My Date With Sean Penn

When you’re a producer, you think you’re at the top of the heap. But you’re not. Once you are an actor, it's like you’re in their fraternity, and instead of all that egotistical stuff that’s caricaturized by the Bette Davis-Joan Crawford paradigm, great actors are EGOLESS. They want you to be at your best so they can get to the emotional truth of the characters. It’s as if you’re stripped naked, and everyone is so sensitive looking at everyone else's nakedness. You also become part of "a band of players, a troupe, a family.

James Franco, indeed, plays part of the scene nude. I (David Goodstein) have a grand and luxurious home with an indoor pool. James, who plays Harvey's boyfriend, jumps into the pool nude and then has an argument with me…nude. I dare say, it was extremely mind-blowing.

That first day on the set, I was dressed in a very expensive suit and monogrammed shirt and tie and vest that Danny Glicker, the wonderfully funny and talented costume designer, had built for me. Gus decided I should do a bit of "business,” so he gave me a pool skimmer. He then suggested I wear a bathing suit. I thought I was going to die. “I can’t say no…I have to be a pro and go with this…but oy vey...I’m not tan enough…and all that kugel…”

Gus decided I should do a bit of "business,” so he gave me a pool skimmer. He then suggested I wear a bathing suit. I thought I was going to die. “I can’t say no…I have to be a pro and go with this…but oy vey...I’m not tan enough…and all that kugel…”

Gus saw the look in my eyes and whispered, “Don’t worry. You’ll be covered in a bathrobe.” Phew.

Danny put a beige towel-like robe on me and Gus didn't like it, so he called up Robin Williams, whose house was next door, and we got three robes from Robin’s closet. I eventually ended up wearing a baby-blue Hotel Bel Air robe with a beautiful white shawl collar. Danny then dressed me in a pair of brown leather Mexican sandals, a beautiful and very chunky gold and diamond watch, and two pinky rings…presto! I was David Goodstein in 1973.

With all this going on, Sean entered, wearing a long, curly brown wig and brown contact lenses, the spitting image of the Jewish hippie-ish Harvey Milk: sexy, handsome, and dangerous. He glanced at me and immediately discerned the terror in my eyes. Very quietly, practically soto voce, he leaned into me:

“You have nothing to worry about. I’ve only played gay once in my life and that was in Albert Innaurato’s The Transformation of Benno Blimpie and that was on the stage when I was really young. I’ve never played gay on screen. So here’s the deal: You have my back and I have your back and we’ll both get through this together.” His generosity was enormously inspiring and I totally relaxed. All my scenes were with the prodigiously talented Stephen Spinella (Tony Kushner wrote “Angels In America” specifically for him) and Stephen both calmed me and taught me so much.

Gus’s only “note” to me was to be more like Howard Rosenman: bombastic, arrogant, contemptuous, relaxed and in control. Every time I finished a take that he liked, Gus smiled at me or gave me a thumbs up or winked. He always acknowledged the work and I watched him do it with all the actors.

After they got the written takes, Gus said:

"OK guys, now rip it out and improvise and say anything you want." Of course it became very political, since Harvey had a revolutionary's point of view, and David Goodstein had the polar opposite. David always wanted to work through the system. We eventually started screaming at each other, red in the face, veins pulsating on our foreheads. James Franco entered the fray and it was fuckin’ wild. At the end of the day, Sean hugged me and said I was great and he never could've done it without me. James Franco, who kept calling me "cutie" in the role—contemptuously—came over to me and buried his head in my neck:

"Man, I gotta thank you. You were so sensitive to me. Nude scenes are so weird and you were so discrete. You made me feel so relaxed. I owe you so much." Wow! This kid is just gorgeous and so sweet and so very, very talented, really smart and perceptive...and totally straight.