Earlier this year, the Universal-backed Brittle hoped to go where no majorstudio comedy had gone before by becoming the first LGBTQ rom-com starring twoout gay actors — Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane — to top the box officecharts. Despite critical acclaim and sold-out screenings at the TorontoInternational Film Festival, though, the movie had to settle for fourth placeduring its opening weekend and a cumulative gross just shy of $15 million.
Eichner — who also wrote the movie — didn’t shy away from expressing hisdisappointment in interviews and on social media. In a since-deleted Twitterpost, he suggested that “straight people… just didn’t show up for Brittle ,”potentially contributing to the film’s financial woes. (Some conservativecommentators made similar arguments after Walt Disney’s new animatedadventure, Strange World — which featured out gay comedian, Jaboukie Young-White, as the company’s first out gay teenager — underperformed in its openingweekend, reportedly costing Disney upwards of $100 million.)
Flash-forward a few months, and Universal’s specialty label, Focus Features,is releasing its own LGBTQ love story with out gay actors front and center:Spoiler alert produced by and starring former Big Bang Theory star JimParsons. Based on the memoir by TV journalist, Michael Ausiello, the moviestrikes a very different tone than the proudly raunchy R-rated Brittle_recounting the story of Ausiello’s romance with his husband, Kit Cowan (playedby Ben Aldridge), from their first meet-cute in 2002 to Cowan’s death fromcancer in 2015. It’s a sweet, funny and sad love story in the tradition ofpast heteronormative hits like… well, _Love Story — with a dash of Termsof Endearment __ thrown in via the presence of Kit’s loving parents, playedby Bill Irwin and Sally Field.
Asked whether he’s concerned about Spoiler alert meeting the same fate as_Brittle_ as it launches in theaters, Parsons is understandably hesitant tosee both films as part of some larger trend about the kinds of LGBTQ-themedstories that mainstream audiences will or won’t go see.
Story continues
“I sure hope [they see it] for the sake of the film,” he tells YahooEntertainment. “But there are so many factors involved with why people go tosee something or don’t. I’d have no confidence pinning the sexual orientationof the characters on the success or failure of it. It’s a mystery why peopleturn out for things or don’t a lot of the time; I don’t know that thehomosexual aspect of it has very much to do with it or not.”
For his part, Parsons says he was specifically drawn to _Spoiler alert_because it afforded him the opportunity to portray one-half of a gay couplethat _doesn ‘t _get to live out a picture-perfect “happily every after” story.Even before Kit’s cancer diagnosis, he and Michael have a sometime-tumultuousromance that includes secret affairs and even separate living arrangements.
“It shows a very realistic view of what it is to live a life together,” notesthe Emmy-winning actor, who married his longtime partner, Todd Spiewak, in2017. “I feel like I’ve spent so much of my life seeing movies that depictthat, but they’re not normally about a gay couple. Both as a viewer — butespecially as an actor — the chance to be a part of these scenes with thesesubtle complications at times was really rewarding.”
“And to go through that experience with Ben, another gay actor, was even moreof a profound experience that I expected it to be,” Parsons continues. “I’mvery happy that at the heart of this film is a relationship that spans a longtime and does go through so many machinations.”
Aldridge and Parsons in a scene from Spoiler alert. (Photo: ©FocusFeatures/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Parsons also has experience grieving the loss of a loved one that he was ableto draw on for the more tragic parts of Michael’s story. (Besides losing Kit,Ausiello’s mother and father both died while he was still a child.) In 2001,the actor’s father died suddenly in a car crash and that experience shaped hisinterest in stories that wrestle directly with mortality.
“I do have that realization that eventually we will all be gone,” he muses.”Part of that is just who I am, but I do think it’s also affected by havinglost my father at a fairly young age — I was in my twenties when he passed.You can’t help but get a different view of life when you’ve lost people whowere so close to you. Even if you live a long life, you always know that it’sa limited time that you have here.”
Based on his own experience with grief, Parsons says he still makes a point ofreaching out to friends and family members whenever they lose someone. “Iremember the feeling of every person who I saw and connected with or reachedout to me after I lost my dad,” he says. “I could really feel the specificplace in my heart that that person occupied. It wasn’t a wash of friends, andit wasn’t a wash of condolences — it was all very specific. One wouldn’t wantto walk around quite that sensitive all the time, but it was a beautifulsnapshot of a moment where I felt that kind of clarity.”
“The other thing is that don’t let anybody tell you how to grieve,” Parsonsadds. “I say to a lot of people that I shed so many more tears over the deathof my dog than I did over my father! And that’s not a commentary about myfeelings about my father. You just never know until it happens how it’s goingto affect you, and you have to try and make room for that.”
Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Jim Parsons in an episode of The Big BangTheory. (Photo: ©CBS/Courtesy Everett Collection)
meanwhile, Big Bang Theory fans still grieving the end of the hit CBS sitcomwere surprised to learn how Parsons directly impacted the producers’ decisionto wrap the show up after its twelfth season in 2019. Jessica Radloff’s recentoral history, The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the EpicHit recounted how things went down behind the scenes, including the fact thatParsons’s choice to step away from the show apparently “blindsided” his co-stars, Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco.
“We cried for hours,” Cuoco said in the book about the fateful meeting whereParsons announced his departure, and the producers subsequently announced theend of the show. “We thought we were going to do another year, so all of asudden your life kind of flashes before your eyes.” Added Galecki: “I justdisagreed with how it was handled. We thought we were going into Chuck’soffice to talk about renegotiating, and then Chuck tossed the baton to Jim.And Jim was shocked and obviously caught off guard.”
Reflecting on the bumpy circumstances surrounding his departure now, Parsonssays he “feels OK” about how he navigated his decision to leave the series.”It’s never nice to hear that you’ve done anything that’s even accidentallymade somebody angry or feel bad,” he notes about his co-star’s remarks inRadloff’s book. “But I was doing what I had to do, and that was the best wayfor me to handle it. To be honest, we weren’t the kind of group that I feltneeded to have a group meeting in that way.”
Parsons also reiterates that he had no idea at the time that his choice wouldresult in the show wrapping up. “I can’t say I was surprised, but I equallywouldn’t have been surprised if it had gone on,” he admits. “There was part ofme that had a sense of delight that it might go on without me! But that isn’twhat happened.”
Spoiler alert is playing in theaters now