From Out.com and the September 2002 issue of Out Magazine

Physical Attraction   Porn? Pot? Parties? Why did the gorgeous young actors of The Rules of Attraction— many of them, including star James Van Der Beek, known for tamer fare—decide to take on such juicy, jaded characters? Story by Chris Gardner Photographs by Peter Gehrke

This past spring, filmmaker Roger Avary screened his modern-day social satire The Rules of Attraction for a test audience in Orange County, Calif.  When the screening cards came back, Avary found one response from a male moviegoer that he still can't seem to shake -- one he admits he doesn't completely understand. The response in question: "This is a half-fag film."

"That comment has stayed with me," reveals the 38-year-old Avary. "Just because it's not like he said, 'This is a fag film.' He said, 'This is a half-fag film.' And that's the zinger -- that's what makes it an eternal comment, one that I would be willing to frame because it so baffles me."

His confusion is understandable, based on mathematics. If you crunch the queer numbers, The Rules of Attraction, which is adapted from 1987 Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same is actually only 33.3% gay. Set on the small, affluent, fictional campus of New England's Camden College, the film spirals through the lives of a set of disconnected, hard-partying students, focusing on Sean Bateman, Lauren Hynde, and Paul Denton, played respectively by James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, and Ian Somerhalder. One of the three lead character is gay -- Somerhalder's gorgeously tortured Paul, who spends most of the 110 minute film pining after Van Der Beek's dangerously elusive Sean, who in turn can't seem to score with Sossamon's never-satisfied Lauren.

Of course, that percentage would be much higher if you tallied up the supporting cast, which includes one raucous scene-stealing Dick Jared (played by first-timer Russell Sams) and a trio of over-the-top freshman tossed in for comic value (Joel Michaely, Jay Baruchel, and Colin Bain). But this movie has bigger battles to fight than the argument over the queer quotient. The response from that particular Orange County moviegoer is sure to be only the first of many heated reactions to come when Lions Gate unspools the film nationwide on October 11. But don't expect anyone in the Rules clan to be caught off-guard.

"It's a very challenging film to get through. It's kind of an assault on your senses, on your emotions," says Van Der Beek, best known for playing the less-testy, squeaky-clean title character on the hit WB series Dawson's Creek. "From my limited film knowledge, I don't think there is anything else out there like it, and I don't know how people are going to react to it. It will make a lot of people very angry, and other people will be very happy this film got made and is out there."

Rules was filmed on location in Los Angeles during the fall of 2001, and the shoot was often so intense for Van Der Beek that he needed decompression time to retrain his acting chops between flying back and forth from LA to North Carolina, where he is concurrently needed for Dawson's. Without giving too much away, the film's "assault" includes plenty of sex, drugs, masturbation, and physical confrontation. But more specifically, the scenes that will make audiences squirm or squeal are the ones that show a graphic student suicide, a vomitous rape sequence caught on camera, full frontal nudity courtesy of actor Kip Pardue, The Wonder Years star Fred Savage as an underwear-clad heroin addict, and the one likely to be talked about the most: the kiss Somerhalder shares with Van Der Beek. The latter scene is likely not to ruffle any feathers in the gay community, but it may surprise die-hard fans of WB. This is not your typical teen fare, nor was it intended to be.

"What I wanted to do with this movie is take the teen genre and just kind of twist it into a pretzel," comments Avary, who wrote and directed the very violent 1994 film Killing Zoe and whose collaboration with Quentin Tarantino on the cult classic Pulp Fiction won them both Oscar gold for Best Original Screenplay. "And make something that allowed actors like James Van Der Beek, Ian Somerhalder, and Jessica Biel [who stars as Lauren's coke-snorting roommate, Lara] -- who have all been on the WB and viewed as nonacting automatons -- to run with the experience they have. And I must say, it was the wisest decision I ever made in my life."

A decision that should serve only to benefit the group of fresh-faced stars he pulled together -- Rules allowed Van Der Beek in particular to break free of the 8 P.M. prime-time filter he's been sifted through since Dawson's Creek debuted in 1998. He starred in the teen football comedy Varsity Blues and the blinked-and-you-missed-it Western Texas Rangers; by far the most controversial role Van Der Beek has nabbed off the Creek was in Todd Solondz's Storytelling, in which he had a gay encounter. But audiences didn't see him at all, as his scenes ended up on the cutting-room floor. This time around, there's no skirting the fact that this role may shatter the familiarity Dawson's fans have grown accustomed to, but that wasn't his intention.

"It certainly was a perk, and I recognize that, but from the beginning I wasn't looking for the most fucked-up thing I could do on-screen," says 25-year-old Connecticut native. "The reason I wanted to do it is because I thought it would be a great movie, and I really liked Roger and wanted to work with him. I wanted a chance to be able to do all these things and to go that far because I don't get the chance to do that on a TV show -- it wouldn't be appropriate."

He's right. Ingesting magic mushrooms, masturbating to high-speed internet porn, and selling cocaine to freshmen wouldn't seem quite right down home on Dawson's Creek, a show that made Van Der Beek and his castmates instant celebrities. But now that it's been five -- going on six -- years since he first walked in Dawson's shoes, he's grown to love a challenge and learned that not every aspect of fame is to be welcomed with open arms. In the past, tabloids have published reports that he is gay, and now that he's locked lips with a man on-screen the same rumor may resurface. Does he care?

"Whether Joe Public who lives in wherever, Middle America, believes in their heart of hearts that I'm gay, it's not that important to me. It's just not that important of a factor," he says, just a few months after placing a ring on the finger of his fiancée, actress Heather McComb.

