Between Heartstopper, Fire Island, and Bros, 2022 has been a landmark year for gay love stories in mainstream media. And yet, Spoiler Alert absolutely stands out for exploring the full breadth of a love story that takes place over the course of many years. This isn’t the idealistic version of a queer experience in high school, nor the queer version of a beloved romance novel, nor is it attached to classic rom-com tropes. Instead, Spoiler Alert tells the very real story of two adults who go through the full spectrum between blissful love and absolute heartbreak.
The movie adaptation of Michael Ausiello’s 2017 memoir Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies has a star-studded cast featuring Jim Parsons (Michael), Ben Aldridge (Kit), Sally Field (Marilyn), and Bill Irwin (Bob), among others. Even though adapting someone’s real-life story can be tricky, Parsons was pleasantly surprised by Ausiello’s approach to helping them make the film. “The conversations with Michael were always to remind anybody involved with it that he understood the difference between his real life and the movie that was now being made,” the actor remarked. “His graciousness and sanity about the process, I think was not ordinary, and I think surprised everybody. It was something we were very grateful for.”
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As not only the leading star but also a producer on Spoiler Alert, Parsons also reflected on the importance of bringing the real love story from this memoir to the big screen. “It was important for me to tell [this story] because I felt so impacted by it,” Parsons highlighted. “I’m kind of learning what is powerful about this movie as other people are seeing it too, and seeing through other people’s eyes. It’s been very moving and I don’t know that I necessarily consciously saw it coming… to see people so gratified to see a gay couple as the central couple in what is really just a love story in that ‘universal’ umbrella type of way.
In the meantime, Aldridge is proud of how this film portrays a gay love story from a perspective that isn’t often seen in other movies and TV shows. “One of the things I’m most proud of about this film is that it gives you the full spectrum of what it is to be in a relationship,” he explained. “I think we see romantic films that [are] often so rose-tinted, and they’ve kind of sold us a bit of a lie… which is a great, great amount of escapism. But I think there’s a reality to this in that it’s about what time does to a relationship. It’s about what life does to a relationship. How you grow at different rates, how you nurture that, how you can be attracted to people outside of the relationship, how you navigate and negotiate together and keep that alive. And I loved that.”
Watch PRIDE’s full interview with the cast of Spoiler Alert, as well as book author Michael Ausiello, in the video below. Spoiler Alert is now in theaters.
