Ahn was indignant, however as he instructed the story, Booster simply nodded. “As a comedian, with everything I’ve done up to this point, I’m just supposed to be funny, you know?” Booster mentioned. “But with this, I’m supposed to be a romantic lead, and it’s a lot for me in my life to be confronted with that and be like, ‘Am I that guy? Is this believable?’”
Booster had by no means been in a relationship earlier than he began writing “Fire Island,” and all the things he knew about love, he had discovered from watching Nora Ephron motion pictures. But as “Fire Island” headed into manufacturing, Booster met the video-game producer John-Michael Kelly, and one thing in him softened.
“I’ve just never met somebody that has made me want to not be alone until I met him,” Booster mentioned.
He started to rewrite the scenes he shared with Ricamora, pulling from precise conversations he’d had with Kelly. And the movie’s remaining beat between the characters, which initially culminated in a flippant joke, was tweaked to land on one thing sweeter and extra romantic. “It was like I was doing drag when I first wrote the movie about love,” Booster mentioned, “and then after experiencing it and doing the rewrites, it felt much more real and lived in.”
The film has been incomes stellar evaluations, which has Booster respiratory a sigh of reduction: “When I was making it,” he mentioned, “I thought, ‘If this movie is bad, I can never show my face here again. I just ruined my favorite place in the world.’” And sure, he and Yang each plan to return to the island this summer time.
“Do you think it’s going to be different?” Ahn requested. “Do you think it’s going to be weird?”
“It’s going to be extremely weird,” Booster mentioned. “I’ll either be persona non grata or the mayor.”
And what is going to it really feel like when Booster goes from “He’s the lead of ‘Fire Island?’” to “He’s the lead of ‘Fire Island!’”
Booster simply shrugged: He’ll know when he is aware of. “I don’t think it’s hit me quite yet,” he mentioned. “I’m not getting Grindr messages about it.”
