together like the friends that you're the group that you're around influences the person that you are is there particular messages that you both want this film to send out you know my hope is that people watch fire island and they really understand the importance of um chosen family the importance of community you know i think um part of self-care is community care you know the way that we love each other and people love us back i think that's so important and i hope people go on vacation with their friends you know like that's important i think it's a part of you know like how we how we take care of ourselves just want to say i enjoyed the film so much i was laughing i smell by the end and i really hope this does thanks to the lgbt community thank you both so much i enjoyed the heck out of this