How Greg Berlanti Made The Movie Queer Kids (And Adults) Have Been Waiting For

It's hard to imagine anyone other than Greg Berlanti at the tender helm of Love, Simon, the initial mainstream gay coming-of-age film ever.


Anyone who's familiar with Berlanti's pioneering work on television — he wrote primetime television's first enthusiastic gay kiss on Dawson's Creek and has since introduced a musical group of extraordinary complex, sex-positive gay superheroes across his roster of comic-book shows (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow) — is aware that he has a knack for making history. With Love, Simon Berlanti has once again abandoned his indelible mark on pop culture, invoking the spirit of John Hughes to make the endearing coming-of-age romantic comedy queer kids, and adults, have been waiting their whole lives for.


Based on Becky Albertalli's bestselling YA book Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, the film follows 16-year-old Simon (Nick Robinson), a not-so-openly gay high schooler who develops a romantic (and anonymous) email correspondence with a fellow closeted student known solely as Blue. Yet as soon as someone gets ahold of their intimate emails, Simon finds himself being blackmailed: He either plays along, or he gets outed to the full school.


For Berlanti, Simon's story of being a closeted teen in a little town struck an emotional chord. Below, he tells MTV News about his own relationship to the novel, his visceral reaction to the script, and how he feels a personalized responsibility to tell more LGBTQ+ stories.


MTV News: What was it about Becky Albertalli's book that made you wish to direct the feature film adaptation?


Greg Berlanti: By the time I read it, it was a film script already. Yet then I went back and re-read the book, and what the film script that I got and what the book has, and hopefully what the film has, is real emotional core. As well as a real truthfulness and authenticity to it that's really hard to get some days with a high school story or a young person's story — although it's the most critical ingredient. I felt like it was our job to honor that and make it even more pronounced in the film.


MTV News: Could you visualize yourself in Simon Spier's story at all?


Berlanti: As we developed the script, I shared a lot of my own personalized experiences of being a closeted kid in a little town with a pretty well-adjusted family member along with a pretty well-adjusted person although yet still struggling with the closet, so I did visualize myself in him.


Simon (Nick Robinson) with his sister Nora (Talitha Bateman), mom Emily (Jennifer Garner), and dad Jack (Josh Duhamel) in Love, Simon


MTV News: For so several people, the immediate response to this film has been "I wish I had this movie growing up." Were you aware of that reaction while making the film?


Berlanti: I had a real visceral reaction to the script any time Whenever I read it, and I thought, Is it just the story? Is it how well-written it is? Is it that I'm gay or was closeted As soon as I was a kid? And then as we were making it, I became really cognizant that there's something that you just connect with in an other way any time it really resembles you. You don't have to do as much math in your head of switching the genders of the characters to get through it psychologically — you could just connect.


MTV News: Eighteen years prior, you were instrumental in shepherding the initial romantic gay kiss onto primetime television on Dawson's Creek, and right now you're helming the opening gay teen rom-com from a major studio. As one of the most powerful males in Hollywood, do you feel a responsibility to tell these stories?


Berlanti: I think so. It's incredibly beneficial, although it's also that most of my success has come from doing stuff that's really straightforward and sincere for me. It becomes your responsibility then once you get to that position to mention, "What can I do to put something there that wasn't there before?" I disregard picture it much once I'm doing it because I'm focusing more on the art of the thing and wanting to create it the ideal that it could possibly be.


I wish that there weren't several firsts left, however there still are, and representation in movies is where representation in TV was once we were making those shows and doing some of these firsts, although that was 18 years back. Major studio films have to catch up.


MTV News: What was your reaction as soon as you saw the opening cut of the film?


Berlanti: I was emotional. I would go and watch cut scenes while we were shooting just to be able to see if there was anything we might augment while doing so, and every time I would sit down — it was an experience I'd never had before — I would drift out of director mode and drift into audience mode. It was this visceral thing where I might tell that just the fact that there were two members of the same gender featured in this love story however with a mainstream gloss to it, I didn't realize how vital it was for me to get that. I would then have to reorient myself back inside director mode and be hyper-critical of the thing. By the time we put it all with each other and I experienced it, I attempted to remember what that feeling was like, thinking you could never experience that again.


Nick (Jorge Lendeborg), Simon (Robinson), Abby (Alexandra Shipp), and Leah (Katherine Langford) walk the halls at school


MTV News: Can we talk about the "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" musical sequence? Because that was astonishing. Was that your addition?


Berlanti: It was. It was my idea. I really wanted to show the audience something about Simon's notion of what it could be like to be free, so he had an emotional objective in mind. He spends so much of the movie hiding and being evasive, and I wanted the audience to feel that exuberance indoor of him earlier in the movie — and then to feel it again at the end although earned in an other way. The fantasy version is naturally what's in his head. Plus, any excuse to get a Whitney Houston musical number into anything is a good one.


MTV News: I read that you've been attempting to cast Nick Robinson in one of your assignments since you saw his efficiency in Kings of Summer. What was it about Nick that made him your first choice for Simon?


Berlanti: He was on a very short list, nevertheless he was the opening person on my very short list that I met with that I really regarding and understood the character and understood what we were going for. A movie like this and the breadth of emotion of it is only as wide as that actor's talents. He, to me, has such a breadth of ability for a young person, and he makes you emote for him. You feel for him, and you're on his journey. That was the most key ingredient to Simon — he's taking us through this whole world, and he's hiding from the world, nevertheless we still have to care for him every step of the way. There's just something about Nick that pulls you in. He escorts audience by means of the movie more than even I can directorially. He habitually had that excellent in spades.


Berlanti and Robinson at a special screening of Love, Simon in Los Angeles


MTV News: He can do sad, puppy-dog eyes really well, too.


Berlanti: He does that! He's also got a brand of humor that's really sly and not over the best or kitschy. He's got excellent timing, and he isn't afraid to just go for it. To find that whole variety of things in one individual is rare.


MTV News: You also reunited with Keiynan Lonsdale from The Flash in this movie. He's so charming as Bram. What was it like to work with him outdoor of the Arrowverse?


Berlanti: Once you're working as a showrunner you're not directing them daily, so in some ways I got to know him better in working with him on the film. I'd routinely had wonderful respect and admiration for him, nevertheless we got to hang out more and get to know each other better. Keiynan's heart really shows through on the screen. He is a very sweet, very tender person and still strong. It was fantastic to be able to see him. There were times any time as soon as he came down and it also would just put me at ease to be able to see a familiar face.


For more on Love, Simon, watch Berlanti and the cast talk about the making of the film with MTV News in the video below.


Love, Simon is in theaters now.