November 25, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Brownie Harris/Amazon Studios(LONDON) — There’s a real and emotional reason why Paul Bettany felt such a deep and personal connection to the character he plays in Uncle Frank, which is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.

The movie, which takes place in the 1970s, follows Bettany’s character, a gay man who lives two lives.  He is out and proud in New York where he lives and works, but when it comes to his family in South Carolina — he is still very much in the closet.

That balancing act is challenged when Frank has to return to his hometown to attend his father’s funeral. 

Marvel movie star Bettany, who is married to actress Jennifer Connelly, revealed to ABC Audio why this role meant so much to him.

“I was raised by a closeted gay father who came out at 63…much to the relief of everybody in the family,” the BAFTA winner said.  “He then had a 20 year relationship with a man called Andy.”

When Andy died, Bettany said his father “went back into the closet” and “was unable to mourn the person who, I think, was the love of his life.”

Playing Frank, a beloved professor at NYU struggling to decide whether or not to come out to his family, made him think about how different his father’s life would have been had he stayed out and “shed the shame that he was holding onto regarding his sexuality.”

Moreover, Uncle Frank not only made him reflect on his father, but what purpose his movie serves.

Bettany says this film should be seen by “anybody who feels that there’s somehow unable to live their life authentically because it’s sort of exterior pressures.”

“It a film about acceptance,” the A Beautiful Mind star added. “[It’s about] his acceptance for who he is, and also his family’s acceptance.” 

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 25, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Courtesy Sony Pictures(LOS ANGELES) — The Sony Pictures holiday romantic comedy Happiest Season is now streaming on Hulu. The film stars Kristen Stewart as Abby, who plans to propose to her girlfriend, Harper, played by Mackenzie Davis, during a trip home over the holidays. But things get complicated when Harper confesses she never came out to her conservative parents. 

Stewart, who is bisexual, tells ABC Audio she relished the chance to tell this heartwarming — and very funny — take on the typical holiday movie, which was co-written by real-life partners Mary Holland, who also co-stars, and director Clea Duvall.

“It’s such an exciting prospect, a gay Christmas rom com backed by Sony, no less,” Stewart says. “Like it just sounded so kind of new and foreign to me…It felt so lived in and personal and authentic in it, it didn’t feel remotely like tokenized. I was just really excited.”

Stewart explains the movie’s supporting cast, which includes Schitt’s Creek‘s Dan Levy, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza and the scene-stealing Holland, who plays Harper’s oddball sister, Jane, elevated the script. “It was so much fun, honestly, everyone in this movie is so funny that I’ve never laughed so much on a movie set — and I’ve tried to make comedies in the past!” Stewart confesses.

The Happiest Season script, she explains, “was just such a great diving board because it was already funny. And then the people that Clea invited to make it better and make it feel really real and sort of like got it on its feet, like blew me away every day. And it was like at times hard to keep up, hard to stay engaged because I was genuinely entertained.”

By Stephen Iervolino
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.