"Shortbus"
Oct. 20
Main Art Theatre, Royal Oak
http://www.shortbusthemovie.com
When Paul Dawson blew himself in the sexually overt film "Shortbus," keeping an erection wasn't the hard part. Coming multiple times wasn't, either.
"It was hard getting in the mind frame that you're completely alone," Dawson says.
Three cameras were rolling and a half dozen crewmembers looked on as the gay actor used the training he received from an expert practitioner. The film's director John Cameron Mitchell ("Hedwig and The Angry Inch") had the initial idea for the scene, and Dawson thought it fit his character, James.
"We were looking for a private moment that he would do to himself, with himself," says Dawson, who practiced stretching and breathing techniques for the scene.
In the controversial film, James is part of a group of people in present-day New York navigating the comic and tragic intersections between love and sex, including a gay threesome shot multiple times.
"That was a really long day," Dawson recalls.
But while the first half of "Shortbus" crams in explicit, unsimulated sex, the second part focuses more intensely on human connections.
"He (Mitchell) front loaded a lot of the sex to kind of break the audience, shock people at first, weed out the really squeamish people and kind of get people comfortable for what they're gonna be seeing," Dawson says.
Dawson knew what to expect when he told Mitchell, who he's been friends with for more than 10 years, that he'd be part of the project. "I got it. I got what he wanted to do," Dawson says. "I believed it was a worthy pursuit."
Mitchell told Dawson he wouldn't have him do anything he wasn't comfortable with, but that he would push his limits. "It encouraged me to go to some places that were kind of scary," Dawson says.
And one of those places was down low. But, now that he's learned auto-fellatio, this won't become a regular routine in Dawson's life.
"It's not something I do," he laughs, "or even enjoy believe it or not. Some guys have a really hard time believing it."
