In order for social movements to succeed, there must be movers: people who transform popular convention by instilling their vision in others and moving them to action. It could be as simple as one act of defiance or an entire life devoted to a cause. In Harvey Milk’s case, it was a simple act of defiance—a gay man opening a camera shop in a blue-collar Irish-Catholic neighborhood—that eventually led to a life of political activism. 

Thirty years after his death, Harvey Milk is an enduring symbol in the struggle for equality that the LBGTQ community still face. Milk, which opened nationwide in December, gives a gripping account of the first openly gay man elected to public office in a major city. Sean Penn’s engrossing performance all but guarantees his fifth Oscar nomination for Best Actor. 

The film, directed by Gus Van Sant with screenplay by Dustin Lance Black, captures the mood and flavor of 1970’s San Francisco and the activists who made up Milk’s political team. The cast also features James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna, Alison Pill, and Victor Garber. 

But Josh Brolin’s portrayal of Dan White is especially powerful. Brolin perfectly embodies Milk’s former colleague as a simmering pressure cooker who ultimately boiled over and shot and killed Milk and Mayor George Moscone on November 27, 1978. We recently caught up with Brolin (as well as some other cast members) and director Gus Van Sant to discuss the role and his thoughts about the film. A few years earlier, Van Sant replaced Oliver Stone in a separate Harvey Milk project, The Mayor of Castro Street, after Stone decided he did not want to follow up JFK with another film about an assassinated lead character. The movie, which was to star Robin Williams, never got off the ground. The project was relegated to the back burner and Van Sant subsequently became interested in Dustin Lance Black’s Milk screenplay. 

Director Gus Van Sant

h: What happened with the Mayor of Castro Street project? 

Gus Van Sant: Oliver had written a bunch of drafts for the script and Robin was in there, and they were ready to just go. But the problem was the script that Oliver developed, it was basically an Oliver script and I wasn’t able to pull off an Oliver script. I needed something else, so that’s where the problems arose. I tried to do a draft, and it wasn’t working out. 

h: How did Sean get involved? 

GVS: When Robin was no longer doing it in that first go-round, I took another little stab at it and I talked to Sean about it back then. Once Sean was committed to the project,
we had to find [the right actor to play] Harvey’s boyfriend. Sean asked Francine Maisler, who was the casting director (and also a friend), to think if he was serving 25 years in a federal penitentiary, who she would set him up with if she was his mom. [Laughter] So I think James [Franco] naturally came up.
[More laughter] 

h: What was your approach to making this movie? Were you consciously trying to depart from a typical biographical treatment? 

GVS: We started with something that looked like documentary footage, and that wasn’t working for us. We ended up doing kind of a synthesis of something that we thought of as The Godfather, with more cutting. But The Godfather became a kind of template about two weeks after we started filming. But also, sometimes a movie will start to take on the personality of the lead character. I think he was most famous for being out and loud and opinionated and combative and for cracking bad jokes.
For his fellow politicians within the gay community, it was a little like, ‘Oh it’s him again, it’s that loudmouth Harvey Milk.’

Alison Pill and Emile Hirsch

Pill plays Anne Kronenberg, the lone female presence at Milk Election Headquarters. Only 22, the Toronto native has captured attention as a fast-rising star in film and on stage. The first time Pill stepped on a Broadway stage (in 2006), she earned a Tony nomination for her work in “The Lieutenant of Inishmore”. Coming into the project, Pill tells me she didn’t know a whole lot about Kronenberg, who managed Milk’s successful run for office and currently serves as a deputy director at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. 

h: How did you initially approach the role? 

Alison Pill: I went in on the audition, and I had only the script to go on. I thought, okay, this girl rides a bike, wears leathers, comes into a campaign office and takes over. 

h: What was it like the first time you met Anne after you had been cast to play her? 

AP: It completely changed my way of thinking. Instead of what you expect to get from a woman in a leather jacket, you get [slipping into the disarming sweetness of her character] ‘Hey.’ She’s very aware of her power as a woman to deal with a roomful of men. It’s so much more effective to come in as this den mother and take control that way. When Anne talks, she has an amazing way of speaking that doesn’t let any air into the conversation unless she wants it there. And it’s an effective way to deal with all these guys coming at you without competing with them. 

h: Did you get any feedback on your performance from those who knew Kronenberg personally? 

