By Ruth Young

I love watching television and I am always fascinated by the way creators are able to weave stories together to create a visual representation of a slice of life (even if that life is one that doesn’t necessarily reflect mine). But one thing that I don’t often get to do is hear from the creators directly about all the work that goes into building a show. So, when I got the opportunity to speak to Jonathan Lawrence, the writer, director and star of the new CBC Gem original series Alter Boys, as well as the show’s producer Ryan Cooper, I was excited to ask about what inspired this story, how they worked together to tell it and their hopes for the show.

Alter Boys is six-part drama series that follows a group of young men after they’re rescued from a forest fire that tore through an isolated conversion therapy camp. In each episode, this group of young men reflect back on the summer’s haunting interplay of anguish, and the love, friendship and community that rose up against it. Read on for our conversation about the themes it tackles, the importance of queer storytelling and their all-time favourite sccene. — Ruth Young

Jonathan, I know that this series was based off your short film of the same name. What was your inspiration for the film?

Jonathan Lawrence: My initial inspiration for the short film, which is very much echoed in the series as well, really stemmed from the dichotomy of beauty and adversity that I have found as a queer man in the world. The story was a great opportunity to explore and showcase nuances of queerness that I felt were absent or very limited in the media and out in the world. We’re really creating what I didn't see in the world, essentially. [Ryan and I have] spoken about this before—the idea that we’re creating content that we needed when we were that age. And, there was an opportunity here, I thought, to expand the scope of queer friendship and love and intimacy and affection, while still diving into the threats to community. The short film was a great stepping stone to the series, because it allowed us to start exploring this world, these relationships and this language while we were garnering larger resources and more research and just expanding on the story at large. It was a great way to get something out into the world and to share that and to get, I think, an audience engaged with the material, while we [were building] this larger story, and that felt really important.

Was there a specific reason you wanted to return to this subject matter for TV?

Lawrence: The short film was great to explore, but I always knew that there was so much more to traverse with the story that the short film just didn't allow us to expand on the way we wanted to. As a series, it could be atmospheric, contemplative and feel like it had some softness, while also feeling like there was urgency that could unravel one episode to the next.

Watching the first three episodes of the show, the bits that stood out to me the most were those very soft, tender moments between some of the characters, even as they were living in a hellish environment, or later recovering from the fire. You really see that beauty and adversity play off each other.

Lawrence: I'm glad that that lands. There's such a backdrop of grit to the story, so we really wanted those relationships, and those types of softness, that contemplative atmosphere, to really take the reigns and give you that opportunity to exhale through everything else that's going on.

This was your first project working together; what was that like?

Ryan Cooper: I was a fan of Jon’s work for a long time before we started working together. His short film Blackout really piqued my interest. I was like, '“I need to work with this person, immediately.” We ran into each other at the Indigenous Film Summit two years later, then we met up again and that's where I said, “I'd love to work with you.” He told me about this idea and I was hooked immediately because there was nothing really like it in the world, so I wanted to be a part of that if he would allow me to. When I found out that we were from the same community—Peguis First Nation—it blew my mind. I was like, how did we not know each other? It was just a great moment.

Lawrence: I had the short film under my belt already, so there was a platform that we could build from there. Then, as we started conducting research and talking about that story, we had some conversations about what we would want to see out of queer content, what we didn't really have growing up and what we were wanting to put out into the world. When we were put into the CFC Netflix accelerator program, we were also paired with a really, really wonderful creative mentor, Al Magee, who worked with us continually and who stayed on as an executive producer for this series. He [helped] us to communicate what we thought should be in there, which was really quite wonderful to have.

Speaking of storytelling, what pushes you to tell the stories that you do?

Lawrence: As an artist, I like to look at darkness and be like, “Where is the beauty in that?” And I think that funnels a lot of the content that I've created thus far. There might be an expectation that Alter Boys lands in the arena of doom and gloom—and I think there's a respect, care and sensitivity to the very real and dangerous practice that we do funnel the story through—but ultimately, there's a companion to that darkness. These young, charismatic characters are just full of life and wit, and they really anchor that story, [provide] lightness and display that hope and love, which really shines as the soul of the series.

Why did you choose to anchor a lot of the darkness in this series around conversion therapy?

Lawrence: When I first started talking about conversion therapy, there was a lack of awareness around it, so this was just a great opportunity to shine a light on that. But what the series also does is use that backdrop of conversion therapy as a catalyst to explore the adversity that I have felt in my day-to-day life as a queer man, and the thoughts that have isolated and trapped me. So, it became that amalgamation of something that I have researched but have not experienced, and the adversity that I actually have experienced.

