Hollywood is oversaturated with chiseled Chris’s (Evans, Pine, and Pratt can open a law firm with those names and cheekbones). While the stories of ripped protagonists matter, there’s something to be said about what body types are rewarded with centerstage roles time after time. While their talents are valid, the surplus of stardom shown only to physically toned male stars leaves a lot of viewers longing for stories that more closely resemble their real worlds.
Plus-sized people and folks with body types other than the traditionally ‘skinny’ are always dealing with curve balls in a thin-centric world. Just last week, I had to halt a groomsmen suit shopping trip because our top choice wasn’t in my size; my belly throwing the matching-ness of the wedding party in total flux.
It sucks when your weight weighs down your experiences, but it certainly doesn’t define me. We laughed it off, made new arrangements, and found a store with more inclusive sizing. Like the writer, producer, director and star of this movie, I’d rather be celebrated for my humor than bogged down by society’s systemic fatphobia. That rings true for this incredibly authentic and hilarious film by Max Talisman, Things Like This.
Things Like This isn’t coated with cookie cutter body-positive messages or overt themes of acceptance. His character Zach embraces himself and never apologizes for it – nor should he! It’s a love story untouched by the several pitfalls past plus-size led movies unfortunately have fallen into. Watchers can appreciate Talisman’s refreshing take: just love who you are and acceptance will find you – a message he has proven in his film.
Talisman is also breathing new life into a fading genre we all know and love, romantic comedies! A story brimming with humor and heart, and an ode to rom-coms of old, Things Like This follows a writer (Talisman, playing Zack) who may finally take a chance on love across a snow-covered New York City. The movie is sure to inspire anyone to fight for the love they absolutely deserve. Plus you’ll definitely have a few good laughs along the way.
The film boasts some familiar faces, including Jackie Cruz from Orange Is The New Black and Cara Buono of Stranger Things. Talisman is no stranger to performing in front of the camera too, having stints on Search Party, Marry Me, and The Blacklist.
He’s adding director and writer to his resume, along with producer. The film is set for release on May 16th, 2025, under his newly founded company Malibu, Bro Productions.
We were able to chat with the engaging and motivated Max Talisman about his film, the core of plus-size representation, and why this movie will connect with anyone open to love.
So.Gay: In gay world, it can feel like we only see twinks and tweets about skinny gays. Why is it important for people to engage in stories with bigger-bodied leads?
M.T.: This movie specifically comes from my experience as a plus-size person in the LGBTQ+ community. There are many of us out there. We have only seen, at least in media so far, the stories of the thin, the muscley, or the very “pretty” guys. I’m not saying that we’re not pretty. We obviously are. They’re pretty but we’re gorgeous. I feel like we had to shake that up because it needs to be told. It needs to be seen. I’ve fallen in love with people, and I’ve been lucky enough to have experienced some really great relationships. But I’ve also had some really negative experiences in the queer dating world.
I thought it was important to really just have a conversation about being a plus-size person who dates. It doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve love. It means that you are extremely valid and deserve every bit of that love story. That’s where the idea began: to tell a love story from the perspective of someone we haven’t seen on screen yet.
So.Gay: A lot of talk on bigger people doesn’t include this fundamental question- what term should people be using? In your experience, what do you find comfortable?
M.T.: Of course, everyone’s different. I tend to say plus size the most because I think it’s all-encompassing of different body types that don’t fit the general narrative of what is “the normal” figure. You know, “normal is vastly overrated,” as Debbie Reynolds said in Halloweentown. That’s what I tend to gravitate towards, just saying plus size the most. But I know that a lot of people feel a lot of power in saying fat and calling themselves fat and then owning that. I’ve never done that personally, not because I don’t own my body type or anything. There are a million different body types. Say what’s right for you.
So.Gay: Why was it important for you to tell this story that addresses plus size experiences but isn’t defined by it? You tackle fatphobia at the start, and I’m glad you chose not to make it like a 90s PSA.
M.T.: In the first scene, we talk about my size, and I say it’s like addressing the “elephant” in the room, right? We deal with it. We notice it. I didn’t want to shy away from it, but at the same time, I wanted to show that the reaction in that scene is one side of the spectrum.
I wanted to address the fear that plus-size people may have, that their size could get in the way of finding love. It was really important to expand into a place of positivity and acceptance of the body type. I’m so glad my character never shakes in his loving himself. That’s always part of who he is. He’s never not confident in who he is, even after that scene. I want to see a romantic lead who will be plus-sized with unapologetic confidence. Self-love always has to be there.
So.Gay: You showed the more-than-harsh rejections plus-sized people face really well.
