Queer director
Mike White caught up in Hollywood lawsuit

The relationship between comic actor Laura Kightlinger and queer director Mike White is going to the dogs, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Kightlinger is suing her old pal White--best known for directing Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl--over his latest film, Year of the Dog, starring Molly Shannon, which he both wrote and directed. Kightlinger claims that film's plot of a single woman becoming an animal activist after losing her pet was originally her idea and that there was an understanding between the two that if White made a film, Kightlinger would be compensated for the idea. White denies there any agreement was made.

Years ago, when the two were neighbors, Kightlinger showed White her script about a single woman who became involved in animal rights after her cat ran away. White's film--which has grossed an unimpressive $1.5 million at the box office--is about a woman who becomes an animal-rights activist after her dog is killed.

"They are totally different scripts," White told the Los Angeles Times. "I know there is a similarity in the sense that [the female leads] both have pets that they care about, but beyond that, everything she is saying that is similar seems like a stretch to me."

The two actors (Kightlinger stars in IFC's The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman and previously appeared in Will & Grace, while White has acted in his own films Chuck and Buck and School of Rock) no longer speak. They both contend their scripts are based on their own experiences. Kightlinger has a dog and two cats; White owns two cats and two dogs. Kightlinger's suit was filed in October and will soon enter the deposition phase. (The Advocate)