Pulling Together on ‘Broken Hearts Club’

Dean Cain fought typecasting and won the role; John Mahoney wove the shooting schedule around his hectic “Frasier” filming. Would you guess the roles both actors strived so hard to get were in a low-budget romantic comedy from a first-time director, set in West Hollywood, about a group of twentysomething gay men?

Even director-writer Greg Berlanti admitted he didn’t know how to react when veteran actor Mahoney, who plays Dr. Frasier Crane’s curmudgeonly father, said yes to appearing in Berlanti’s debut feature film, “The Broken Hearts Club,” a Sony Pictures Classics release set to open today.

Mahoney initially had turned down the role, which Berlanti had written for him. So when he changed his mind and decided to accept the part of Jack, the restaurant owner-softball coach who serves as a father figure to a tightknit group of friends grappling with various romances, Berlanti could not contain his elation. He jumped up and hugged Mahoney.

He briefly fretted the hug “could have almost lost the project,” Berlanti recalled. “What if he was thinking, ‘Who is this freak who hugged me?’ What John didn’t realize was that he was the final element that said this is a ‘go’ movie.”

Berlanti, now a co-executive producer with “Dawson’s Creek,” had a lot riding on Mahoney’s acceptance. “No one would make this film,” the 28-year-old said recently in interviews conducted at a Sony screening room and by telephone from his office. “It was about my personal experiences, and those of my own friends after we’d come out of the closet. I wrote ‘Broken Hearts Club’ because most of the gay films I’d seen were more about sex and less about romance.”

The script eventually caught the attention of producer Mickey Liddell (“Go”), who asked Berlanti to direct, and the search for actors began. With Timothy Olyphant (“Gone in 60 Seconds”) cast as Dennis, the story’s central character, the production began gaining momentum.

Cain, looking for a role to help him move further away from his Superman image from “Lois & Clark,” read the script and immediately knew he wanted to be in the film. “I had to respond to it. The dialogue is so clever and the situations are so funny,” Cain recalled recently at a Starbucks in Burbank. “As an actor, you do get typecast, it’s true. That’s why this role for me was such a home run.”

Getting Past the Superman Stereotype

Sports metaphors come naturally for Cain, an All-American football player for Princeton University, from which he graduated in 1988. The actor said he met some resistance while campaigning for the part of Cole, the vain heartbreaker, who’s the envy of his friends. “Whoever it was didn’t want me to do the film because they only saw me as Superman,” he said with a bit of frustration.

“In any kind of production, you put someone up, and whomever someone suggests, people give the best reasons in the world for someone to not do it,” Berlanti explained. “There are certain levels of proving yourself. And the studio did say, ‘Hey, he’s played Superman.’ But when he came in and auditioned, it was clear that this was the guy. And then when they saw him in dailies, he quickly became a favorite.”

As for Mahoney, he routinely refuses projects that conflict with his “Frasier” schedule.

“At first I turned it down because I didn’t think there was much there for me to do,” the actor relates at Paramount Studios during a break from rehearsals of “Frasier.” “And if I’m going to give up my free time, I want it to be worthwhile and a challenge. So I turned it down. But the more I thought about it, I realized I wanted to be part of an ensemble and it was such a great script. So I called my agent back and said if they haven’t recast it, I will do it.”

Having studied playwriting at Northwestern University in Chicago, Berlanti was familiar with Mahoney’s theater work with respected Chicago-based companies such as Steppenwolf.

What struck Mahoney about “Broken Hearts Club” was the ordinariness of the situations depicted in the script. “It just happened to be about a bunch of gay people, with no big deal made of it,” he said. “It just impressed me so much.”

Martin Crane, he reasoned, is very similar to Jack. “The only difference is one sleeps with men and the other with women. . . . The deep things about the characters were similar: They’re both very kind, generous and paternal.”

In real life, Berlanti found solace in Mahoney’s presence during the 20-day shoot. “When he was present, all of the actors were such good little boys; it was the cutest thing. Everybody wanted to be well-behaved. And they’d ask each other, ‘Did you do your scene with John yet?’ ”

The biggest support Mahoney gave Berlanti, however, was his advice: “Don’t be afraid to direct me.”

“That did something for me with all the other actors,” Berlanti explained. “It enabled me to say, here’s this actor who I think is miraculous, [and] if he’s telling me not to be afraid to get in there, then certainly that rule must apply with everybody else. It liberated me with the other performers.”

Drawing upon his experiences on the set of “Say Anything,” Cameron Crowe’s feature-film directing debut, Mahoney knew he’d have to put Berlanti at ease. “Cameron had never directed before and he was so diffident and it was so difficult. So we’d do take after take, and I’d ask him what he wanted and he’d say, ‘No, I can’t give you a line reading.’ ”

Finally Crowe gave Mahoney the direction he needed and Mahoney maintains his role as the disingenuous father in “Say Anything” is so far his favorite on film. “I’m no big star, but still [directors] think you’ve been around a lot and don’t want to give you direction. So that’s why I said to Greg, ‘Don’t be afraid to tell me what you want, please!’ ”

Despite the shoot’s brevity, Berlanti said the set was relaxed. “You’d think with 20 days to shoot the thing and an average two-three takes per shot, there’d be a sense of rush. But everyone--getting paid nothing; you’d make more working at McDonald’s for the summer than you would making my film--was in it for the right reasons. It never felt like work. I think that that translates.”

Family Pitched In Around the Set

“With 20 days, you’re working together, you’re part of a team, which is what I love about filmmaking,” said Cain, who in between films hosts and produces “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” on TBS. “It was very relaxed. We didn’t have trailers, we had honey wagons [portable units with multiple dressing rooms]. Most of the time we were just hanging out talking to everybody, just goofing around. Greg’s Aunt Margaret was out there making cookies and cream puffs, which were outstanding. It felt like family.”

Berlanti’s father even made a cameo appearance in the film, sitting in the front row during Mahoney’s musical number, which Mahoney performs in quasi-drag. “I was horrified by what an ugly woman I made,” Mahoney said. “I look like a fire hydrant in a red dress. But the cast was so supportive when I had to do my song. Some of them weren’t working that night but they stayed around just to cheer when I sang.”

Berlanti said he did not encounter many gay biases from talent agents and managers while casting the film, although all the characters are either gay or lesbian. He does admit, however, that casting Kevin, the youngest character, was difficult because many 21- and 22-year-olds didn’t want their first big film role to be gay.

The part eventually went to Andrew Keegan (“10 Things I Hate About You”). “I have to give credit to Andrew to take that stance,” Cain said. “He had the most to risk in that sense. It was a brave thing to do.”

Cain and Keegan share a kiss on screen that Cain said made his mother uncomfortable. “She comes from a different time, as does my father,” he said. “That makes them uncomfortable. It’s funny. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable.”

One big question is will the film cross over to straight audiences? “I think it has a chance,” Mahoney said. “I hate to compare it to ‘Diner,’ but basically I guess you have to compare it to something like that. It’s compassionate and full of camaraderie and good humor without being preachy.”

“During the Republican National Convention, I was on ‘Politically Incorrect’ with Jerry Falwell,” said Cain. “I think even he’d laugh at this movie. He would have to find it clever and funny. You care about these characters whether you’re a homophobe or a homosexual. You care about them and want them to be happy.”