GIGOLO DIRECTOR COMPLETES ESCORT TRILOGY

Paul Schrader writes the third film of his male escort odyssey with The Walker.

Writer/director Paul Schrader’s fascination with male escorts began with Richard Gere in American Gigolo. His next film Light Sleeper in 1992 featured a drug pimp played by Willem Dafoe who kept company with Susan Sarandon’s dealer.

The Walker rounds out Schrader’s escort odyssey starring Woody Harrelson as a homosexual escort to Washington’s richest political wives. Schrader says the character was the gigolo years later.

“And then years later I was thinking what becomes of a guy like that in mid-life. He’s probably funny and he’s probably social and he’s probably out of the closet, like a society walker. I thought that was an interesting and occupational metaphor kind of service industry on the edge of society metaphor like those other occupations I’ve used. I thought maybe I should explore this character. I put him in Washington, DC because he became more interesting there because Washington is a city that mandates sexual hypocrisy so automatically he’s more interesting.”

Paul shot a montage that is an homage to the opening scene in American Gigolo where Gere is getting dressed, only in The Walker Woody is taking it off.

“When I first met Woody I thought, ‘wow it would be very interesting if I wigged him and let him take off the wig,’ and so that a real attraction of using him and so I did an undressing montage which ends with him taking off his hair.”

Paul says The Walker’s Carter Page III is actually based on an old friend of his from Virginia with a little bit of Gore Vidal, Dominick Dunne and Truman Capote thrown in for good measure.