King Cobra has the type of R-rated eye-catching synopsis that's bound to raise eyebrows —among other things: "When a lonely suburban man turned gay porn producer discovers a hot, lucrative new star, he finds himself the target of rival pornographers who will stop at nothing to steal his money maker." If you're not familiar with the name "Brent Corrigan" or with the real-life story behind Justin Kelly's latest film, you may be forgiven for thinking this darkly comic, ripped-from-the-headlines crime story would be much too outlandish to be true.

After all, its central character, a beautifully twinkish heartthrob played by former Disney star and Zac Efron lookalike Garrett Clayton, is the type of protagonist Hollywood screenwriters would kill for. Is Cobra Video porn star Brent Corrigan a sexy ingénue being taken advantage of by Stephen (Christian Slater), the quiet and desperate budding gay porn kingpin who takes him in and turns the underage-looking boy into an online sensation? Or is he a conniving waif of a young man, much too intoxicated by his own success capable of edging Stephen's gay porn rivals (played by self-proclaimed queer icon James Franco and Pretty Little Liars actor Keegan Allen) into conveniently helping him make it on his own, disposing of the doting if controlling Stephen by whatever means possible?

Pulsating with the electro-beats of music producer Tim K, featuring plenty of glistening abs and pecs and dark humor, and bathing Corrigan's story with the sleek neon sheen of a tabloid thriller, Kelly's film is the gay porn true crime story you didn't know you needed.

Esquire sat down with Slater and Kelly to talk about the film's New Queer Cinema influences, the undeniable allure of Clayton, and, because the specter of a certain Republican presidential nominee looms over any conversation nowadays, how King Cobra speaks to the state of our country ahead of the election.

ESQ: Maybe we can start talking about what it is that drew you to this story.

Justin Kelly: I remember reading about it and the initial headline of a gay pornographer murdered over his star's contract is, of course, enough to make anyone want to know more. The more I read and learned about these characters, the more I thought it'd make for a really interesting film about—all the scandal aside—four people trying to find their place in this world and playing with identity: innocent Sean becoming porn star Brent and straight suburban Stephen becoming a mini-porn king. I thought it'd make for a really interesting and different kind of film

I wanted to talk about that difference, because sometimes LGBT films are asked to look at storylines and characters through a quite limited, indeed often always positive, lens. But King Cobra is obviously much more complicated than that, and I was curious whether those issues were in your mind?

JK: A little bit. But there really wasn't a desire to find something like this. It's just really about finding something and thinking, "That's so fascinating and I want to know more." And if I want to know more, I wonder if other people want to know more. So far that seems to be the case. But with these questions that keep coming up press-wise, it does make me realize that in high school the kind of queer films that I watched would've been a part of a New Queer wave: Gus Van Sant's Mala Noche, Todd Haynes's Poison, a bunch of Almodóvar films. And in the case of Van Sant and Todd Haynes, we think of them now as very respected Hollywood filmmakers, but Gus's first film was about this queer street worker. They were not the uplifting LGBT stories with happy endings. I remember they would talk about it saying that it's important to be unapologetic in your approach to telling queer stories. So as a director who's gay I'm here to tell these stories that I think are interesting without worrying about how straight people are going to perceive them.

IFC Films

Christian, whenever you talk about this role, you talk about "feeling the fear." I was curious to hear what you mean by that and what eventually led you to, as it were, plunge headfirst into the project?

Christian Slater: I'd worked with James Franco in The Adderall Diaries. We got along well there. I really enjoyed working with him and I've always found him to be fantastic and a great actor, somebody I wanted to work with more. We were looking for another project to do together and he presented me with this. Honestly, I was very excited about it. I just thought, "Well this is unusual, and it's definitely outside of my comfort zone." I don't think it's something anybody else would necessarily think of me for. I also really liked the character. I thought he was human and not stereotypical in a lot of ways—just somebody I could really identify with. Then I met with Justin and he shared with me that he was going to handle everything with dignity and grace. I felt very comfortable with him. He shared that James would be doing the majority of the heavy lifting and then I got very competitive about that.

In terms of…?

CS: I didn't want James to be the one getting to do everything, you know?

JK: Sex scenes-wise.

CS: We talked about that. I think once I committed, I wanted to be as invested in it as I could possibly be and not allow whatever fears or anxieties or judgments I had to get in the way. I wanted to push all that bullshit aside and just walk through that. And then I met Garrett and all of a sudden it became very, very easy. It was an immediate man-crush thing.

JK: When Garrett first walked in on set he just had this skimpy underwear on and perfectly even skin. He was, as you said, just a beautiful kid. You look at him and you're like, "OK, here we go!"

CS: I did always feel very comfortable with him. And he just had a great attitude about it. I felt very safe. I was very lucky to be in [Justin's] hands and be in Garrett's hands while doing this. It was fantastic.

