Thomas Bezucha had it made working in the high end fashion world. For nearly a decade he worked closely with Ralph Lauren designing POLO/Ralph Lauren stores and even Lauren’s own elaborate homes. Later he helped venerable leather brand Coach revamp their image from stuffy to hip and relevant. But inside Bezucha’s soul beat the heart of an aspiring filmmaker, so in the late 90’s, Bezucha (pronounced Bazooka, like the gum) left the fashion world behind and leapt headfirst into independent filmmaking. His first feature Big Eden, was a well reviewed gay film that has done well in the home video market.

For his sophomore feature, Bezucha jumps into big time studio filmmaking with the wide release of his sophomore feature The Family Stone (Fox 2000). The film revolves around Everett Stone, (Dermot Mulroney) bringing home his staunch girlfriend Meredith, (Sarah Jessica Parker) to meet his close-knit family over Christmas vacation only to have everyone hate her. The Stone family matriarch Sybil (Diane Keaton) is secretly suffering through terminal breast cancer and another sibling, Thad (Ty Giordano), is deaf and gay and in a biracial relationship with his African-American partner Patrick (Brian White). Together the gay couple is anxiously awaiting the arrival of an adopted baby.

Bezucha spoke by phone from his West Hollywood apartment about the lightbulb moment that had him dumping fashion for filmmaking, what he’s trying to communicate with his gay characters in both his films, and what Sarah Jessica Parker and Diane Keaton are like to direct.

AfterElton.com: How much of The Family Stone was personal?
Tom Bezucha: It’s one of those weird things, it’s not autobiographical, but it could not be more personal to me in a strange way. There are many women in my life who have had breast cancer, some who survived and flourished and others who’ve died. I’m gay so I’ve had partners and brought them home. But the closest thing to my family is I have a sister and she shares some of the characteristics of the Rachel McAdams character – she’s a very stubborn girl – and she was dating a guy that we didn’t like, and the sense was definitely if we had said anything she would have married him to spite us. So we sort of bit our tongues for four years.

AE: Sarah Jessica Parker is so beloved from Sex and the City but you cast her as this mostly unlikable character.
TB: For me it was critical that we have somebody who is innately likeable so that hopefully there’s a built in willingness of the audience to follow her on her journey no matter her behavior. And what I liked was it sort of confounded, “Why don’t they like her?” and made them a little strange and opinioned too.

AE: Did you intentionally set out to do a studio film or did you initially want to make another small indie like Big Eden?
TB: For me the challenge and joy in writing, it’s the details that I adore and that lend it some verisimilitude. And in directing, some of my favorite scenes in the movie are the ones that don’t have any dialogue in there, just behavior details. One of my favorite scenes is the two guys (the gay couple) turning off the lights in the kitchen and putting on their coats. That’s it. It’s just that speaks volumes to me about their relationship. So this didn’t start off as a studio movie.

AE: There’s a very polarizing dinner scene where Diane Keaton as the Mom basically says that she’d like all her sons to have been gay so then they never would have left her, and Sarah Jessica Parker’s character Meredith says how can that be, no one would intentionally want their child to be gay knowing that their life would be more difficult. Have you experienced that kind of conversation before?
TB: I haven't and it was very tricky…What she’s saying and what they take offense to is not horrible, it’s just her inability to properly express the spirit of the thing that is challenging. And Meredith isn’t a villain. She has a line in there where she says something about, “Life is hard enough as it is,” and for that character who seems to have everything to articulate that, for me, spoke volumes about how she saw life and saw her own life and it spoke to some inferiority she feels. So she is actually sort of aligning herself with the gay, deaf character, but in such a way that they take offense. So it’s tricky. Sarah Jessica is so good in that scene. That scene is impossible and she’s so good.

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