To me, sex is a great way to get out of the house,” says John Cameron Mitchell, all wry poise and puckish understatement. “You open the door, meet someone. It doesn’t have to be the be-all and end-all. I have met a lot of wonderful people through something as crass as Grindr, you know.” Grindr, he says again. “Not a name I would’ve chosen.”
As it happens, Mitchell, creator and star of the adored, genderbending queer musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, had “kind of invented Grindr” himself back in 2006, presaging the arrival of the gay hook-up app in his transgressive sex dramedy Shortbus. That film – a cult hit, brimming with unsimulated scenes of sex, masturbation, orgies and autofellatio – was Mitchell at his most provocative. Elsewhere, he’s flirted with the mainstream, acting in shows such as Girls, Joe vs Carole (playing Tiger King’s oddball felon Joe Exotic), and Netflix’s The Sandman.
