“You find the family that can fill in the gaps” is a line in the movie spoken by Howie and part of Booster’s real-life ethos that inspired the updated Bennets and those affable and prickly figures they encounter on this trip. Comedy legend Margaret Cho plays Erin, who owns the Tuna Walk House and is the de facto mother of the group-and not as meddling as Mrs. Jane, Lizzie, Mary, Lydia, and Kitty are now Howie (Yang), Noah (Booster), Max (Torian Miller), Luke (Rogers), and Keegan (Tomás Matos). “It was a fun puzzle, untangling and remixing what Jane Austen had written about and remaining true to the themes,” says Booster about the writing process. Here, Booster, director Andrew Ahn, and stars Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers discuss transporting the Bennet sisters from Regency England to the 21st century, contemporary parallels in the queer community, and the Clueless adaptation bar. Set during an annual trip to the Pines, Fire Island captures Austen's novel's wit and social satire while celebrating chosen family, the unique destination, and a spectrum of romantic ideals. “The more I allowed myself to daydream and think about it, the more I was like, ‘Oh, the parallels are quite easy to find.’” I was like, ‘Wouldn't it be funny if I wrote a gay Pride and Prejudice set on Fire Island?’” he adds.
“That first trip to Fire Island was the genesis of everything,” says Booster about the spark that eventually became the rom-com now available to stream on Hulu.
The writer and star who plays protagonist Noah conceived of Fire Island on his first trip to the LGBTQ+ summer haven nearly a decade ago when he took a tattered paperback copy of Pride and Prejudice as his beach read. “As much as this movie is an homage to Jane Austen, it's an homage to Amy Heckerling,” Booster tells Town & Country over Zoom when Clueless is mentioned.