Just One Time With Guillermo Diaz. (Please?)
Interview by Steve Pride
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Guillermo Diaz is the boy next door -- an unassuming guy you can imagine
hanging out with on a lazy Saturday afternoon. But finding free time in
his schedule might be a problem, given that this 29-year-old baby-faced
Hispanic hunk is one of the busiest gay actors in the indie film world.
Luckily for me, on this particular Saturday afternoon he found time to
not only hang out, but sip cappuccino and talk about life.
"I always wanted to be a veterinarian when I was growing up, but in high
school I won a talent contest, and from that point on I was addicted to
acting," says Diaz (as I fall headfirst into his dark brown eyes). He
goes on to explain that small roles followed in plays and student films,
and that in between gigs he worked in a restaurant.
Diaz's big break came in 1994, when he was cast in Party Girl as Leo, the
rookie club DJ whose carefully organized record collection is subjected
to Parker Posey's Dewey decimal system makeover.
"The next year," Diaz explains, "they asked me to do the TV sitcom
version of the film. I said I would do it if Parker would, but she
didn't want to, so ... I didn't. We were also going to reshoot scenes
from the film, and that was too weird. But now, looking back, it was
canceled after like two weeks, so I could have made a lot of money and
no one would have ever seen it."
In his next film role Diaz scored wide critical acclaim for his
performance as La Miranda, the drag-queen narrator of Stonewall, a film about
the real-life 1969 riot at the Stonewall bar in New York.
"There was literally no preparation at all," confides Diaz. "I went in
to read for the part with a five o'clock shadow, thinking I wasn't going
to get the role. But I got called back the next day, and the day after
that they called again and said I had the part. We only had two weeks,
so we didn't rehearse at all. We had a read-through of the script a
couple of days before. There were no film tests on how they were going
to dress me, so I was really afraid I'd be ugly. I went on set the first
day, they put me in make-up, slapped a wig on my head, and that was the
first time anybody saw me as La Miranda. It happened so fast. Oh, and
guess what? Before I started shooting I broke my hand, so I had to get a
removable cast that I could take off during scenes. It was the most
grueling shoot ever. Also I wasn't really out then, so doing press
afterwards was awkward." He says with a grin, "The film was called
Stonewall and I played a drag queen. Like, the question had to
come up."
Since Stonewall, Guillermo Diaz has appeared in 12 other films,
including Gregg Araki's nihilistic Nowhere, Brian Sloan's gay
romantic comedy I Think I
Do, and the starladen 200 Cigarettes.
One of his latest efforts, just now hitting the big screen is Lane
Janger's Just One
Time, a feature based on Janger's short film. Diaz costarred in
both versions, and in a case of odd timing, the short film Just One
Time is being released as a part of Boys Life 3, just as the
feature-film version is reaching theaters. Both versions deal with a
straight man obsessed with the idea of seeing his fiancee have sex
another woman, a wish that produces an unexpected consequence. I was
curious about how Diaz got involved with Just One Time, both the
long and short of it.
"Lane Janger wrote the short film with me in mind, so he called me
about it and gave me the script. We literally shot it in just three
days, about a month after he first showed me the script. After the
short was done, he took it to Sundance and people were interested. So
he got backing to do it as a feature, wrote the feature-length script,
and we did it a few months after that. Slam bam."
I confess to Diaz that when I met Lane Janger, the writer, director, and
star of Just One Time, I had assumed he was as heterosexual as his
character in the film.
"You thought Lane was straight? Oh-my-gawd," exclaims Diaz. "He's so
not, but I can see why people would assume that. He's great, though. He
was the producer of I Think I Do, and I can't imagine being in
his position on Just One Time. He wore so many hats that
obviously he was kind of stressed during the shoot, but he still made it
a lot of fun. Also, since he was an actor himself, he really knew how to
work with the cast."
At this point I notice a bit of cappuccino foam clinging to Diaz's upper
lip, and it is so endearing that I vow to rip down my shrine to Rupert
Everett and wallpaper my house with 8x10s of him the second
I get home. So what sort of feedback does Guillermo get from his less
obsessive fans?
"Everybody is just really loving. I'm always shocked and surprised that
so many people have seen some of the films that I've done. Because when
they come out in the theaters they are not blockbusters, and you kind of
think they come and go, but they really get an audience. When they come
out on video especially. I think video is a great thing for independent
films. Party Girl did horrible at the box office and got really
bad reviews. But on video it's become almost a cult film. It's actually
the film people recognize me from the most. But it's really great to be
recognized. The fans are awesome."
His next film, Shooting Vegetarians with Didi Conn, is just
starting to make the festival rounds. According to Guillermo, "It's
about this punk-rock vegetarian who kills his father, chops him up, and
sells the meat in his butcher shop." Of course this reminds us both that
it's getting late and almost time for dinner, so I ask if he has any
parting words of wisdom. Diaz flashes a huge smile and says, "Love who
you love."
And so I shall.
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