In Conversation with Director of ‘Swan Song’, Todd Stephens

Roar writer George Jackson talks to American filmmaker Todd Stephens about his new film, Swan Song.

Swan Song is set in Stephens’ hometown of Sandusky, Ohio, and follows the story of Pat Pitsenbarger (played by Udo Kier), a local hairdresser and openly gay man in the conservative town. The film tells a tale of love, loss and betrayal, whilst painting a poignant portrait of a man who has remained unafraid to be himself, even as he observes gay culture changing before his eyes.

R: Mr. Stephens, it’s a pleasure to be with you today. I saw the screening of Swan Song earlier this week, which was fantastic. You’ve always written and produced films, but I think this is the first film you’ve directed in a while, right?

TS: It’s a long story, but this is the fourth film I’ve officially directed. I haven’t made a film in about 12 years. So it’s kind of like how I was talking to someone earlier about Linda (Evans, who plays Rita Parker Sloan) and how she’s come back to acting again after 25 years. I didn’t know whether I could still do it. (Laughs) But I remember. It kind of all comes back to you.

R: And what was it like returning to directing after that 12 year break, and returning to your hometown of Sandusky as well?

TS: It was amazing. I mean, making films is not like painting or sculpting or something where you can just kind of do it by yourself. It takes a lot of money and organisation. So filmmakers don’t get to do it as much as we’d like to. And after having not done it for so long, I wondered if I could still do what I loved. Because it also takes a lot of guts and courage. And I mean, it’s not like going to war or something, but…

R: Does it feel like that sometimes?

TS: Well in some ways it is (laughs), but it’s mostly like you’re really putting yourself out there. It’s vulnerable. So in a way, the story of Pat having something that he loved that he got disconnected from, like doing hair and creating, and the challenge of whether he could still do it again, or even want to — that’s me, and in a lot of ways I could relate to it. I kind of wrote Swan Song to tell myself that I could still make movies. So there’s a lot of me in the character of Pat.

R: And of course, Pat was one of the first openly gay people you met and knew, having grown up in Sandusky. How did you meet him?

TS: I only really met him a few times; it was more like I observed him from afar. And from when I was a young boy, I would go to that downtown area where the movie is set, which is not far from where I lived. And every once in a while, like a rare treat, you’d spot this person walking around that just looked like an alien, completely different to everybody else. The conservative town is a pretty normal place. But Pat was like, openly queer and openly genderfluid, before genderfluid was even a term. He’d be wearing combinations of men’s and women’s clothes, and women’s cocktail rings, openly on the street. And that really blew my mind, because I felt like I didn’t fit in either. I felt different too. So it gave me a sort of hope that it was okay to be different. And then years later, I went to go to the gay bar in Sandusky for the first time, because we always had a gay bar there. I walked in, and he was one of the first people I saw, so I was like: “Oh, I guess I’m home”. (laughs) Like it all kind of connected. I met him a few times, but I knew his lover David a bit more, who told me that Pat had a lot of health problems; he’d be in and out of the hospital and stuff like that. And David told me all kinds of stories about Pat from back in the day. This was many years ago. Pat died about 10 years ago, and so when I started writing Swan Song, I just wanted to talk to all his family and all his friends that survived that time, and the AIDS plague. And I got so many great stories and details about him. So I took everything I knew about him, and took my own stuff that I was going through, and combined it and turned it into Swan Song.

Image Provided By Chris Lawrance

R: And the people that you approached were quite forthcoming; it seems they were quite open to sharing the stories and helping you build the narrative?

TS: Yeah, they were. I remember his sister, Janie, brought out a shoe box and said “this is all that’s left of Pat”. His rings were in there; unfortunately, Udo’s fingers are too big and couldn’t fit the real Mr. Pat’s rings. But Mr. Pat always wore a gold necklace, which he was actually wearing when he died. And they let us borrow that. So Udo’s always wearing the real Pat’s necklace, which is really cool. And there was a half smoked pack of More cigarettes in there, and his appointment book, from when he was styling hair, and that was about it.