M.T.: We usually feel that it comes out of nowhere because things are going so well. And then, you know, I think it speaks to this general anxiety that keeps soaking in plus-size people after that. Being hyper-alert to every time something’s going to go wrong. Like they’re going to see me in one lighting, and it’ll be bad. I think that is how we feel because of the internalized fears of these moments.
So.Gay: I’d love to congratulate you because you’re helping bring the rom-com genre back. You even had a blooper reel, quintessential rom-com. Why should people put more trust in movies like this that focus on humor and heart?
M.T.: Especially right now, in the times we live in, I think it’s important to make sure that we are also giving ourselves time and space to laugh. To have joy and to celebrate love.
This film embraces queer love and joy. I never wanted it, even for a moment, to go into this negative space. So we don’t; we live in a place of love.
We live in a place of laughter. I was raised on rom-coms. My parents are obsessed with them, it’s just soaked in me. So when I was starting to write, everything I wrote started to turn into a rom-com. I couldn’t escape writing one.
I’m happy to help push the rom-com back into the mainstream. We do need more of it. We need more movies with love, romance, hijinks and all of it. And bring back the blooper reel while we’re at it.
So.Gay: The people yearn for the blooper reel. That is absolutely true. This movie had so many funny performers; a standout was Jackie Perez, who plays Ava. Have you always surrounded yourself with funny people like you?
M.T.: Absolutely. I grew up doing theater, which definitely adds to the humor. There’s a lot of laughter in my family. We’re an East Coast Jewish family. There’s a lot of roasting each other. Just digging in, always with love, of course. There’s a hierarchy of who is funny in my family, and I always want to be on the top of that list. It’s a good list to be on.
But also, I think a lot of plus-size people have learned to be funny pretty quickly. “I’m not going to be the pretty one. I’m going to be the funny one? But I just so happen to be both. What can you do?
So.Gay: You can’t help it. That’s a trend: plus-size people or kids using comedy as a shield. I totally get that. Let’s talk about the WORK you put into this film. You started writing it in 2017, directed it, and starred in it. What was it like in front and behind the camera?
M.T.: It was so overwhelmingly amazing. That was the most fantastic experience. I actually wasn’t supposed to direct. We had gone back and forth on different directors and talked to a few different people. But during the pandemic, I just felt like the more I sat with it, the more I couldn’t give my baby to someone else. It was more about the project itself.
It didn’t feel like the right decision to do that for the film. After discussing it with Buzz Keeneg, the producer I work with, he was fully on board. Then my good friend Charlie Taehang, who plays Kenny, was the first person to be a part of the film as an actor. I went to him, and I said, “I want to direct it.” And he was like, “Well, what took you so long to decide that? Because, yes.” So that was a nice vote of confidence.
It’s crazy to think about the first draft being seven years, eight years old. Oh my God… it was important to really put my work in on this. It was my first thing. It was the first time that I would be putting my stamp on something, not just as an actor, but as a creative, producer, and all of those things. So the work was not only a lot, but it had to be very thorough and very researched. I just made sure I hired all the right people. I was very involved in each department head’s interview process to ensure I could trust them.
They were filling in the gaps. I can’t know everything. It was great to have people who were experts be able to come to me and ask me, “Do you want this or this or this?” They always say the biggest part of directing is hiring the right people. And if that’s true, I’m a great director because I hired the best people. I just surrounded myself with geniuses and got so lucky. When I was on screen, I actually had an associate director who would be behind the camera. I could ask, “Do I need to do another take?” without halting the whole production.
So.Gay: Well, the team you assembled was phenomenal, and the final product shows that. Digging into the film, your character Zack is so funny and such a big flirt. Every line is smooth and suave. I wonder if you share that kind of quickness and where you may diverge.
M.T.: That’s so funny. Now that you’re saying it, maybe! I’m not sure. I don’t think of myself as smooth, but there are definitely qualities in how [the character and I] speak that are pretty similar. I always say that both leads are kind of different versions of me. Other sides of me. Every character a writer writes has an element of themselves, sort of. The most similar thing is how we speak. [His] quick comebacks, the one-liners, all of that stuff we share. Also, we both are very confident in who we are and very self-assured.
I think the thing we don’t have in common is he’s messy. I can’t live in mess. I’m not a neat freak but I cannot have dirty things. That’s not me… I would never wear any pajama pants out. Never. That was a big one. Only for the movie, it will never happen again. You will never see it. No.
So.Gay: Unless the next role calls for it, then maybe?
M.T.: Listen, I’m an actor. I will do whatever the roles call for it, but Max Talisman himself would never wear pajama pants outside of the house.
So.Gay: Very fair. Not a spoiler, but a callback to your character’s past Jewish summer camp experience plays a big role. I’m Jewish, too, and I know Jewish viewers will laugh at this. My question is, why are Jewish experiences such good comedy ingredients that make a funny stew?