IFC Films

Speaking of Garrett and thinking of the sexual content of the film, this was what I was most eager to see how it would be handled on screen. American filmmaking remains, to a certain degree, rather prudish, and I was curious to hear what kinds of conversations you guys had about how far to go in terms of nudity and sexual content given, of course, the subject matter at hand.

JK: Yeah, I pretty much told everyone that we can't shy away from it. Even though the film is much more than about gay porn, if we were to shy away from sex we'd all get shit for it. It was definitely important to include it, but in a way that was not lewd.

CS: Or gratuitous.

JK: You know, great films like Shortbus have real sex scenes, or there are films that show full frontal and it's great.

CS: Like Nymphomaniac.

JK: I keep forgetting you were in that! [Laughs] Which are great, but I just didn't feel right for this. Like the sex scenes needed to be realistic—which I think they are—but I didn't feel you needed to show full frontal or to have real sex or anything. I just told everyone that we would do whatever each actor was comfortable with. I think the only person I talked to in-depth was Garrett, because his character is the porn star, so I definitely told him that he needed to be extremely comfortable and that I couldn't work with someone who on set is going to freak out when they're fully naked and wearing nothing but what they called cock socks—I never knew that term until this film and I love it! I could tell when we were having lunch about this that he was ready for something different, and I knew that he was not gonna be afraid of that.

CS: He was fearless. That was probably the most helpful thing. He was fearless, which made me feel fearless. And [Justin] was fearless, so that was the vibe on set. My character has some lines that I could really identify with, too. I mean, one in particular: "It's fun to play with who we are"—to try on different identities. And that is the responsibility of the artist, of the actor, to inhabit these roles and put on somebody else's shoes. It's the responsibility and the gift of what it is I get the opportunity to do.

IFC Films

You'd talked earlier about how you couldn't see anyone seeing you in this role and yet as I was watching, all I could think of was Heathers. That is another film centered on a murder that has queer undertones and has become this gay cult film.

CS: [Laughs] "I love my dead gay son." It's incredible!

I wondered whether those types of references—Justin, you also cast Molly Ringwald and Alicia Silverstone—were in your mind as you were creating the film, knowing that they'd be bringing these past performances and films to bear on it?

JK: No, it all came together much more organically. I do get asked that a lot—that there's an intent here to put Christian and Molly here together. But no. I immediately thought of Christian because Adderall Diaries shot right before [my previous film] I Am Michael, and I remember thinking, "Oh, James and Christian together..." And you know, I'm a huge Heathers/True Romance fan. I obviously thought he wouldn't do it. But luckily I had James to say, "I'll submit it to him and let's see what happens." And honestly everyone came together from recommendations. And I told them that this was going to be less about the sex and more about these really interesting characters and to understand why they did what they did.

CS: As we've been saying, you could set this story against any backdrop, really. At the end of the day, it's a story about obsession and desire, and struggle. All of these subject matters that are identifiable, but it's not necessary that it was set in this gay porn world. There's so much hypocrisy and judgment about that. But this is a multi-billion dollar industry, so clearly people are watching. That's the whole idea: It's about getting comfortable with ourselves and more open about who we actually are so we can start taking off some of these masks.

IFC Films

In that sense it strikes me as a very American, because it does straddle the line between that sense of opprobrium and prudishness but imagining a world and characters that can go beyond that. Would you agree?

JK: I never thought of it that way, but yes. It sounds very naïve, but there's obviously going to be a very different response abroad. But when we screened this in London, the response was pretty similar. Laughs and gasps and that sort of thing. But it is sort of this American Dream of trying to go after everything bigger and better and shinier and make more and more money. That was Joe and Harlow's main goal: they just wanted to be rich—by any means possible.

In terms of that I also wanted to know what the reactions have been like to the film, especially given that you're dealing here with real-life stories.

JK: Well, no one who's portrayed in the film has seen it yet. But Joe and Harlow's best friend came to see it at Tribeca and stood up to ask a question. I didn't know he was coming. He just randomly stood up at the Q&A and announced himself, and I immediately started sweating because he said they'd sent him there to see the film.

CS: Oh my god.

JK: Yeah, I was terrified because he was kind of a big guy. And nothing felt better than for him to say that he loved it. He said that we'd nailed the characters, understanding that it's a film. He said that Harlow is not quite that dumb but he got why that made it funnier. But just the overall relationship and desires they had he felt was true to the story. He loved it and responded to it. No one who's in the film has seen it yet, but I hope that when Sean sees it, he likes it.

CS: I mean, look: it's a result of the last eight years, the way the country's been going. It's been fantastic. I think artists and people are feeling braver, willing to take more chances and risks, feeling safer to do that. Because there's been intelligent, rational people in charge. I certainly want to keep things moving in that direction. It scares me where things could possibly go. It's the obvious thing to say but we want to be able to tell all kinds of stories and tear down every kind of wall, to look at ourselves and examine who we are and just get deeper insights into what makes us human beings. Anything that could possibly prevent that in our near future horrifies me to no end. Things better go the right way on November 8th.

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