THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

Queer as Folk's Peter Paige doesn't hop a plane back to sunny L.A. every time the camera stops rolling on his show's Toronto set. He's currently sticking around to co-star in a new Canadian film called Childstar, directed by Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould scribe and established indie filmmaker Don McKellar. The movie revolves around an obnoxious child actor from the States who, while filming a movie about the U.S. president's son wreaking havoc with the military, goes AWOL in Canada, suddenly causing real-life trouble everwhere around him. (Does Romeo smell an American foreign-policy metaphor?) Canadian kid actor Mark Rendall (best known as the voice of beloved animated aardvark Arthur), Jennifer Jason Leigh, Eric Stoltz, and Dave Foley all lend their talents to the comedy. It's still filming, so look for it sometime in the coming year.

Anderson Takes a Wife

Lesbian filmmaker Jane Anderson has signed a deal with Fine Line Features to write and direct the big-screen adaptation of Meg Wolitzer's 2003 novel The Wife. Anderson's other woman-centric credits include penning the film How to Make an American Quilt and both writing and directing When Billie Beat Bobby and last year's sex-change drama, Normal. Set in New York's literary world, The Wife concerns a woman who decides to leave her husband, a famous novelist, thus uncovering some unpleasant domestic secrets. There's no cast or script yet, so that leaves the impatient plenty of time to read the book and adopt a superior literary attitude when friends talk about the movie.

A Man Made Man

Ken Baker, the West Coast executive editor of Us Weekly magazine, wasn't confused about his gender identity, but his brain was. Baker published a book in 2001 called Man Made: A Memoir of My Body, which documented his struggle with a rare brain tumor that produced female hormones in his body. The tumor interrupted his physical development as male, until surgery corrected the condition when he was 27. Now his story is being made into a film, but not as a medical drama. It will be adapted for the screen by writer Gary Rosen as a comedy about a man who goes through puberty at 27. That's one way to sidestep the typical trap of the tear-jerking, Lifetime Network-style movie. And it may just prove that boys really don't cry after all.

Heath and Jake Aren't

Saddled Up Yet

Yes, it's true. Screen heartthrobs Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are in talks to star in Ang Lee's upcoming feature, Brokeback Mountain. The story of two cowboys who, while married to women and remaining in Montana—instead of running off to West Hollywood—conduct a passionate, heartbreakingly clandestine affair for over 20 years, Brokeback aims to break the idiotic taboo against male affection in big studio Hollywood movies. But keep this in mind: it's not a done deal yet, the stars aren't officially rounded up, and 'in talks' means just that. When dotted lines are signed, cameras roll, editing is completed, and the MPAA is finished with its predictable freak-out over it all, then Romeo will get excited. Until then, it's a case of counting your cowboys before they hatch. Or something like that.

Romeo San Vicente is in talks to rope a few cowpokes for his own Wild West show. He can be reached care of this publication or DeepInsideHollywood@qsyndicate.com .