Patrick Stewart is Phenomenal in Queer Romcom ‘Jeffrey’
This groundbreaking ‘90s movie is a masterclass in playing gay
“Can I do this, or do I look like some sort of gay superhero?”
Sterling
Based on a hit off-Broadway play, Jeffrey was originally released as a movie in summer 1995.
With the tagline: “Love is an adventure when one of you is sure… and the other is positive,” it explored the emotional challenge of trying to have sex and relationships at a time when the gay community was ravaged by AIDS.
Audiences loved Jeffrey, and it became a significant queer movie hit — but film critics weren’t so sure about it.
However, there was one thing that everyone agreed on: Sir Patrick Stewart was phenomenal in his role as Manhattan interior designer Sterling. Facing down death with blazing defiance and a rapier-sharp wit, if you need one reason to watch Jeffrey: this is the reason.
Warning: spoilers ahead
Jeffrey onstage
Paul Rudnick wrote the play Jeffrey in 1992, at the height of the AIDS crisis.
He explained to TheBody: “The mainstream media was completely ignoring the plague, and, Lord knows, the government was aggressively ignoring the plague, so it was one of the few times when theatre became essential.”
While acclaimed shows The Normal Heart, Angels in America and Rent proved audiences were eager for theatre to reflect the reality of AIDS, Rudnick took the risk of adding humour into the mix.
“I so appreciated that — especially at that time when there were no [HIV] treatments available whatsoever, there weren’t even any tests — that a sense of humour and the wit of the gay community was one of the only weapons available, and I really wanted to pay tribute to that.”
Paul Rudnick
But a comedy about AIDS was a hard sell. At first no theatre would agree to produce Jeffrey and wary agents advised actors not to audition for it. But Rudnick persisted and Jeffrey found a home at the WPA Theatre in New York City.
“It was set for a run that was supposed to be like two weeks, if that,” Rudnick said. “Then it was sort of miraculous: the play opened, and audiences started responding. It was remarkably well-received.”
Jeffrey would go on to fill theatres around the world.
“One of the other things that I enjoyed about the response to the play is that people appreciated that it was romantic. People often came to the show on first dates. There were serodiscordant couples who would go and see their lives included.”
Paul Rudnick
Jeffrey on screen
Despite the play’s success, the movie version of Jeffrey faced similar initial resistance.
But when Sigourney Weaver signed up to play fiery New Age guru Deborah Moorehouse, the project took flight. Other acclaimed actors then jumped onboard, including Nathan Lane, Olympia Dukakis, Christine Baranski and Steven Weber, who took the lead role.
Patrick Stewart had just finished filming the seventh and final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was looking for a role that would be a complete contrast to Captain Jean-Luc Picard. A fan of the stage version of Jeffrey, he leapt at the chance to play Jeffrey’s gay best friend Sterling in the movie.
Production began, with Rudnick’s screenplay directed by Christopher Ashley, who had directed the stage version. All cast members accepted lower pay cheques than usual in order to work on the project.
“When we were filming the movie, it was on a very low budget, all around the city, no permits, sort of gonzo filmmaking. It was such a wonderfully insane experience!”
Paul Rudnick
Reviews are in
The movie was released in the US in August 1995, becoming a sizeable hit with its core queer audience.
Film critics were less convinced of its quality, however. Due to its subject matter, Jeffrey was compared unfavourably to celebrated movies Philadelphia and Longtime Companion, which reflected the AIDS crisis without any comic asides to ease the tension.
Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times felt Jeffrey “makes the transition from stage to screen so awkwardly that its heavy-handed flamboyance threatens to subvert its brave and important message: ‘Hate AIDS, love life!’”
And the late critic Robert Ebert wrote: “Jeffrey is not without its moments, but the movie never really convinced me it knew what it was doing. It’s more a series of sketches and momentary inspirations than a story that grows interesting.”
Gay best friend
Nevertheless the movie was praised for its passion, originality and wit. This was embodied by Patrick Stewart, whose performance as Sterling received universal acclaim.
It was Stewart’s first ever gay role, and he dazzles onscreen as Jeffrey’s best friend and confidante. His character Sterling does fit a few ‘90s gay stereotypes — he’s a fashionable over-achiever with a younger boyfriend — but that’s merely his starting point.
Stylish and mischievous, Sterling can be cutting (“The earring — fun! Last year.”) but he’s never self-involved. One minute he’s patrolling Christopher Street as part of queer protection group the Pink Panthers, the next he’s marching at Pride under the banner: “Interior Designers Fight AIDS.”
