John Gal­lagher Jr: ​‘There’s an oblig­a­tion to tell these stories’

You may well recog­nise Amer­i­can actor John Gal­lagher Jr as ​‘that guy’, be it from Des­tin Daniel Cretton’s Short Term 12, Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Clover­field Lane or TV’s The News­room (he’s also a tal­ent­ed musi­cian). In Desiree Akhavan’s humor­ous and hard-hit­ting new film, The Mise­d­u­ca­tion of Cameron Post, he plays Rev­erend Rick, a gui­tar-strum­ming pas­tor at a Chris­t­ian con­ver­sion camp. We caught up with Gal­lagher Jr recent­ly to find out why the role became the most impor­tant of his career so far.

LWLies: What were your first impres­sions when you read the script? Were you famil­iar with the novel?

Gal­lagher Jr: It was new to me. I was not famil­iar with the nov­el but I was famil­iar with Desiree Akhavan’s work – I’d seen Appro­pri­ate Behav­iour about a year or two pri­or and had real­ly enjoyed it. I thought she was a real­ly excit­ing film­mak­er, and I remem­ber think­ing, ​‘Oh wow, I can’t wait to see what she does next.’ So when I got sent the script for Cameron Post, I noticed right off that bat that her name was attached which was real­ly excit­ing. I start­ed read­ing the script and real­ly didn’t know what to expect at all. I didn’t know what it was about, but I got sucked in. It was this per­fect blend of real­ism and humour, and there were gen­uine stakes that the char­ac­ters were expe­ri­enc­ing. Then I got to the scene with my char­ac­ter, and I was quite tak­en with the role. I didn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly think I was the right guy for the part – I rarely do – but I met with Desiree and she talked me into it. She con­vinced me I could do it.

You got your start on Broad­way in a musi­cal called ​‘Spring Awak­en­ing’, about a group of teenagers dis­cov­er­ing their sex­u­al­i­ty with­in an oppres­sive com­mu­ni­ty of reli­gious adults. Cameron Post is kind of the same thing, only…

…Now I’m one of the adults.

Yes! Did that ever occur to you?

Oh, total­ly. It real­ly did. It’s kind of fun­ny because I did this film a cou­ple of years ago called Short Term 12, which is sim­i­lar in that it takes place in a facil­i­ty for at-risk youths. But it doesn’t have the same kind of prob­lem­at­ic treat­ment at the cen­tre of it. But I remem­ber think­ing when I did that film, and when I did Cameron Post, ​‘Oh gosh, these are all kind of under the same umbrel­la as Spring Awak­en­ing,’ which real­ly is about find­ing your­self as you’re approach­ing adult­hood and try­ing to fig­ure out your needs and your desires in the faces of an oppres­sive com­mu­ni­ty. Maybe this is such a uni­ver­sal theme that I keep stum­bling into it.

What was dif­fer­ent about the role of Rick?

What appealed to me about Rick was that he seemed to me to be some­one who is just as tor­ment­ed as the chil­dren, hav­ing gone through the same type of treat­ment and come out on the oth­er end of it. It’s tricky, because who can say if it did work for him. Did he get cured, or is he just going along with it because it’s an eas­i­er exis­tence than fac­ing up to some­thing you’ve been made to believe is com­plete­ly sin­ful and shame­ful? I was drawn to the role because he has that lit­tle sliv­er of human­i­ty about him.

Did you speak to any­one involved in con­ver­sion ther­a­py for research?

I didn’t, but I know Desiree and Chloë Grace Moretz did. I joined the film pret­ty late in the game, so I didn’t have a lot of time. I had to do a kind of crash course – Desiree sent me some doc­u­men­taries and YouTube inter­views with peo­ple who had gone through con­ver­sion ther­a­py, and that was my home­work. But I didn’t want to make Rick a flat-out vil­lain, y’know. It’s amaz­ing what a per­son will do when they believe they’re doing the right thing, when they’ve con­vinced themselves.

There’s almost a soft­ness to the film. It would have been easy to por­tray the camp as a hell hole, but every­thing seems so normalised.

The scari­est part to me of any ter­ri­ble thing is the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of it. Just being worn down every day. Some of the most heart­break­ing scenes in the film are where you see Cameron start to won­der if she belongs at the camp. You see how the seeds of doubt and shame are sowed.

Do you think that films like this do have the pow­er to change people’s per­cep­tions of sex­u­al­i­ty and con­ver­sion ther­a­py camps?

I think so. I hope so. It changed mine – not that I was pro-con­ver­sion ther­a­py before doing the film! But I was igno­rant, and a lit­tle naïve, and when we shot the film in 2016 I thought, ​‘Peo­ple don’t do this any­more, it’s archa­ic, it’s medieval,’ and I was shocked to learn it’s still being prac­ticed and there’s not a lot of safe­guards to keep kids safe from it. That real­ly knocked me out. Then I thought, ​‘Okay, we have to make this movie, because if I’m feel­ing that way, then I’m sure so many oth­er peo­ple are as well.’ It’s a film that can wake some oth­er peo­ple up and make them aware. As long as it’s still hap­pen­ing, there’s an oblig­a­tion to tell these sto­ries, and make art that ques­tions and chal­lenges that.

Have you had any reac­tions from peo­ple who’ve been through this process?

You know when we pre­miered at Sun­dance there was a guy there who had been through gay con­ver­sion ther­a­py treat­ment as a young man. He was a source of inspi­ra­tion for Chloë and Desiree. We’ve had peo­ple come up to us at film fes­ti­vals and say they were sent to camps like this, or that they knew some­one who was. You don’t have to dig too deep to find some­one who’s been affect­ed by this kind of prej­u­dice. I hope that it will be a com­fort, and that it will make peo­ple who are suf­fer­ing feel a lit­tle less alone.

The Mise­d­u­ca­tion of Cameron Post is released 7 Sep­tem­ber. Read the LWLies rec­om­mends review and read an inter­view with direc­tor Desiree Akha­van exclu­sive­ly in our lat­est print edi­tion.