His new film, Last Days, which he wrote, directed and edited, based loosely on the final moments in the life of rock star Kurt Cobain (1967-1994) is no different.

In the midst of the movie, which follows lonely and alienated vocalist Blake, played by Michael Pitt (The Dreamers, Hedwig and the Angry Inch) on a toboggan ride down self-destruction's path, there is a brief gay scene where two of the men in Blake's entourage fall on top of each other.

"If two straight people did that it's normal, but if two gay people did that, there has to be a reason," Van Sant said in an interview with AfterElton.com from his hotel suite at San Francisco’s Palomar Hotel late last month. "Why is that? We have this idea that we shouldn't include something like that unless it means something big. It happens in Elephant too. If it's in the story, leaving it out is wrong. It's just a little sexy scene."

Although not overtly political on film, the auteur, who bears a striking resemblance to Anthony Perkins, went on to say that Last Days was born out of a period of off-screen gay radicalism.

Although Van Sant and Cobain met only once at Cobain's manager's house in Los Angeles when the director was out fund-raising to battle "No On 4," a 1992, Northwestern anti-gay proposition which mandated that all gay schoolteachers and state workers stay in the closet, the encounter would leave a lasting impression on the director.

"I'm from Portland and they're from Seattle, so Courtney knew friends of mine and they both loved My Own Private Idaho, so they said they'd help us," he said. "There was this one party where River Phoenix, Kurt and Courtney's lawyer, Kurt and Courtney's manager and Bob Guccione Jr. from Spin were all there. When Kurt and Courtney showed up, Kurt was shy and wide-eyed, as if he just woke up. He had this interesting aura that was very attractive and that thing that enigmatic people have that's part of the showbiz persona. They later played a benefit concert for us."

Van Sant said that like River Phoenix, Cobain's tragic death two years later affected him deeply. "At the time, River had just died, so I'd already gone through the even huger and much more cataclysmic event with a really close friend just dying," he said. "And that was the hugest thing ever. It always carries that feeling that there's no going back. You want to turn the clock back and you can't...because you knew he didn't want to die, and I knew that wasn't in his plan. Or at least I felt that way."

Although there are striking similarities between Blake’s character and Cobain, Van Sant wrote him vaguely--to the extent that he can be any troubled artist on the verge of death, including Van Sant favorite River Phoenix, who died of a lethal mixture of cocaine and heroine the year before in 1993.

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