It’s fair to say that, while Jeffrey keeps his feelings at bay, Sterling is the beating heart of this movie.
Wholesome gay couple
Sterling is the sugar daddy to Darius, a dancer in Cats who is HIV positive, played by Bryan Batt. It’s an extremely happy pairing.
“Sometimes I think we should be on a brochure for Middle America, then everyone can say: ‘Oh look — a wholesome gay couple!’” Sterling declares, over one of many cocktails.
Jeffrey is set during the early 90s, when the drug AZT could slow someone’s progression from HIV to full-blown AIDS — but it could not prevent it. That was achieved by combination therapy, which revolutionised HIV treatment when it became available later that decade.
So Darius knew that his HIV would develop into AIDS, which was highly likely to kill him. Despite this, Sterling insists: “You are not going to get sick — I thought I’d made that clear.”
Jeffrey is unwilling to experience such loss within a relationship, so when he discovers that his latest crush — hunk barman Steve (played by Michael T Weiss) — is HIV positive, Jeffrey panics and distances himself from him. As the film progresses, Jeffrey withdraws further from his friends and his queer Manhattan community.
“I wasn’t enough”
Its brilliant cameos and breakneck sketches can feel hectic, but the Jeffrey movie rests upon its heartbreaking hospital scene, when Sterling reveals that Darius has died.
“I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t important enough. I couldn’t snub it, I couldn’t scare it off with a look. I couldn’t shield him with raw silk and tassels and tiebacks. The limits of style.”
Sterling
Stewart said he first read the scene during a break in filming the 1994 movie Star Trek Generations.
“I needed both wardrobe and makeup to help me because my face was streaming with tears and the tears dripped off onto my spacesuit,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
As Sterling tries to comprehend the enormity of his loss, Stewart achingly conveys his shock, disbelief and fury. It’s a masterclass in acting, and an incredibly moving scene which encapsulates the very human tragedy of AIDS.
Sterling: You know, Darius once said you were the saddest person he ever knew.
Jeffrey: Why did he say that?
Sterling: Because he was sick. He had a fatal disease. And he was a million times happier than you.
Still alive
Almost 30 years later, I can understand why audiences today may care less about a small group of sassy white gay New Yorkers trying to negotiate sex.
But their privilege, and their access to AZT, didn’t protect any of them from AIDS. Gay men globally faced similar emotional turmoil at a time when homophobia was rife and gay sex could be fatal.
The themes of the movie — to embrace the life you have, and support the communities you are part of — ring as true today as they did in 1995. Grab fun wherever and whenever you can find it — and if you’ve a chance of love, don’t let it slip away.
After Jeffrey, Paul Rudnick went on to write a string of hit movies including Addams Family Values, In & Out, Isn’t She Great and the 2004 remake of The Stepford Wives. Christopher Ashley followed up Jeffrey by directing the acclaimed musicals Come From Away and Memphis, among others.
It could also be argued that Sex and the City, which followed a small group of sassy white New Yorkers as they tried to negotiate sex, was influenced by Jeffrey when it arrived in 1998.
Rudnick says he now senses a renewed interest in Jeffrey, following the success of Channel 4’s brilliant HIV drama It’s A Sin in 2021.
“With the younger generation, there’s now a genuine curiosity, almost a hunger for the information [about the AIDS crisis]. People are still revisiting the movie and thinking of it fondly, so it’s still alive.”
Paul Rudnick
Shakespearean superhero
Patrick Stewart was so convincing as Sterling that after Jeffrey he is often asked if he is, in fact, gay. The question doesn’t bother him one little bit.
“So far as I’m aware, I’m conventionally a heterosexual male. And yet I find something quite flattering in these suggestions of others that I’m something else.”
Patrick Stewart talking to The Advocate
After the movie, Stewart returned to the stage, appearing in The Tempest on Broadway, Macbeth in London’s West End and Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company, among others. He also secured the role of Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men movie series, starring opposite his longtime friend Sir Ian McKellen as Magneto.
In 2001 Stewart was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to acting and the cinema, an honour that Sterling would undoubtedly approve of.
In one scene from Jeffrey, Darius explains why he and Sterling joined the Pink Panther queer safety patrol:
“I wanted to do something,” Darius says.
“Something with a T-shirt,” Sterling declares, sashaying up the street in his hot pink T-shirt and matching beret.
Spinning on his heel, Sterling glances back over his shoulder: “Don’t you just love it?”