Back to that kiss. According to Somerhalder, who played a confused teen who fell for a girl disguised as a boy on the short-lived WB series Young Americans, he and Van Der Beek decided one thing prior to filming the scene: no tongue. "We knew that it was an opportunity to do something that was very different and fuck with people, frankly," says the former model, who also played one of Mathew Shepard's killers in MTV's Anatomy of a Hate Crime. "We totally talked about it before, and the first thing we said is no tongue -- definitely no tongue."

Even though he was "spared" the French kiss, Somerhalder didn't ask for any additional takes. "I have this crazy newfound respect for women," he says. "I don't ever plan on kissing a guy again, because it's so fucking scratchy." He wouldn't have had a choice if the screen version had contained as much gay contact as the book. In Ellis' novel, not only do Paul and Sean have a long-term love affair, but Paul also has a relationship with Mitchell (played by American Pie's Thomas Ian Nicholas), and Sossamon's Lauren partakes in some lesbian trysts, to name just a few examples.

But for reasons of time and story continuity, says Avary, those extra sequences, along with numerous others, stayed only in the novel. "I tried to stay true as I could to Bret, in a literary sense, while still making a movie that wasn't six hours long," he says. Keeping with the author's intent wasn't an easy task either, especially considering that it isn't always quite clear from the novel how real the relationships -- gay or straight -- actually are. The book is told from the first-person perspective of each character as they recount their interpretation of various events, often in very different ways.

Written during the mid 1980s while he was a student at Vermont's Bennington College, The Rules of Attraction is, Ellis says, his favorite work to date, and Avary's version is also his favorite film based on his writing, topping Mary Harron's American Psycho and Marek Kanievska's Less Than Zero. It's also the one Ellis thought would be the most difficult to adapt. He even tried to do it himself a couple of times, with unsuccessful results.

"You are getting all these different versions of the same events, and you have to make a choice on how you are going to tackle that in a movie. But Roger chose a much better movie than the one I would've made. His screenplay definitely captured the spirit of the book and my temperament much more than I could in my screenplays," explains Ellis, who, on a feisty day a while back, told a British interviewer that he was gay. He now playfully dodges the question by saying, "I'm whatever you want me to be."

So how does the happily ambiguous author feel about the film's gay content -- or lack thereof? Just fine. "It's an hour and 50 minutes, which for a college drama is maybe even a little too long, and you can't fit everything in," Ellis says, after having watched the movie two times. "In terms of toning down the gay stuff between Ian Somerhalder and James Van Der Beek, in comparison to what is out there I don't think it's really that toned down ... If you could've made a three-hour movie, that would've been really interesting to explore, but being pragmatic and realistic about length and what's important to the story, it's not that big a loss."

Whether or not the gay sex is reduced, what the film does have is a different kind of gay character, Ellis points out. "[Ian] plays a very cool gay character and someone I haven't seen in movies a lot before," he comments. "And he's so good-looking."

But even his good looks don't guarantee success in this movie. To prepare for his heartache, Somerhalder sat down with some of his fellow West Hollywooders to find out what it feels like for a gay man to want something he can never have.

"I'm a straight guy, but I have a lot of friends here who are gay and I hear that every single day," says the currently single Somerhalder. "Sitting down with them, I realized that if you really want something, especially if it deals with your sexuality, and you can't have it, it's the most torturous, treacherous thing."

Nearly all the characters in Rules have to go down some sort of twisted path, and that's precisely the reason the project was so attractive to everyone who got involved. "It just makes you kind of squirm a little bit, and that's what's great," says Somerhalder. "You're not playing that 17-year-old-all-American kid at all... And after seeing the finished movie for the first time, I felt kind of dirty, which is the way I wanted to feel."

More than a few Hollywood studios didn't like that dirty feeling, and several passed on the project, deeming it too "dangerous," recalls Avary. "Everyone loved it and wanted to be the daring person to make it, but nobody would step up to the plate." Then came Lions Gate, which had already been in the Ellis business with American Psycho. President of marketing and distribution Tom Ortenberg says Rules will most likely be controversial, as Psycho was.

"It's enjoyable pop culture entertainment, but it has a ring of truth to it," Ortenberg proclaims. "It's a film that defies categorization, and it has something for a lot of different audiences."

And whether they agree with that man in Orange County will be up to them. No matter what they decide, moviegoers should also know that though Rules of Attraction is a sometimes rough ride, it can also be engaging, says Van Der Beek. "It's raw and it's honest and it's uncensored and there's a tremendous amount of fun to be had in that," he explains. "And it's something that you can't get at 8 o'clock on a network."

Click on the names below to see their photos.

Kip Pardue
Why You Know Him: Queer-rific roles in Remember the Titans and But I'm A Cheerleader, costarred in Driven.
Character's Name: Victor
Character Most Likely To: Forget your name five minutes after you meet him.

Thomas Ian Nicholas
Why You Know Him: Starred in two helpings of American Pie.
Character's Name: Mitchell
Character Most Likely To: Be living off his parents' money for the rest of his life.

Jessica Biel
Why You Know Her: She makes 7th Heaven heavenly; the films Summer Catch and  Ulee's Gold.
Character's Name: Lara
Character Most Likely To: Die of a GHB overdose in the boys' locker room.

James Van Der Beek
Why You Know Him: The title character on Dawson's Creek; the films Varsity Blues and Texas Rangers.
Character's Name: Sean Bateman.
Character Most Likely To: Get busted at 23 for dealing bad coke to high school students.

Ian Somerhalder
Why You Know Him: A leading role on the series Young Americans and a memorable turn in Life As A House
Character's Name: Paul Denton
Character Most Likely To: Listen to Morrissey while pining for straight boys who will never love him.

Eric Szmanda
Why You Know Him: Helps put pieces together on C.S.I.
Character's Name: NYC Film Student
Character Most Likely To: Get arrested for making child pornography, or become the next Tarantino.

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