‘A Family Affair’ Director Richard LaGravenese Says Coming Out Late In Life Helped Him Relate to Nicole Kidman’s Character: “You Have This Second Adulthood”

When director Richard LaGravenese was first sent the script for A Family Affair, he didn’t quite connect with it. Then he came out to everyone in his life as a queer man.

“I couldn’t hide anymore,” LaGravenese told Decider in a recent Zoom interview. “It’s been a remarkable experience, being myself. I used to have to be in a room going, ‘Who am I, in this room?’ I would be able to have this ability to change—to conform—to whoever I needed to be to survive.”

LaGravenese’s new romantic comedy for Netflix—which began streaming on Friday—is, ostensibly, a heterosexual love story. But LaGravenese saw his own coming out journey reflected in Nicole Kidman’s character, Brooke, and her love affair with younger man. Zac Efron stars as a stereotypical, narcissistic, and fictional movie star named Chris Cole, best known for a Transformers-esque action franchise based on the myth of Icarus. Chris’s life changes when falls for the mother (Kidman) of his long-suffering personal assistant, Zara (Joey King)—much to Zara’s chagrin. The script, written by Carrie Solomon in her feature film debut, cleverly weaves together three coming-of-age stories for these three main characters. And the love story spoke to LaGravenese on a deeply personal level.

“They’re not alike at all,” LaGravenese explained. “He’s younger, and he’s a movie star, and he’s self-absorbed. And yet, there’s this spark and this chemistry. It awakened something in her. She feels awake and alive, in some way. That’s so valuable, in this second adulthood. And that’s kind of how I feel.”

The director—who is now 64, and known for writing the Oscar-nominated 1991 comedy The Fisher King, as well as writing and directing films like Living Out Loud, Paris, Je T’aime, P.S. I Love You—spoke to Decider about his long journey to coming out, the cultural wave of “May December ” romances, and his upcoming Jon-Benet Ramsey series.

In another interview, you said you felt like you related to Nicole Kidman’s journey in this movie, as someone who came out later in life. Could you say more on that?

Richard LaGravanese: In coming out later in life, it activated this idea that has been out before. Gail Sheehy, in her book Passages, called it “the second adulthood.” It’s this opportunity at our age—50s, 60s—when you’ve built a life, and you have fulfilled a lot of your expectations and other people’s expectations, but you get lost along the way as to who you really are. And so, at our age, you have this second adulthood, this second adolescence, to grow up again. Part of that, for me, was being more authentic to who I really was. I had been, sort of, “out” in the late 70s, early 80s. Then AIDS hit. At the time, it was a different environment. Bisexuality—it felt like everybody was! Everybody was experimenting. There was this joyous thing that happened… until the plague happened. And then, things changed. I wanted a family. At that time, my consciousness didn’t put those two things together, even though many people did. I also just don’t think I had the courage. I give a lot of credit to men my age who have been out since then, and who have been partnered since then. It took a great deal of courage, at that time. It was a frightening time.

I mean, I love my family. But I couldn’t hide anymore. It’s been a remarkable experience, being myself. I used to have to be in a room going, “Who am I, in this room?” I would be able to have this ability to change, to conform, to whoever I needed to be with, to survive. That’s happened since I was a little boy in Brooklyn. So it’s been an extraordinary experience for me. Then, when I read this [script], and I saw this chance to develop Nicole’s character in that way, I felt like she also was someone who had to give herself over to her daughter, because her husband died. You find out what happened with the husband, and how she had to make herself smaller for him. And then” this inappropriate man comes into her life. They’re not alike at all. He’s younger, and he’s a movie star, and he’s self-absorbed. And yet, there’s this spark and this chemistry. It awakened something in her. She feels awake and alive in some way. That’s so valuable, in this second adulthood. And that’s kind of how I feel.

Wow, thank you so much for sharing that. If this is too personal, please say so, but I saw a quote from Nicole Kidman, who said you were falling in love during the production of this movie?

In respect to him and our relationship, I have to keep that private. 

Of course. This is the first feature film that you’ve directed that you didn’t also write the script for, right? What was that experience like for you?

