by Gill Pringle at San Sebastian Film Festival
Harry Potter’s loss was Jordan Firstman’s gain as he began casting for the perfect British boy to play Arlo, the titular Club Kid in his debut feature film.
“We had Lucy Bevans in the UK who had just cast Harry Potter, so she had seen like 40,000 kids, which was so helpful. And Reggie got close to being Harry but I’m glad that he didn’t get it because I think Club Kid’s better,” Firstman says of his young co-star Reggie Absolom.
“He was like: ‘Oh, I wish I got Harry’. And I go, ‘Harry Potter didn’t go to Cannes, honey’,” Firstman quips when we meet at the 74th edition of the San Sebastián Film Festival
“But seriously, the second I saw the thumbnail of his face, I was like, that is who I had been writing. And I just remember thinking, like, ‘my fucking God, I hope he can act, like please’. I actually prayed right before I clicked his audition tape and he was so natural. It just felt so effortless and easy.
“And then I went to London and I met eight kids, but I already knew it was Reggie so then I met him and I took him out for ice cream with his mom. I had sent all the kids a playlist of the songs I wrote the movie with, to kind of gauge their taste. And Reggie loved Massive Attack and had really good taste. And he gave me a look when he left the audition where I felt like we were friends and I knew him, and I just feel lucky to have this guy.
“I really feel like he’s one of the most important people to come into my life. I love him so much, and he’s such a smart kid and so intuitive,” says Firstman, 35, who, six years ago, was perhaps best known for his absurd impressions on Instagram and then later as gregarious fashion stylist Charlie Cohen in Rachel Sennott’s comedy I Love LA, about 20-something industry strivers and social media influencers.
But now he’s gate-crashing awards season with his Cannes breakout, proving as a serious contender for all of Hollywood’s annual glittering prizes.
A surprisingly tender coming-of-age story, Club Kid is also an intoxicating crowd-pleaser with equal parts humour and heart about a 30-something gay nightlife promoter whose life changes in a flash when he meets the ten-year-old son he never knew he had.
Doing triple duty as actor/writer/director, Firstman stars as Peter, a professional clubber permanently hungover from a decade of hard-partying and blurry New York City party nights with his friends, including business partner Sophie (Cara Delevingne) and queer entourage (Saturn Risin9, Alaska Riley, Miss Benny, Nigil Whyte, River Moon, David Peck and Jack Cameron Kay).
Then there’s Peter’s unforgettable neighbour Colleen Camp who embarks on a May to September romance with Peter’s very young former live-in toy boy.
Finding the right boy to play Reggie was not only key but also hugely difficult – given how it required that the parents/managers/handlers be cool with the subject material.
Three kids on his shortlist dropped out immediately due to the nature of the material. “I understood their decision, and was happy in a way because I’d fallen in love with Reggie, and his parents.
“They were very chill about the script, and saw the tenderness, and how the more subversive stuff in the story is just a means to get to the heart of it all,” says Firstman whose Peter immediately submerges Arlo into queer NYC culture and even has him DJing at after-hours clubs.
Firstman hopes that Club Kid will demystify queer culture for some audiences.
“Even like with bringing Reggie and his mom into the picture, who’s never met a trans person and probably never had experience with gay people either.
“I think you show them who you are, and if who you are is a good person and fun to be around and funny and interesting, that’s their way in, and I saw it with Reggie and his mom, and I feel like I saw it when we played in Telluride [Film Festival] to a lot of conservative types, some of them boomers, no shade, but they loved it.
“I think that’s one of the things I’m proud of, is that I’m showing them the down and dirtiness of my community, and still somehow they’re empathising with it.
“I have been making movies since I was 23, and I made these funny videos on the Internet, and recorded some silly music, but there’s a serious side to me that’s always balanced with humour,” he says.
“I’m always trying to uncover these truths about myself and my gayness. Club Kid felt the most in line with my tastes than anything I have ever done.
“One of the major points I wanted to make in this movie is how pervasive drug use has become in the nightlife community – I did not want to dial down the drug use, and the people who came on board as producers understood the subject matter.
“You can’t throw a party in the way Peter and Sophie do without the drugs, and this is what Peter is struggling with when his life suddenly changes,” he says.
“All the characters in the movie are mined from people and things I’ve experienced, and I’ve definitely met that extremely high British girl at so many parties in my own life,” he says referring to Arlo’s mother Lenora, a tourist who Peter accidentally slept with when he was high.
Fast forward ten years and Peter is well into his 30s, living the same hedonistic downtown life, hosting the same parties, looking more grizzled, and rough around the edges. With his business relationship crumbling, and his drug-use intensifying, Peter is shocked into sobriety when Lenora’s friend arrives out of the blue on his doorstep from London with 10-year-old Arlo explaining how Lenora has died suddenly.
It was crucial for Firstman to emphasise the importance of loved ones in personal growth and character development, which his eclectic cast of newcomers, professionals and non-professionals came to exemplify. “I wanted to show how important people are in our own character development. They shape us, push us forward, hold us back. They are the guests at your party, the cast of your movie, and they are all invaluable,” he says, explaining how Delevingne was actually among his own personal party crew before she got sober – now doing him a favour by featuring in this small role.
Firstman’s influences are remarkably conservative – citing Kramer Vs. Kramer, Paper Moon, An Unmarried Woman, Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid and even Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy as inspiration.
“There are more than 100 references on my mood board, and I’m like, ‘Well, I can’t do Taxi Driver, 2001: Space Oddity and Paul Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman’. So, I had to choose my north star and An Unmarried Woman was that for me,” he says.
Club Kid is in cinemas January 2027