So it’s like his house really was torn down, like in the movie, when he goes back to look for his house and it’s gone. And we shot the film on the actual spot where his house once stood. But he was one of those people that just kind of lost everything, where literally all that’s left of him fits in a shoebox. And so I didn’t want him to be forgotten, you know — I wanted people to remember his legacy. I’m sort of like Michael Urie (who plays Dustin) when he says in the movie: “You know, I never really knew you. But I want you to know, you changed my life.” People sometimes don’t understand what an impact they have on people by being themselves. Sometimes it might save us. I really tried to make Swan Song like a love letter to that, and to my elders and the queer generation that paved the way for what we have now.

R: And of course, the film touches on how the gay community has changed. As with some of your earlier work — Edge of Seventeen, for example — this is set in 1984. And it’s so interesting, because it seems that there’s the loss that Pat has experienced in his own life, but also there’s the contrast between the queer community back then and the younger generation of people in the queer community today. It’s not merely a generation gap, but also sees the decline of the gay bar, and so on, and I think that’s something that the film really captures. Was that something you were trying to explore as well?

TS: Yeah. Over the years, I started noticing that queer safe spaces, queer bars, resorts, that kind of stuff, were starting to disappear. And in a way it’s great, because back, when I grew up, those were the only places you could be yourself safely. In Sandusky, my hometown, you couldn’t hold your boyfriend’s hand in the street or kiss or whatever. Like, there’s no way you could do that. So we had to go to the Universal Fruit and Nut Company, because we all felt like fruits and nuts. (Laughs) That was the only place you could go to be queer. 

And when Eric — my producer — went to start pre-production, Sandusky was in the middle of its third annual gay pride festival on the same street that somebody once called me a faggot. So it’s amazing how things have changed. And it’s amazing that you can openly be yourself on the streets now. It’s certainly not everywhere in America at all, but in a lot of places, it’s gotten a lot better. I guess because you don’t need that safe haven as much there’s less of a demand. I don’t want to generalise but I don’t think there’s as much of a need for it. That, plus the fact that back then, when you wanted to meet somebody, you pretty much had to go to the bar. Even to get laid. Now we can do so many things on the phone. So in a way, it’s amazing that we don’t need those places, because society has come so far, but the loss of it is that there’s a world that we created — a family, a tight-knit community — which is now either gone or melting, assimilating back into society. 

So that kind of sucks, because that family was really great. And that was a place where as a young gay man, I would meet one of the people that told me so many stories about Pat: Harvey, who owned the gay bar. He was one of Pat’s best friends and the real Eunice (played by Ira Hawkins), and they would tell me crazy stories about the olden days. And they told me about things in the history of my hometown that I had no idea of, that went back decades. There was a queer bar there from the 70s onwards, but even before that, there was a bar from the 40s or 50s that wasn’t officially gay, but which was where the gays went. It was really fascinating for me to learn, in my own hometown, that there was this community. Like, we were always there. And so that’s where I learn from people older than me, about what they went through, and even the way they talked. That’s what culture is: traditions, and things being passed from one generation to the next. And what’s sad is that with those communities and spaces gone, younger people don’t have as much of a way to learn from their elders. And I think it’s important to know your history, you know.

Image Provided By Chris Lawrance

R: For sure. And there’s one scene from the film that seems to capture that idea. When Pat’s trying to talk to a guy behind the bar he is friendly, but there’s a generational gap. The guy has a phone, which he’s preoccupied with, while Pat’s there trying to reminisce. I think that part really captures that sense of disconnect. 

TS: Thank you. It was hard because we tried to do that and not have it be over the top. As in: “Oh, here’s this young Gen Z kid who’s an idiot”. And Thom Hilton (who plays Gabriel), he’s such a great actor, but it was really tricky. I remember auditioning people for that part. And I felt like it was a lot more complicated than it seemed to those auditioning. But I think that that character ultimately kind of learns a little something — he kind of starts to get it by the end of the film.

R: It’s nice, because when you have someone from an older generation coming along to these spaces, eventually you do have that connection, and the culture is somewhat passed down, as you mentioned. And of course, Udo is playing Pat. How did you guys meet? How did you decide he was the one for the role?