The show includes a lot of secrecy and hiding; why did you want to explore those themes?

Lawrence: Hiding is such a prevalent theme for a lot of queer experiences and people. You always hope that will culminate in some wonderful form of convergence and acceptance, but for myself, experiencing that adversity was a very isolating experience, even though I wasn’t alone. It was very difficult. And, apart from being quite cruel, it was quite relentless—It felt very imprisoning in the sense that there really wasn’t any way out of it. I think one of the survival tactics that we tend to lean into is to go unnoticed and that's tough thing to navigate. It’s a tough thing to [live] under that veil, and not shine in the way that you want to. So that story is very much something that I can relate to, and I’ve seen in my close sphere of friends. That theme has such resonance within the community and that's why we see it rooted in this story.

Are there any characters that you particularly relate to, or who share some of your characteristics?

Cooper: The character that I most connected with, believe it or not, was Lucas, [the antagonist in the show]. I was a hockey player, so growing up in a really masculine environment, living in rural Manitoba—I really connected with that character. But he was a really hard character for me to watch because he reminded me so much of my younger self, who was trying not to be the person that I was because of the environment that I was living in. I really felt for Lucas for the self-hatred that he was feeling and the denial of who he really was. I also connect with Scotty’s character, because of how he wants to protect the community. After I came out, I wanted to protect all of my younger cousins who were queer or two-spirit, and now, I have a sister who is trans and I protect her as well. Those are the characters that I feel I connect with the most, for different reasons—Lucas for my young years and Scotty for who I am now.

Do either of you have a favourite moment or scene?

Cooper: I do! It was the drag show scene. I think that's the scene that I think is the most fun to watch, but also to shoot. What I loved about shooting was that the crew, the actors, everybody felt like a family. It was just such an amazing experience to be a part of. It shows community in that scene really, really, really well. It was just a joyful moment to see.

Lawrence: That really is a special scene within the project. I remember it took a minute to get everything ready. I was with the actors walking to set, and when we opened the door for the first time so they could finally see the set that was curated by our wonderful set production team, they just had this wonderfully loud response that was just so excited and full of wonder. It felt like a true moment of magic on set. What's wonderful about that question is that there's so much to reflect on and sift through; there's a lot of riches in the experience of making this project, which makes that question both wonderful and difficult to answer.

Why was it important for you to make Alter Boys, and more broadly, what do you think the future of queer content will look like?

Lawrence: There's so much more content out there now than there has been in the past I think we are definitely new types of stories. But I feel like in general, new queer content [still] doesn't really have the scope that we would love it to have.

Cooper: I agree, 100%. I’m 40 now and I feel like queer content only started to gain mainstream acceptance within the last 10 years. It’s all so new, especially to people who are not queer. So, I'm excited for people to get a glimpse of queer life via mine and Jonathan’s storytelling. But as a queer man, I lived my life in this hidden world for a long time because I wasn’t accepted for who I was. So, I hope that queer content becomes more available within the coming years, because it's not just about who we are. That's a big part of it, for sure. But it's also just showing real humans trying to navigate something that's really, really hard.

Human experience is something that anybody can connect to. When you're watching shows like this, you may not necessarily have lived the same way, but you've totally felt all those feelings.

Lawrence: I definitely hope that we can reach a wide audience in that respect, because there are some really universal elements around identity and community [in the show].

What do you hope viewers will take away from Alter Boys?

Lawrence: I think it's important not to shy away from the adversity that is out there, because it is out there, and I hope that it will [inspire] compassion and an expansion of minds. But I think what's most important is to take strength and empowerment from your community and chosen family, and to stake claim to your place in the world, even in the face of that adversity. I also hope that it becomes a catalyst for somebody who can see themselves in these characters, and [helps them see] that there is a world out there ready to accept when they are [ready to accept themselves]. I think it's so easy to look at creating content in the context of entertainment, but at its very best, stories like this become a catalyst for conversation and visibility and change. That's really what we hope the series can help do.

What’s next for both of you?

Cooper: Most recently, I've gotten funding for a major film through Telefilm that will be shooting in August called Aberdeen, so I'm excited about that. I actually just found out maybe a week ago that we got financing from Telefilm, so we are fully financed and getting ready to go.

Lawrence: Similar to Ryan, I have a number of projects in various stages of development. I got some development funding last year that I'm hoping to now put to use this year and start working on another feature film of my own. My mind has been so wonderfully wrapped up with this first season of Alter Boys, so now that it's ready to hand over to an audience, I feel like I can lend that headspace now to some of the other ideas and even new ideas that I've had. But I’m very much looking forward to an audience having this project in the immediate.

Check out the first season of Alter Boys on CBC Gem.

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