I did a rewrite on it, but yes, it’s Carrie [Solomon’s] script. Carrie was on set the entire time. I love her voice and her intelligence. She was a great partner. I had an opportunity to do with Carrie what Terry Gilliam did for me on The Fisher King, which was my first script. He had me on set the entire time, which many directors don’t do. I wanted Carrie to have the same experience, because it’s her first movie that’s being done, though she has a lot of other projects in the wings. Coming from a place of respecting the writing, I loved having her on set as a partner. It was, for me, this fantastic safety net. I could focus on the directing, and then when there were writing issues, I could go to a partner and say, “Well, what do you think?” It wasn’t all on me, and that was fun—a great partnership. She and I were partners all the way through editing. 

Nicole Kidman’s character is a writer in this movie, and you’ve said there was a point during filming where you realized she was copying your mannerisms as an “anxious writer?” What mannerisms were those?

It was funny, yeah! We were doing the scene with Kathy Bates, which is Nicole’s first scene in the movie. She has given Kathy something to read. She’s anxious and self-conscious. I noticed, in the first few takes, her mannerisms—her hesitations and the way she was holding her body, and her self-consciousness. I recognized something. After two or three takes, I said, “Wait a minute, are you doing me?” And she went, “Yeah. That’s why I wanted you to walk through with me, before!” She was watching me. I thought it was really lovely. It was really funny.

When we were editing that [scene], I went, oh, that’s like, this is my Katharine Hepburn moment. It felt a little Katherine Hepburn-y, because of the sweater and the collar and the crossed legs and the loafers. 

Zac Efron is so funny in this movie, which was important for me to not hate his character, as this terrible boss. Can you talk about working with him on that character and bringing out that comedy of his performance? 

Zac understood this from the word, “Go.” He understood that the character was funny in the dryness, and in the sincerity of what he was saying. He never winked. He never commented on the character, or the audience. You feel this duality of him. Yes, he is self-absorbed, and he is a narcissist. But also, inside, there’s this very vulnerable, very insecure, scared guy who is famous in spite of himself, and doesn’t quite know how to handle it. His coming-of-age story, I always thought that when people become famous very young, I think to myself, “I wonder if they freeze, growth wise?” Everything comes easy, everybody around them is just saying yes to them. They get stunted. So here he is in his 30s, but he’s younger, emotionally. This relationship helps him to grow up, in a way. He understood the humor of it right away. He was an incredible improver and contributor to ideas. I always knew that we were going to love his character. I never thought that he was going to be alienating, to the point that we wouldn’t be on his side in some way. 

Do remember what lines he improved that made it into the film? My personal favorite was, “I’m not a celebrity, I’m a movie star.”

[Laughs.] That was written. But a lot of his improv—like in the car, the list of things he comes up with when he says, “I won an improv championship when I was a kid.” Stuff like that. I can’t remember all of them, but they’re all the way through the movie. They really are.

I want to touch briefly on the filming locations. I love the huge door at Zac’s house, which Joey King does some great physical comedy with.

That’s one of the reasons I picked that house, was because of that door! Getting that door open just cracked me up. Also, when I went in there, they had that Star Wars sculpture. That’s exactly something his kind of character would buy. That was all there. We had to shoot Los Angeles in Atlanta, and that house was in Buckhead, Atlanta—an upper echelon Atlanta neighborhood. Thatat house looked very LA to me—very bachelor LA. Whereas the Malibu house that he has, is a little less, is a little smaller. My backstory on that was: It was probably his first money that he bought, and he wanted to be near the water. So he bought more of a shack kind of thing. He doesn’t get a bigger house because he likes that it’s small ,and that it’s from his earlier origins. For me, a little I liked his character more, for that. It isn’t ostentatious. 

I have to ask about the sex scene with Zac and Nicole, which is both hot and very funny. How did you direct Zac and Nicole through that sequence?

