Yahoo Movies Lukas Gage channeled the 'Demon Twink' Twitter phenom for Down Low
In 2021, a curious creature emerged online: the elusive "Demon Twink."
A DJ by the name of Ty Sunderland popularized the term after playing a Britney Spears-themed boat party in New York City. He claims to have witnessed what he called "a DEMON twink" who "threw a drink at the dj equipment" and "wouldn't get off the stage" unless he stopped the music. Sunderland also made a point to say this mysterious gay man was "getting his ass ate... out in the open."
The Demon Twink became instant pop culture fodder, spawning loads of memes about chaotic gay men. (Even singer-actor Troye Sivan got in on the joke.) He's now like the chupacabra of queer culture, something you think you see in the background of blurry photos. This near-mythic figure of modern-day queer folklore was irresistible to actor and screenwriter Lukas Gage, who couldn't help but find a place for it in his upcoming movie Down Low, which is coming to the LGBTQ film festival Outfest this July.
"I was really channeling that Demon Twink era. Cameron was inspired by the Demon Twink," Gage tells EW of his character, a young twink masseuse who's hired by Gary (Zachary Quinto), a repressed gay man, for a "happy ending" before becoming his queer shepherd through a wild night. "I just remember filming and [the Demon Twink] was happening at the same time. I was like, 'This was meant to be. This is kismet. This is my homework.' It was delivered to me."
Matt Infante Lukas Gage and Zachary Quinto star in 'Down Low'
Gage's Cameron is more like a Demon Twink with an angelic heart. He abandons the idea of a handjob for Gary when he learns the divorcee has been shunned by his ex-wife and sons for coming out as gay. Instead, the liberated, sex-positive Cameron (who often name-drops Tiffany "New York" Pollard from Flavor of Love) makes it his mission to give Gary his first real gay sexual experience.
Unfortunately, trouble rears its head when Sammy (Sebastian Arroyo) arrives at Gary's house after Cameron extends an invite via hook-up app Plungr (production couldn't get clearance to use Grindr), freaks out, and falls out a window to the pavement below. Now this odd couple have to deal with a dead body.
It's a concept Gage and co-writer Phoebe Fisher came up with over the course of a weekend. They were partly inspired by the early version of 1990's Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, "where it was much more dark and f---ed up," Gage says, before the studio "wanted to clean it up and make it more tame and more relatable to people."
Down Low was originally meant to be a writing sample for production and distribution company FilmNation Entertainment. Its single location, however, made it an appealing project when the COVID-19 pandemic made most film sets untenable. "Kudos to FilmNation for taking a chance on a first-time writer duo that truly made the most unhinged script of all time," Gage jokes.
Gage, however, still had to audition for the role of Cameron. The rising talent had only appeared on four episodes of Euphoria's first season at the time, and his breakthrough performance on The White Lotus season 1 wouldn't hit HBO until the week filming was to begin on Down Low. "They were very wary about putting me in," recalls Gage, who's thankful for the cast of Quinto, Judith Light, Simon Rex, and Audra McDonald for raising the profile of the film.
It also drew in director Rightor Doyle, who created Netflix series Bonding. Within the situational chaos of the story, fueled by a pill-popping family friend (Light) and a crack-smoking clean-up guy (Rex), Doyle found resonance in how it approaches the LGBTQ community.
Matt Infante Lukas Gage, Zachary Quinto, and Simon Rex in 'Down Low'
"What drew me most to Down Low was the conversation surrounding what it means to be a good person, specifically in gay culture," Doyle tells EW in a statement shared over email. "How does one be 'good' in a world that is constantly reevaluating and re-litigating our rights? We can normalize queer culture all we want: we can get married, have kids, not be too loud/too sexual/too promiscuous. But even that will seemingly never give us the acceptance we have been forced to beg for. Down Low asks — and mind you in the funniest, wildest, strangest, most exciting ways — what if we don't want your moral acceptance? What if the joy of self-acceptance is enough? What if being as bad as society thinks we are is the way we finally become free?"
"I think it's definitely a boundary-pushing film that will make a lot of people uncomfortable, and maybe a lot of things will fly by people's heads and they won't catch onto the humor, but we just wanted to do something that was for us," Gage says. "We just wanted to make each other laugh and tell a story that was also saying something."
The ideas that Doyle and Gage are discussing feel more important to them now, given the current state of LGBTQ acceptance. "We have made some strides," Gage acknowledges, "but to say that people are just totally accepting, they're not. Even in Hollywood, we have this facade that it's all chill and it's not a thing anymore, but it's still a f---ing thing. It's still a battle that people are trying to figure out."
He particularly hopes the conservative talking heads on the news, the ones spreading false narratives about queer and trans people, are going to hate Down Low. "I hope they see it and I hope they have a horrible time watching it," says the actor.
Gage has already been the subject of a Fox News segment once before. His role as a member of an activist group engaged in an act of environment terrorism in this year's How to Blow Up a Pipeline found him a target of the network. "Maybe this movie will be the number two horrible statement that I'm a part of," he cracks.
What if a Fox News host says "Demon Twink" on television because of Down Low? To Gage, that would mean "mission accomplished."
Down Low will play Outfest as the late-night spotlight screening on July 15. The film will be released later this year.
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