Producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen Discuss Movies, Gay
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www.ExpressGayNews.com • May 26, 2003 • Q1 CYMK Q_COVERstory Down With Love’s Golden Boys Producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen Discuss Movies, Gay Sensibilities and Where They Keep Their Oscars By Mary Damiano incredibly sexy world that it was set in.” Arts& Entertainment Editor Jinks considers Down With Love a When Miami native Dan Jinks walked musical without the music, and cites the fun onto the stage to accept the Academy Award music video during the credits as one of his for co-producing American Beauty, he favorite parts of the movie. The sequence, paused a moment, looked down at his shoes which pairs Zellweger and McGregor in a and thought, “I’ve got to remember this sophisticated duet, was tacked on the film moment for the rest of my life.” just weeks before its release. Jinks’ producing partner Bruce Cohen While shooting the film last summer, had a similar experience that night. “We had McGregor had the idea to do a song, because been told by a lot of people who’d won that he had sung in Moulin Rouge, and Zellweger the evening was a total blur and they didn’t was about to make her big splash in Chicago. remember anything,” Cohen says. “I was Everyone liked the idea, and they got Marc determined not to let that happen. Every Shaiman and his partner to write a song, single second of that evening is seared into Shaiman’s first song after his score for my brain. If I ever truly lived any experience Hairspray. But McGregor was in Alabama of my life, it was that night.” shooting Big Fish, another Jinks/Cohen With American Beauty, which won many production, and couldn’t get away. Zellweger awards, including being named Best Picture suggested that they go to him, and everyone of 2000, Jinks and Cohen achieved the convened in Atlanta during the last weekend pinnacle of success in the movie industry, in March for the 16-hour shoot. The song the gleaming golden boy named Oscar. was in the can just weeks before the film’s What’s amazing is that the film was the first scheduled release and another magical movie they made after teaming up and starting their moment was born. own company, Jinks/Cohen Company. Their Another nice coup for Down With Love first time up at bat, they hit one right out of was getting Tony Randall, who co-starred with the park. Rock and Doris, to do a small role in the film. The partners are poised to do the same “One of the great days on the set was the day with their second film, Down With Love, a that Tony Randall worked on the film,” Cohen frothy, witty, sexy homage to the romantic says. “He’s such a living legend. In the comedies of Doris Day and Rock Hudson. afternoon, he gave up to us what we knew he Down With Love stars Renee Zellweger and wanted, and gathered us all around and told Ewan McGregor in a battle of the sexes-style us stories about what he remembered about romp through 1962 Manhattan. The film is being on the set with Rock and Doris—spicy Down with Love’s producers delightfully retro, and seems a perfect re- stories about little dirty things that happened.” Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks creation of a Doris and Rock picture, though Both Jinks and Cohen agree that one Cohen believes Down With Love is truer to reason they work so well together is that they one’s memory than the actual movies it each have experience in different facets of salutes. “One of the things we noticed [about movie-making. Jinks comes from a the old movies] is that they’re not quite as development background, producing The bright and colorful as we remember them to Bone Collector and being involved with the be,” Cohen says. “One of the things we productions of Carlito’s Way, The Shadow wanted to do with Down With Love is to make and Matilda. Cohen was an assistant a film like your memory of those old films, director, and in-house producer for Amblin, and not necessarily the way they were.” Steven Spielberg’s company. Cohen has Cohen discovered another layer to films produced The Flintstones and its sequel, The like Pillow Talk that one could only get in Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. He began hindsight. “What’s so funny to watch is that his film career as a Director’s Guild trainee on Rock Hudson plays one of the straightest The Color Purple, and also worked on Hook characters ever in film and turned out to be and Arachnophobia. gay, and Tony Randall played one of the “We complement each other really well,” gayest characters ever in film and turned out Jinks says. “I’d worked for a couple to be straight,” he says. producers, and a lot of my job was finding Down With Love is as gay as a film can screenplays, working very closely with be without actually being about anything gay, writers, and I had very strong agent a description that Jinks and Cohen, who are relationships. Bruce had grown up on the both out, take as a compliment. “Without set—he’d been an assistant director, and a sounding stereotypical, I think that gay really good one. We thought with that humor is often very smart and very combination, we’d be stronger together than sophisticated,” Jinks says. “Down With Love either one of us would be separately.” is a very fun and very playful movie. Their next film, Big Fish, stars Albert Somebody said to me recently that this is the Finney, Jessica Lange, Ewan McGregor, gayest movie made by a studio in years.” Helena Bonham Carter, Danny DeVito and “We were going for a film that was a Steve Buscemi and is the story of how a son little over the top, that would be outrageously learns to appreciate his father. entertaining, so colorful, that would be so But for now, there’s Down With Love. sophisticated, and to me, that’s all gay And whether or not lightning strikes twice, sensibility,” Cohen says. “The gay movie- Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen will always be going audiences do like their gay movies. known as Oscar winners. They support the gay film festivals, and they “One of the wonderful things about an support the gay independent movies, but Academy Award is that it really is for the rest primarily, the gay audience in America loves of your life,” Cohen says. While Jinks keeps to see the big Hollywood movies.” his Oscar on a shelf in the corner of his office, Jinks and Cohen were already thinking Cohen’s sits on a bureau in his bedroom. about making a romantic comedy when the “He was in the living room for the first year, screenplay for Down With Love landed in but then he asked to be moved to a less their laps. “Most romantic comedies are so public place,” Cohen says. “There will be formulaic, you know every single thing that’s days when I’m going about my life, and I going to happen before it happens,” Jinks don’t really see him, and then one day I’ll be says. “We read the screenplay for Down With on my way to the bathroom and I’ll catch his Love, and it was so full of surprises and eye, and I’ll think, ‘Holy shit, there’s an Oscar hilariously funny, and we loved the colorful, in my bedroom!’” Q2 • www.ExpressGayNews.com • May 26, 2003 CYMK www.ExpressGayNews.com • May 26, 2003 • Q3 CYMK Need_Wood? 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