I wanted the first sexual scene to be comic. It wasn’t about being sexy. I didn’t need to worry about that being sexy, because they’re Nicole and Zac, so it’s going to be! The emphasis was more on the comedy of it. When we staged it, it was what was ever comfortable for them. The tearing off of the clothes was more to get laughs—even though, when I saw it with an audience, I was surprised by how much they reacted to all of that, which is wonderful. But it was about comedy. Later on, when the characters were together, it’s more romantic—it’s more emotionally based. Then Joey coming into that [sex] scene—she did that about seven times. She was amazing. We worked that out with the doorway. They were very comfortable with each other, Nic and Zac. They know what they’re doing. They had no inhibitions about it. They just went for it, and it was great. 

The Shahtoosh shirt—was that a special shirt that’s easy to tear? Or does Nicole just have that strength?

[Laughs.] She does have that strength! We made it a little easy for her, because I had timing—I did have a little bit of a hole. The Shahtoosh t-shirt is kind of made-up because Shahtoosh is a fabric that was illegal to bring into the country. It’s mostly made of pashmina, but we wanted to make something that he had that was very, very special. But she did—she tore it on the first take!

The ending is so fun—this twist that Joey King produced the whole grocery store meet up. Just to clarify, is the implication that everyone in the store is an actor?

Yes, they’re all extras. That’s why they’re not paying attention to him. 

Is that always how the movie was going to end, or were there different versions that you guys played with? 

We had another version that we shot, and it just wasn’t satisfying. It didn’t fulfill us. It didn’t pay off as well, emotionally. Carrie had this idea—she wanted to have a romantic comedy movie ending scene, in a place that was antithetical to that. She thought about a grocery store, and a vegetable stand. Then we had to shoot a scene, reshoot a scene, where we set that up. But it was Carrie’s idea to do it this way. I love how fresh and original it is.

What was the original ending?

The original ending—they did come together, but it was on the set. It was on the New York set where he brings her on the date. Joey’s character wasn’t as involved in pulling them together as she is in this one, and that didn’t do justice to her story. We didn’t have that ending of seeing her as a producer, and seeing her attain that goal, which is also very important. One of the throughlines of the movie, that I love, is what a 24-year-old feels today—the pressure of having to find their place in the world. It was very important to Carrie that [Joey Kind’s] character have no romantic storyline, that it was really just about her finding her place.

A Family Affair would make a good double feature with The Idea of You, another recent movie about an adult woman finding a late-in-life romance. Did you see that one? Do you have a theory as to why Hollywood and audiences are so ready for these stories right now?

I haven’t seen it, and it wasn’t intended. It feels like we’re somehow in sync with a cultural wave. And it’s about time! I don’t know that there should have ever been an issue. When we were making it, it never, ever occurred to Carrie or I that age had anything to do with this [story]. It’s interesting that it’s becoming part of that. In the old Hollywood days, we don’t talk about it, but there are a lot of times where actresses like Joan Crawford had romances with much younger men. It just was never considered. There’s Sunset Boulevard, which is about a 50-year-old and a 30-year-old. It just feels to me like it should never be an issue to begin with. So I’m glad everybody’s going, “Oh, this is great, and this is sexy, and this is absolutely right.”

I agree! I’m almost out of time, but I’m wondering if we can get an update on your film adaptation of Gypsy?

[Laughs.] Oh, I don’t think anything is happening, as far as I know. I worked on an adaptation with Barry Levinson, and we were moving forward. Then the company that was doing it had some financial issues. That was the last I heard. After that, I think, the project went to the writer and creator of Maisel, [Amy Sherman-Palldino]. And then, I haven’t heard anything. I know it’s something that Barbra [Streisand], wishes to have done. We emailed—after I read her book, we emailed about it again. 

Can you say anything about the upcoming Jon-Benet Ramsey series that you’re showrunning? I saw The Hollywood Reporter article on that.

Oh, it’s out there? Yeah, well, actually, in between all these interviews, we’re having production meetings. So, we seem to moving forward! I don’t know if I’m authorized to say the cast yet. We have a wonderful director. It looks like we’re moving for a start date in September, which is exciting. It was a real challenge to write eight episodes in that amount of time, and trying to figure out the truth of it and the humanity of it, Not make it salacious, or exploitive. That’s our goal here.