AP: Cleve [Jones] was just happy that I had my fake boobs, cuz he was like, ‘Anne’s tits
were amazing!’ 

h: How was your experience working with Sean? 

AP: It’s pretty inspiring to see someone who gets so fully into a character, who seems to so completely understand somebody and also has the amazing ability to turn it off. It’s always sort of awkward to work with someone who’s always in character. 

h: In your own career, had you ever thought that in order to really give yourself to a character completely, you needed to always be ‘on’? 

AP: I realized that for myself and my work, that was just an adolescent view. To be really mature, you have to learn to live a life as well as just treat it as a job. When I was 18, I was like, ‘No you have to really feel it, you have to feel everything!’ So, to see somebody who can be so brilliant and so in the skin of somebody, it’s just nice to know that it’s possible. 

h: Getting a Tony nomination for your first Broadway role must have been rewarding. 

AP: I was really shocked because I had come in as a replacement and I only had one week of shows, and then I was in previews. So the fact that I was nominated, I was like, “I haven’t even begun to figure out what I’m doing.” [laughing]

Hirsch is at once a witty and engaging presence, qualities that he brings to his portrayal of Cleve Jones. Leaning back casually, right leg tucked underneath his left thigh, he drapes his arm across the chair next to him. His self-depreciating sense of humor is refreshing as he discusses his character and his feelings about the film. 

h: What sort of research did you do for the role? 

Emile Hirsch: It was more of hanging around Cleve and letting some sort of osmosis go on. He’s had such an interesting life. By all accounts, Cleve was perfectly content to party and live with this sort of gang of street ‘Lost Boys’ in San Francisco. They had this kind of wild existence. Then he finally got involved with Milk and started to educate himself more. Harvey channeled him into
having a purpose. 

h: I know Cleve made himself available as a resource during production. How did you feel knowing your character was on the set
during filming?

EH: It brought up a kind of anxiety, but at the same time, it was so helpful. It was like having a lot of answers to a quiz right in front of you. I felt spoiled. I think that Cleve, even though he was always there, he was cool enough where he didn’t put any weird pressure on me. 

h: What did you know about the story before they gave you the script? 

EH: Literally nothing. I thought the Castro

was the whale in Pinocchio. I did! [laughing] What was it, Maestro? I was reading the script and I was like, Castro, the whale? I didn’t know that much about it, so it was a bit of an education. And I read the book “The Mayor of Castro Street”, and that’s a really helpful book if you want to know about that time period. 

h: What was it like working with Gus? 

EH: Each great director I’ve been able to work with is very uniquely different. Gus has this kind of relaxed grace. Sean [Into the Wild] has this kind of poetic fury and passion. Ang [Lee, the upcoming Taking Woodstock] has this nuance and creativity. I loved working with Catherine [Hardwicke, Lords of Dogtown]. We had this really great kind of contentious relationship where we would make fun of each other and yell at each other. But it was all in a fun way. 

h: How did you get involved in the project? 

Josh Brolin

Josh Brolin: Matt Damon was originally supposed to do the role, but he had some scheduling problems and Sean mentioned me to Gus. They sent me the script and I read it immediately. I cried at the end. I was very moved by it. Then I got the 1984 documentary [The Times of Harvey Milk], watched that with my daughter, and both of us were crying at the end of that. 

h: You bring a conflicted tension to Dan White that gives him more complexity than simply a cold-blooded murderer. How did you perceive him as you researched the role? 

JB: Dan White was put in this situation by the Police Department and the Fire Department to bring back traditional San Francisco; this super-white, Catholic mentality. I think he tried to do the right thing. He was frustrated because he wanted more money. Then he tried to resign, and they wouldn’t let him. And Mayor Moscone wouldn’t take him back in. So I understand, on a very basic, human level, when all your power is taken away, and you’re sitting there, your legacy is dirt – with your family, your friends, your community. And you think, ‘The only power I have left is to load the
gun, point the gun, shoot the gun, kill the person’—cause and effect. I don’t excuse it, obviously, but I understand that desperation. 

h: How did you feel filming in San Francisco, knowing you were playing a villain on the “home turf” of a beloved personality? 