M.T.: I think us Jews are just funny. I was raised by Jewish people. I mean, the goats of comedy, Mel Brooks, and Carl Reiner, who obviously I’m friends with his grandson, and he’s in the film. These are titans, and they all stem from Jewish humor and this sort of honest but sarcastic, at the same time, ownership of what it means to be alive and in pain. Like I said, my family’s constantly roasting each other. No one’s going to get offended and if you do, you’re actually not in the right family.
I also think it just sort of comes down to the fact that our people have been persecuted for thousands of years. And if you can’t have a sense of humor. If you can’t move past those horrible times by being able to laugh in the darkest moments… I think Jewish people have, time and time again, shown that one of the reasons for our resilience is our joy. That’s something that I find inspiring just as a human. I’m not the most religious, but I am extremely spiritual and extremely connected to my Jewish heritage in a way that I find extremely inspiring to myself. I feel it pushes me forward to be from a lineage of people who have consistently said, “We will keep going, we will keep learning, we will keep persevering.” I draw a lot of strength from that.
So.Gay: You talk about keeping joy and the legacy of queer joy alive. In the movie, you walk past the historic Stonewall Inn. Why was that so important to add?
M.T.: That was literally so important. Shooting in New York, you have to get clearances for everything. It was only going to be like a 30 second back and forth. But I needed to have that moment. Being a queer person, I would not be here if not for what happened at Stonewall. For every time queer people rioted, every time they stood up. I had to acknowledge that we are here because of the fight and, once again, the perseverance. That’s a theme I draw from, which is this fighter mentality. Every time you get knocked back down, you get back up. With Stonewall, I was shocked that there were a lot of people on our set who didn’t know what had happened there. This is only proving more important by the second that we honor what happened and that we further our community by telling the story. The pain that we felt during that time should be honored. We have to respect the past for furthering the community forward and continuing to live our weird and eccentric ways.
So.Gay: What advice do you have about making something from the heart?
M.T.: Sit down. Write. Just give it a try. My friends have been like, “Should I write something?” My answer is always yes. If you don’t like it, if it doesn’t resonate with you, so what? You won’t know unless you sit down and try. My acting coach told me to write. I was reluctant, but now I’m so grateful that my life is where it is. I believe that people should be their own creators, and they should push their stories forward. The other thing I would say is don’t ever give up, the fighter mentality. You’re going to get a billion no’s as a filmmaker, actor, and young person in this industry.
But the only no that ever matters is the one you’re going to tell yourself. Every time you get one from someone else, you just try again. This industry is filled with so many people. One of them is going to love what you do and love your work. I was lucky that that person was Buzz Koenig. After I met him, we worked on this film together for six years. I’m blessed that that happened. Getting back up landed me with the right collaborator to put me here today.
So.Gay: That’s incredible and clearly a great partnership because the product that you made was wonderful. And now you’re making Malibu, Bro Production. What inspired you to start this company? What can folks expect from it in the future?
M.T.: What inspired me was telling stories from every diverse group that I feel I don’t see, and I’ll continue to do that through my banner. We’re also looking to develop other stories from people who are writers who don’t see their stories reflected on screen right now. And the human spectrum is beautiful, large, and it’s all-encompassing. We don’t see it on screen in the way it deserves to be seen yet. Malibu Bros mission is really to make sure that the reflection of society is accurate compared to what we see every day on screen.
We’re developing some projects right now. A few of them are my own and should be announced very soon. I’m working on two different things specifically that I’m very, very excited about. One is a supernatural thing, the other thing is a television project that’s a political family satire. I’m a DC kid, so it’s important to me to make sure we stay relevant in what’s happening in our horrifying country.
So.Gay: Horrifying is an understatement, unfortunately. I think this movie will bring a lot of joy for plus-size people, Jewish people, for anyone awesome enough to view it. Do you have any non-profits or organizations that you want fans to donate to that we can link in the article?
M.T.: I personally love The Trevor Project and GLAAD. Both are doing amazing work. I think all of our community is at risk. Right now, we need to help the most vulnerable people.
Things Like This embraces a queer plus-sized character with unwavering confidence, not someone focused on changing themselves to win a thinner person’s affection. It doesn’t hyperfixate on the character’s weight or how it impacts his world – because that’s not what matters. It’s a tale of love that certainly benefits from having a plus-size lead, but is in no way defined by it.
The movie works to expand upon the type of leads we see in Hollywood, building deep narratives for characters who have always been in the margins of these stories. We can’t wait to see more of Talisman’s work and to support Malibu, Bro Productions in its spearheading of uplifting underrepresented perspectives.
