Director Wade Gasque’s Tiger Orange is a sensitive look at growing up gay that features a breakthrough performance by Frankie Valenti as Todd, the youngest brother of Chet (Mark Strano) a reserved man running the hardware store he inherited from their father. While Chet stayed behind in the small California town where they were born, Todd left to see the world, which in his case amounted to achieving complete sexual liberation, something Chet is far from having. If the actor playing Todd looks familiar, it’s because up until recently he was better known as Johnny Hazzard, who at one point was the most popular gay adult star in America. “I was ready to leave that industry” explains Valenti over the phone, “it was going somewhere I didn’t want to go, so a lot of us got out”.
In Tiger Orange, Valenti bursts onto the screen like an all consuming fire, his character is the kind of person who wreaks havoc without meaning to do so, a troublemaker with a heart of gold if you might. When I ask the actor if he was intimidated about playing Todd, he remains quiet for a few seconds, “was I intimidated because I didn’t have the talent to play the part” he asks. “No” he replies to himself almost instantly, “because I put a lot of myself in Todd and Wade helped guide me along”. He brings up parallels between him and Todd growing up, which suggests he might get his Brando-esque nonchalance from Method acting, but he’s also too organic a screen presence for us to try and dissect his appeal.
If anything, he’s a man completely comfortable with his sexuality, something the film takes advantage of beautifully, his natural ease on camera allowing Todd to contrast with Chet’s introvertedness. After leaving the adult industry Valenti has become a jack of all trades, “I have too many interests” he confesses, and after doing theatre in London, (“which I loved doing”) he set his eye in the fashion industry and also mentioned he was interested in arts like sculpture (“I like doing things with my hands” he adds). Perhaps the oddest sounding of his interests is cooking, when I ask him what kind of cooking show he would have, he laughs and explains “I would want to show guys how to cook easy meals...but really it’s all about working with my hands”
Tiger Orange is now available on DVD.
