Scroll To Top
film

Jake Borelli to Star in the First Gay-Themed Valentine's Day Movie

Borrelli

Good Trouble and The Fosters creator Peter Paige directs The Thing About Harry, which recontextualizes the romantic holiday flick for queer people. 

For any queer person who's ever felt excluded from holiday love stories, Freeform is about to change that with The Thing About Harry, a gay-themed Valentine's Day romance directed by Good Trouble and The Fosters creator Peter Paige, set to premiere on the network in February.

Grey's Anatomy's out star Jake Borelli stars as Sam, a gay man who embarks on a road trip from Chicago to attend an engagement party in his small hometown in Missouri, where he faced bullying for bravely coming out during high school. The catch is that he ends up having to take the trip with his high school nemesis Harry (newcomer Niko Terho), a jock who may be on the road to some self-discovery with Sam.

Over the course of the trip and a night at a roadside motel, the men develop a bond that has the promise of becoming something else.

Sam is described in Freeform press notes as "a handsome, funny, neurotic, intelligent young gay man who combines a scathing wit with an overly idealistic worldview." Meanwhile, Harry is "an emotionally uncomplicated, promiscuous player who has always left a string of broken hearts in his wake. Under the surface, Harry actually yearns for love, family, and stability, but the thought of commitment still terrifies him."

The Thing About Harry costars Queer Eye's Karamo Brown as Paul, an "overbearing and pretentious gay man," and Britt Baron (GLOW) plays Stasia, Sam's edgy and opinionated best friend. Paige, who starred as Emmett in the groundbreaking Queer as Folk for five seasons, will appear as Sam's roommate Casey.

The movie is executive-produced by Paige, Greg Gugliotta, and F.J. Denny. Paige and Josh Senter wrote the script.

"It's been an honor to partner with Freeform in making great television with LGBTQ+ characters as leads. True equality can only be achieved when you see yourself reflected in the movies, music and stories that paint our culture," Paige, Gugliotta, and Denny said in a statement.

"As young gay men in the '90s, whenever a rom-com opened, we would watch the leading lady fall in love, and imagine what it would be like if the boy was saying all those things to another boy," they said. "We've always wanted to make a movie -- an unabashedly romantic comedy -- that queer boys wouldn't have to translate. It's rewarding to take the genre to a new, all-inclusive level."

Advocate Channel - The Pride StoreOut / Advocate Magazine - Fellow Travelers & Jamie Lee Curtis

From our Sponsors

Most Popular

Latest Stories

Tracy E. Gilchrist