To promote his new film, the merciless queer satire and veritable penis buffet Rotting in the Sun, the actor, writer and pandemic-era social media sensation Jordan Firstman took his clothes off. Firstman does this a lot online, his Instagram grid a smorgasbord of skin, spread-eagles and semi-nude selfies. But one person in particular wasn’t amused by it – the film’s director.
“He’s like, ‘Dude – please don’t post thirst traps, it’s so embarrassing’,” the 32-year-old recalls. “But I’m doing it for the movie!” Rotting in the Sun’s director is Sebastián Silva, a brilliant provocateur who turned a Chilean housekeeper into a folk hero for his 2009 breakout The Maid, and sent Michael Cera on a hallucinogenic odyssey for 2013’s Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus. Firstman, meanwhile, went viral in 2020 for his short-form comedy videos, skits in which he did impressions of surreal contemporary archetypes: the publicist for banana bread, someone who was sick during Covid but not with Covid, or a white person attending a protest who can’t chant on beat. Firstman and Silva have a somewhat complicated relationship.