JB: I felt the same way during W. I talked to Oliver [Stone] about maybe needing security. I was afraid. I knew San Francisco embraced [Milk] and [knew] that the film was being done. But I got no negativity. No one said, ‘Why would you play a guy like that as a sympathetic character, how dare you?’ 

h: Were you attracted to the idea of portraying such a conflicted and ultimately tragic
character? 

JB: My initial reaction wasn’t ‘I gotta play this character.’ With this movie, it more was like, ‘I have to be involved in this movie.
It’s an important film.’

There was a lot of noise about glass ceilings being shattered this election season. Two candidates – an African American and a woman – were dueling it out, each hoping to earn the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. Just a few years ago, such a scenario would have been fodder for compelling fiction. 

Three decades ago, an equally notable breakthrough occurred. Harvey Milk, the colorful, self-proclaimed “Mayor of Castro Street”, became the first openly gay person to win a major election when he captured a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. But the dream abruptly turned into a nightmare when Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by a disgruntled former board member on Nov. 27, 1978. 

Outrage reverberated throughout the gay community, coming to a head after the light sentence given to Dan White for the killings, due in part to what infamously became known as “the Twinkie defense”. White’s lawyers had claimed that depression, coupled with a massive intake of junk food had contributed to his “unpremeditated” actions on that day. White was paroled after serving just five years of a seven-year prison sentence. A year-and-a-half later, he committed suicide. 

As the 30-year anniversary of Milk’s death approaches, it is a fitting time to revisit the fiery politician’s contributions to smashing existing social prejudices. The California Supreme Court voted earlier this year to overturn its ban on same-sex marriage. (A measure challenging this ruling, Proposition 8, will go before voters on Nov. 4.) Gus Van Sant directed the soon to be released Milk, a major motion picture starring Sean Penn as Milk.

Filmmaker Rob Epstein’s 1984 documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk, paints a definitive portrait of the small business owner – turned political gate crasher. Epstein currently sits on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. He recently took a few moments to reflect on Milk’s legacy. “I knew Harvey casually through his shop, Castro Camera. It was just this funky-ass neighborhood camera store where I would drop off my film. Harvey would make it his business to know the business of every person who walked across his threshold. I remember one time as I was walking out of the store, Harvey looked up and called out ‘Hey, Epstein!’ to get my attention and followed it up with a very saucy comment. He had an outrageous side to his personality and he enjoyed tweaking people in a fun-loving, disarming way.” 

Oddly enough, Milk’s early political leanings were conservative. In fact, the New York native backed Republican candidate Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. By 1972, however, Milk had moved to San Francisco and his ideology evolved to a more liberal stance. He ran unsuccessfully for public office twice before finally being elected in 1977. “I was not a big follower of Harvey’s professional career, and in fact voted for him in two elections but not in the final one,” recalls Epstein. “But over the course of the Proposition 6/Briggs Initiative campaign – which was the ‘No on 8’ battle of its day – I came to see Harvey in a way that I hadn’t before: This guy is really standing for something, he’s not just about getting elected to political office.” More than a straight biography, Epstein says he wanted his film to be a document of the times and the effect Milk had on the gay rights movement. “Gus’s film fills in the blanks of The Times of Harvey Milk beautifully; it’s a much more personal, intimate, yet epic telling of the Harvey Milk story.” 

Today, Milk’s lasting influence is apparent. The Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy operates as a small, public elementary school in the Castro District. Harvey Milk High School in Manhattan offers an alternative learning option to students who have had difficulty feeling accepted in other high schools. In Orange County and San Diego, Harvey Milk Scholarship funds provide financial assistance to students who are committed to finishing school and working to benefit their communities. 

Epstein recognizes that the groundbreaking events in current national politics recall the political climate of change that existed in San Francisco in the 1970s. “Harvey Milk and Barack Obama are kindred spirits, for sure. When people ask me, ‘If Harvey had lived, where would he be today?’, I respond: On the Obama/Milk ticket.”