“Do you want to write Netflix’s first gay Christmas rom-com?” 

It was early 2019 and I couldn’t quite believe I was hearing these words on the other end of the line. I’d just picked up a call from my friend Joel Rice, who produced two movies I wrote many years ago. I was giddy. I was stunned. The biggest streaming giant in the world really wanted to make a gay Christmas rom-com? I think the first words out of my mouth were, “Are you serious?”

I’m gay. I’ve incorporated queer characters and storylines into many of the shows and movies I’ve written. But the opportunity to write something for the world’s biggest audience in which the lead characters are gay is something I could never — would never — pass up. And it would be Netflix’s first gay Christmas rom-com? That’s big. That’s daunting. That’s important.

But thinking about the importance of something you’re about to write is the fastest and surest way to ruin it. So I tried to set the importance of the project aside and ask myself one simple question: What is the gay Christmas movie I would want to watch?

And I literally made a list. Not in an “agenda” way, in an “I love this movie and want to watch it again and again” way. Here is the list:

• Not about coming out or homophobia. This is about life after coming out.

• The uniqueness of gay friendships/relationships (we’ve often dated our friends before they became our friends and vice versa. And we’re often questioned by straight people why we aren’t just in love with our best friend).

• Music: Whitney/Britney.

• Madonna (somehow?).

• Jennifer Coolidge. Write a role for her. Because Jennifer Coolidge.

• Los Angeles/then somewhere else.

• Main character goes home to a completely accepting loving family who has zero issues with him being gay but is super annoying about everything else. 

• Mom character is overly supportive/P-Flag Mom.

• Dad is loving and supportive and very human. 

• Siblings are all married with kids.

• Kids in movie don’t question gay relationship. They just see it as normal.

• Social media/influencers. (I want this to hit as real for all the gays, for it to feel real to now. Let’s get Kyle Krieger and Max Emerson maybe?)

• Dog!

I made this list in about 30 minutes. I didn’t yet know exactly what the story would be, but I had some goals. And the “between-the-lines” of this list was a larger goal of making a movie that felt absolutely true to the LGBTQ+ audience, but also felt true and relatable to a non-LGBTQ+ audience. I absolutely adore Christmas movies and rom-coms, I’ve been watching them my entire life, and I never once thought “Well, here we go, another Christmas movie about straight people.” They were all about straight people. I still loved them. I watch them with my family every Christmas. I wanted to write one of those movies. A movie friends and families watch and love together. A movie that hits all the feels of the best Christmas movies… but with leading characters who just happen to be (finally) queer.

And I wanted to write about a completely loving and supportive family. For three reasons: 1) My own family is completely loving and supportive, so that’s my truth; 2) I wanted audiences to see a story about gay people that wasn’t about being gay. If the family wasn’t accepting, the story would have to be about the struggle of being gay; 3) It’s funnier. Completely supportive and loving families get to argue about all the other things.

I tried not to think about how important it could be for some people to see this movie. But I can’t tell you what it would have meant to me to see this movie as a young kid. Before coming out I had no idea how my family would react. Would they still love me? It would have meant the world if I had seen these confident gay characters living happy adult lives, if I had seen this loving amazing family, if I had seen a world in which I was loved exactly the same no matter who I was. So if seeing this movie somehow helps one young person struggling with their identity, or a mom or dad struggling with accepting their child… that’s important. 

But I couldn’t think about that! Sure, I knew if the movie was good it could end up being important, but first I needed to write a movie, not a lesson plan. I had to write something funny! Something romantic. I had to create a character for Jennifer Coolidge and write crazy things for her to say. I had to write about our love/hate relationship with holiday cheer and vanilla pine candles. I had to work a dog into the story. I had to write about the exhaustion of being a single gay at Christmas yet again in a family full of straight people in relationships.

And I wrote the movie. And I had a blast. (Trust me, writing is almost never what we writers would call “a blast.”) And then we made the movie. We made it a year later than we were supposed to (pandemic), so we aren’t technically the first gay Christmas rom-com ever, but I think we’re the first major motion picture in which all the queer characters are played by queer actors. I’m very proud of that. 

Speaking of the actors… they’re the ones who brought this script to life. The director, the brilliant Michael Mayer, brought this to life. Joel Rice, the producer who called me that day, brought this to life. As did every person who worked on this movie. Sure, a movie starts with a script, but the finished product is the result of hundreds of brilliantly talented people without whom this would just be a stack of gay paper.

Some of those brilliantly talented people are the people who work at Netflix. They supported my vision for this movie 100%. Every step of this creative journey was joyous and fun and gratifying. I can’t thank them enough, especially Christina Rogers, Harry Lacheen, and Erin Sanderson.

And thanks to Netflix, Single All The Way will be streamed to 190 countries around the world and 214 million homes. That’s not mainstream, that’s bigger than mainstream. For this movie to reach that many people is, dare I say, important. It’s the greatest Christmas gift I could ask for.