In the summer of 2015, comedians and friends Joel Kim Booster and Bowen Yang went to Fire Island, the gay mecca off Long Island, New York coast. The long journey to get “Fire Island” on the screen started with some holiday reading. Booster brought a copy of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” to read during the trip.
“As I was reading it on the island, I noticed that Austen’s observations about class and the way people interact across class boundaries felt forward-looking and topical to me, especially in the setting we found,” Booster said interview.
Austen’s characters are often subtle and petty in their cruelty “in a way that allows them to deny just how cruel they are,” he said. “I think it is very topical. I mean, it’s shade, you know?’
Once Booster saw the parallels between the rigid social dynamics and unspoken rules Austen critiques in her novels and the novels set on Fire Island every summer, he couldn’t help but notice them. That became the basis for ‘Fire Island’, which Booster wrote and stars as Noah, a character inspired by Elizabeth Bennet from Austen.
Noah is also the film’s narrator, leading the audience through the island’s social scene, which is rife with classism and racism. As he explains at a party at the film’s beginning: “Many people think that you must be successful, white and rich, with 7% body fat, to vacation on Fire Island. Those people are all at this party.”
“Fire Island,” which premieres Friday on Hulu, continues the great tradition of films cleverly remixing Austen tropes into modern retellings, such as “Bridget Jones’ Diary” and “Clueless.” The latter was a north star for Booster when writing “Fire Island”.
At the same time, the film is breaking new ground. Released just in time for Pride Month, “Fire Island” is a rom-com featuring four queer Asian-American stars: Booster and Yang as best friends Noah and Howie, Conrad Ricamora as Noah’s Mr. Darcy-esque love interest Will, and Margaret Cho as Erin, who serves as the matriarch of Noah, Howie, and their friends.
Erin struggles and is about to lose her humble home, where Noah and Howie’s friends stay every summer. On the other hand, Will and his mostly white, financial bro friends have much nicer digs.
Margaret Cho, Tomás Matos, Bowen Yang, Joel Kim Booster, and Matt Rogers in ‘Fire Island’.
Jeong Park/Searchlight Photos
The film’s release marks the beginning of a big June for Booster, who joked, “It’s going to be Joel’s month. If I make it to the end of the month, if I survive, it will be a miracle.”
He also stars in the new Apple TV+ comedy series “Loot,” which premieres June 24 and is created by TV comedy veterans Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard. That same week, on June 21, Netflix will release “Joel Kim Booster: Psychosexual,” its first filmed stand-up special since 2017. Maya Rudolph stars as the ex-wife of a tech CEO. She spends her huge fortune on charitable causes (à la MacKenzie Scott). Booster plays her loyal and long-suffering assistant, who helps her navigate her new lifestyle and redefine her public image.
“One of the reasons I think I waited so long to do another special was that stand-up specials are tricky for me because I didn’t want it just to be my three-camera show,” he said. . † Instead, he wanted to try to “make it feel almost like a meta-commentary on the idea of doing a stand-up special,” such as showing off his interactions with the audience and talking directly to the camera crew. “I didn’t want to pretend the cameras weren’t there.”
“It could work. It could well be a huge bust,” said Booster. “But I think comedy specials, for me anyway, are the perfect place to experiment with things that aren’t just your regular show.”
Bowen Yang and Joel Kim Booster in ‘Fire Island’.
Jeong Park/Searchlight Photos
“Fire Island” also started a bit experimental in some ways. Initially, the idea was a running joke. Each time Booster and his friends returned to Fire Island, he continued to notice the parallels between the social mores on the island and those of Austen’s world.
“I kept jokingly saying, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be funny if I wrote a ‘Pride and Prejudice adaptation that took place on Fire Island?’” Booster said. “And everyone said, ‘That sounds stupid.’ And I thought, ‘Yeah, but like, it would be funny, right?’”
A few years later, Penguin Random House asked him to write an essay on Austen’s staying power, in which he wrote about the observations he had collected on Fire Island. When Booster was between a few stalled projects, his agent suggested writing a movie or TV show based on the essay. Booster initially bubbled over at the idea, thinking he would be “dragged so hard for writing ‘Gay Pride and Prejudice'”—The pilot script.
