The main character in the most controversial and taboo film of the year was based on adult film entertainers.
In the new indie drama Blue Film, queer camboy and sex worker Aaron Eagle (Kieron Moore) comes face to face with his former high school English teacher, a convicted child sex offender, when he accepts a $50,000 offer to spend one night with a mysterious older client named Hank Grant (Reed Birney).
The plotline has made some audiences squirm, but at its core, Blue Film is an empathetic and moving depiction of two men helping each other confront their deepest insecurities, internal struggles, and trauma. While both characters feel like real people, Aaron's authenticity comes from the director imbuing the character with his own life experiences — including his porn habits.
In a new interview, director Elliot Tuttle told Attitude that Aaron is not only based on his “experience as a young gay man” and the "feelings I’ve had, instability I’ve felt," but is also "an amalgamation of many porn stars I’ve watched over the years."
In an effort to make his financial dominator (fin-dom) character feel like a real person, Moore also drew on his own life experiences, admitting that, "pay pig was not a term I was unaware of!"
Moore said his own relationships gave him insight into the kind of sex work Aaron participates in because he has "friends who sell belongings."
The masochistic kinks in the film weren’t outside his realm of understanding either. "I understand it on an intrinsically human level," he said. "Sometimes we want permission for the way we feel about ourselves. Rather than uplifting, some want to be diminished."
Moore also explained that his starring role in Blue Film prepared him for the onslaught of "the most insane DMs you've ever seen," when his starring role in the popular Netflix series Boots thrust him into the limelight.
"[By then], I’d already shot Aaron, so this world that might’ve been semi-alien to me, I was more aware of," he said.
