Joel Kim Booster (‘Fire Island’) on his inspiring friendship with Bowen Yang [Exclusive Video Interview]
When Joel Kim Booster first set out to write what would become “Fire Island,” he knew he wanted to write about the nearly decade long friendship he’s had with his co-star Bowen Yang. The two were connected by a mutual friend shortly after Booster moved to New York. “They couched it though in, ‘You know, there’s this other gay Asian comedian that you should know.’ Because that’s how it was presented to us, we were both sort of hesitant to meet because we didn’t want that person to be right,” he tells Gold Derby during our recent webchat (watch the exclusive video interview above).
But when the two did actually meet, the pair had an instant connection that came from shared experiences coming from marginalized communities. “It was very immediately apparent to both of us that we needed each other to a certain extent and we didn’t even realize how much we needed each other.”
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“Fire Island,” which can currently be streamed on Hulu, centers on a group of five gay friends who make an annual week-long pilgrimage to the long time gay hotspot for sex, parties and all sorts of fun, but a sudden change during the trip might make it the last one the group takes. It was directed by Andrew Ahn. In addition to Booster and Yang, the film stars Conrad Ricamora, Matt Rogers, Tomás Matos, Torian Miller, James Scully and Margaret Cho. Earlier this year the film earned Booster an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Screenplay.
When Booster first started working on the script, it was being written as a half-hour television pilot. “I took that around for several months and nobody—we couldn’t even find a production company who wanted to partner with us to take it out. It was really tough to get anyone interested in this idea.” The spark to make the story into a feature length project came from the most unlikely source. “It wasn’t until I met with Quibi that they presented me with the idea of turning it into a movie that could be broken up into ten chapters. They were taking a lot of chances on a lot of different ideas and creators and they were the only ones who, at the time, were interested in the story.”
He also cannot understate how important it was that Cho was a part of this movie, in the role of Erin, particularly because of what her sitcom “All-American Girl” meant to him. “It sticks in my mind as the transformative power of representation. I remember sitting like ten inches away from the television just enamored and drawn in by the story of a family that looked like me for the first time.” This admiration grew as Booster started learning about stand-up comedy. “She really was the only voice in standup that I remember listening to and feeling seen by and so to have her in this project was a real full circle moment for me in a lot of ways.”
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