No one was interested except Quibi. (RIP, Quibi.) at the time, he starred in the sadly short-lived NBC sitcom “Sunnyside,” According to Booster; his contract stated that he couldn’t do any other TV work. But because Quibi “was technically not TV, technically, it wasn’t a movie. There was a lot of a gray area regarding my contract with NBC,” Booster said. “So we went with Quibi, and the rest is history.”
In 2021, Searchlight Pictures bought the project, and it was reborn as a feature film, with Andrew Ahn on board as director. Ahn, who is gay and Korean-American like Booster, loved that Booster’s script was about queer joy and friendship.
“I wanted to make something that showcased the experience of being gay and Asian-American and silly with your best friend group,” Ahn said, noting that he had already “made my sad gay Asian-American movie” with his directorial debut “Spa Night.”
“It’s something I’ve done before, and I think it’s really valuable, and I’ll probably do it again because it’s important to recognize the difficulties. With “Fire Island,” that’s part of the movie,” Ahn said. “But the main focus is the joy. And that’s so valuable to me, too, so I’m glad I got this chance to focus on that.”
Director Andrew Ahn and writer and star Joel Kim Booster on the ‘Fire Island’ set.
Jeong Park/Searchlight Photos
In developing the look and feel of “Fire Island,” Ahn turned to great friend stories and comedies that combine humor with “a lot of heart and humanity,” including “The Wedding Banquet,” “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion,” and ‘Broad City’.
While Booster and Ahn tried to create something new and unique, it’s impossible not to be inspired by the many Austen adaptations and modern retellings. “The source material is so good, and the adaptations are so good. It would be foolish of us to throw that out the window and try to create something from scratch,” Ahn said.
In the all-important debate over the two most famous “Pride and Prejudice” film adaptations, Booster said he’s a “BBC miniseries loyalist,” referring to the 1995 Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle version. Ahn prefers—The 2005 film adaptation starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, directed by Joe Wright. The latter was particularly influential in creating the will-they-don’t-want-them tension between Noah and Will.
For example, another parallel between Austen’s world and the island’s social scene is that “the big marquee moments happen at parties,” Booster said. The “Fire Island” version of Austen’s Netherfield Ball is the film reproduction of the island’s famous underwear party, where Noah and Will dance together and get closer and closer.
Booster wrote the scene after he and Ahn recalled a moment from Wright’s adaptation “when Darcy helps Elizabeth into a carriage, and it’s very subtle.” They touch hands. But it’s this moment of so much electricity,” Booster said. “And it’s so clear that despite what they might think about each other, there’s an undeniable chemistry between these two people and an undeniable attraction.”
Noah and Will also needed that moment when they “feel a certain chemistry, even if they don’t quite understand it,” Ahn said.
Conrad Ricamora and Joel Kim Booster in ‘Fire Island’.
Jeong Park/Searchlight Photos
In addition to Austen tropics, “Fire Island” also cleverly refers to classic rom-com tropics. There is the storyline of enemies for lovers. There are meet-cutes and pratfalls. Someone will write a letter. Someone will try a grand (and possibly colossally stupid) romantic gesture. There may be some kissing in the rain. As Booster said, there’s something classic about “the juxtaposition of feeling miserable but still feeling sexy.”
“I grew up and still worship at the altar of Nora Ephron. I like classic rom-coms; I grew up watching them,” Booster said. “They completely colonized my brain in a very specific way that made dating and falling in love very difficult because I had such high expectations of what that should look like and how that should feel.”
In “Fire Island,” Howie embodies that conflict and tries to fight his idealized rom-com impulses about love – but eventually gives in. In contrast, Noah, a bit more cynical and pragmatic, represents “the more grounded side of myself,” Booster said. “It’s like, ‘Where is this going? What are we doing?’ And the magic of Fire Island dominates those more logical impulses in character.”
Howie gets its classic rom-com ending, while Booster wanted Noah and Will’s budding romance to end with more ambiguity. The two living in different cities must now figure out how to make their relationship work.
Ironically, as with the idea for the movie, real life intervened. Booster changed the ending after, like Noah, he met his now-boyfriend while on vacation. “I thought it was a more honest way to end with the ambiguity of ‘What’s next?'” he said.
Giving its characters the best of both worlds, “Fire Island” nods to the neat and punchy endings of Austen novels, which usually end with happily ever after, and conventional rom-coms, which often conclude that way too. However, it also recognizes that real life is more complicated. Magical holidays have to combe plete, but they can also be a new beginning.
“Fire Island” premieres Friday on Hulu.