TS: He wasn’t my original choice. We’d been trying to cast the movie for years. It was a hard part to cast, trying to find somebody who can be flamboyant but not over the top, or pushing it. “Acting gay”—I hate that. And so, one day one of my casting directors, Lena Todd, said: “I just came back from the Berlin Film Festival and I met Pat. I met Pat”. And I said: “Who?” And she goes: “Udo Kier”. And I’m like, “What? Like the German villain guy… Like, the guy from Dracula? (Laughs) And the guy from My Own Private Idaho that hires Phoenix and Keanu Reeves and takes them to the hotel room?” But then I really started looking into his work. And I knew his stuff, but could he carry a movie? Because he’s usually in shorter parts. Can this person carry a film? Does he have another side of him that we’ve never seen before? When watching him in films, you can’t take your eyes off of him, so I knew that he would be captivating. 

I went to meet him in Palm Springs where he lives. And when I met him he introduced me to his dog, Liza Minnelli, and he’s got all these Andy Warhol’s, and Keith Harings, and he’s a gardener… He’s not Pat, but he’s much more toward Pat than the parts he’s played in movies, and he has a warmth. And I just knew that he was the one. So he helped me do a Kickstarter campaign to fund the film. And I’d known him a year by the time we shot the movie, and we had talked about the character so much and spent time together. So that trust that we had really came through, and it was really important. It was really important for me to have a queer actor play this role, and all the other queer parts are played by queer actors in this film. And I don’t really believe that it needs to be a rule, but it was the right thing for this film.

R: Sure. 

TS: Now I can’t imagine anybody else but Udo playing Pat. Udo owns it like he is Pat, and he’s just so brilliant. Nobody else could have done it in the same way. And to pull it off wearing that ridiculous mint green suit. He owns it; you just believe it 100%.

R: So he really came into his own with it. 

TS: Yeah, definitely. 

Image Provided By Chris Lawrance

R: You mentioned Udo was helping you raise funds for the film, and so on. Making a film has always been costly, and raising funds is no easy task. What advice can you offer young filmmakers who are trying to break into the industry?

TS: I think the biggest thing is to write a great script, with great characters that people will want to play. Even if you’ve never done it before, a unique part that an actor would really love to sink their teeth into is a powerful thing. You’d be surprised how far you can get with that. So it all goes back to the script, telling a story that has never been told in quite that way. Something that’s like the right story for the moment — maybe it has some edge to it, or something provocative or interesting. You need to have a fresh take on something or have a fresh voice. But in terms of trying to get it made: if you have a really good script, you then try to get actors attached to it. Once actors are attached, that helps you raise the money. Not that every film needs name actors. In my first film, except for Lea DeLaria, everybody was new, and there’s something fresh and great about that, too.

My other advice is to just start doing it. You get the script and you’re like: “Okay, we’re gonna make this”. I mean, I’ve never had all the money together before I started shooting. And I’m not totally proud of that. But once you start, there’s momentum. And the universe kind of conspires to assist you. So you have to just jump. 

R: Just need to take the plunge.

TS: Yeah, that’s part of it, too. If you wait for the perfect moment when all the money’s perfectly in the bank and everything’s perfect before you start, you’ll be sitting there for the rest of your life.

R: And maybe when you know that you don’t have the full budget yet you become more creative and more resourceful with it. Is that fair to say?

TS: Yeah, that’s true. The thing that stinks is I’ve done movies where I’ve called my mother and saying: “Mom, is there any way you could loan me $5,000?” — Another Gay Movie was one. My parents aren’t rich at all, but we ran out of money to shoot the last day… (Laughs) But we got it done.

R: So what’s next?

TS: My writing partner Eric and I are developing a TV show called Flamingos, which is set in a gay retirement home in Florida. It examines a lot of the same themes and questions of Swan Song, like the intergenerational disconnect, and the question of whether gay safe spaces are still needed. So it’s a similar dramedy kind of vibe. We wrote a big part for Jennifer Coolidge. So we’ll see.

R: Mr Stephens, thank you for your time.

“Swan Song” will be in cinemas across the UK from 10th June.